Share or Don't Share? What Jane Fonda Can Teach Us About Handling Illness
3 Lessons About What to Say – And What Not to Say – When You Learn You’re Sick
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Most of the news coming out of Hollywood this year has been around boys behaving badly—the slap (100 million views!), the spit (Did you or didn’t you, Harry Styles!), the “inappropriate behavior.” Leave it to one of the former bad broads of Hollywood to step in and lead with class.
Last weekend, Jane Fonda posted a photo of herself on Instagram, along with a message in which she revealed that she’s been diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and has started chemotherapy treatments. “This is a very treatable cancer,” the 84-year-old actress and activist wrote. “80% of people survive, so I feel very lucky.”
She went on to express what has become a mantra for this newsletter: We can find meaning in difficult times.
Cancer is a teacher and I’m paying attention to the lessons it holds for me. One thing it’s shown me already is the importance of community. Of growing and deepening one’s community so that we are not alone. And the cancer, along with my age—almost 85—definitely teaches the importance of adapting to new realities.
As a 14-year cancer survivor myself, I can assure you that simple, declarative statements like the ones Fonda made are not as easy to pull off as they look. Even with the help of a team of publicists, most stars fumble these kinds of statements, in large measure, because our culture is still ambivalent about illness. Jane Fonda’s own father, Henry Fonda, who had five wives, was legendarily secretive about his private life. When Frances Ford Seymour, the mother of his son Peter, took her own life, Fonda kept her cause of death secret from their son for years.
But times are changing. In the last year or so, a who’s who of celebrities have shared news about their illnesses—from mental (Shawn Mendes, Simone Biles) to physical (Alex Trebek, Justin Bieber). Not everyone follows this strategy, of course. Chadwick Boseman and Nora Ephron, for example, remained silent.
With such conflicting signals, what’s a layperson to do?
The experts I’ve spoken with over the years say that while certain diagnoses still carry a stigma and require special considerations, in the vast majority of cases, the benefits of sharing your illness far outweigh the downsides.
Here, based on research, are three reasons to find the appropriate way to be public about your condition:
Photo credit Foxy Dolphin via Canva
1. Sharing Could Save Your Life
A few years ago, I interviewed Paul Wicks, a neuropsychologist and A.L.S. specialist who has long worked as a patient advocate. Wicks's experience shows that patients are more willing to be honest with their family and current friends and less willing to be open with their neighbors and childhood friends. Colleagues rank in the middle. Multiple sclerosis, A.L.S., and epilepsy are among the conditions patients are willing to disclose; fibromyalgia, mood disorders, and H.I.V. are among those they prefer to keep quiet.
“With something like H.I.V., there are very clear issues about cultural reactions and risk of infection,” Wicks said. “But something like organ transplants are the opposite. If you need a kidney transplant, trust me, everyone will have to know. Finding a match is nearly impossible.”
Given this dynamic, Wicks strongly favors disclosure. His reason: You never know where you can learn something that might save your life. “The value of a tweet-length piece of information can be the difference between life and death,” he said.
Photo credit DarkoStarjanovic via Canva
2. Sharing Could Help Your Doctor
At first blush, you might think that whether you disclose your illness to those around you would have no impact on your course of treatment. But an intriguing study from Eva Liden, a professor at the University College of Boras in Sweden, along with three colleagues, suggests the opposite. They found that high-quality communication, especially with your loved ones, are “prerequisites for patients’ and family members’ experience of quality of life.” In other words, the better you are at communicating your illness, the more people around you rally to your side, and the higher quality of life you experience while fighting for your life.
Specifically, these researchers found that doctors are able to provide better care for patients with the more information they receive from those patients. One way to be a better communicator with your health care team is to practice describing what you’re experiencing with your own home team. I ask questions for a living but in the scores of high-stakes medical consultations I’ve attended either as a patient or a support person, I’ve never once gone in without first planning out what details I wanted to provide and what questions I wanted to ask. The quieter you are about your condition outside the doctor’s office, the less time you have to practice what you say inside that office.
Photo credit Philandrendon from Getty Images Signature via Canva
3. Sharing Will Make You Feel Better
Perhaps the most surprising thing I’ve learned about this issue over the years is that keeping secrets is hard; it’s a burden you don’t need when you’re facing a serious illness.
By contrast, choosing to share at least some of what you’re experiencing frees you of that burden and gives you the unmistakable feeling that you’re in charge of at least one aspect of your sickness. If anything, communication may be the one area that can control. You have agency.
On top of that feeling of self-confidence, sharing your story publicly may encourage others to share theirs, which in turn gives them benefits. As Wicks told me, “When you open up about your condition, you don’t just receive information, you also start sharing your own information with others. You get to be the helper sometimes, and helping people makes you feel really good.”
So thank you, Jane Fonda, for setting such a good example. Best of luck with your treatment. And while you shouldn't feel any obligation, we look forward to future updates when you’re ready.
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Thank you for reading The Nonlinear Life. Please help us grow the community by subscribing, sharing, and commenting below. Also, you can learn more about me, read my introductory post, watch my latest TED Talk, or scroll through my other posts. And if you'd like to do a storytelling project with a loved one similar to the one I did with my father, click here to learn more.
You might enjoy reading these posts:
Why Festivals, Football, and Other Shared Events Make Us Happy
How Millennials Killed the Top Sheet
Or check out my books that inspired this newsletter: Life Is in the Transitions and The Secrets of Happy Families.
Or, you can contact me directly.
cover image credit Ales Munt via Canva