It Is Time To Unlearn Pairing Illness With Sadness And Tears

Illness does not wear a uniform. Often, it hides behind the brightest eyes and the most resilient spirit.

Tell me honestly, what do you think a sick person should look like? Frail? Pale? Unkempt? Slouched in a chair, staring solemnly into the middle distance? Do you expect someone with pulmonary disease to be breathless just walking a few steps or someone with cancer to walk slowly, carefully, and cautiously through life?

Now ask yourself, how do you react when someone doesn’t fit that image? Do you feel confused? Doubtful? Maybe you even think, “They don’t look that sick.”

I hear it often. “But you don’t look like a patient!” they say. Sometimes it’s a compliment. Often, it carries an undertone of disbelief. As though a person can’t possibly be fighting a life-threatening condition unless their struggle is visible to the naked eye.

But what does illness look like, really? Who gets to decide? It’s a quiet reminder that bias often lives within, shaping how we perceive others. It’s also about everyone who has ever had their suffering dismissed because they were smiling. “But you seem fine!” with just a little too much surprise, is about how we, as a society, still expect illness to come with a sad face and a bowed head.

It doesn’t.

People carry private pain in public silence. They dress up, show up, and carry on, not because they’re not in pain, but because that’s how they survive it. They have to go through yet another day. That’s how they reclaim agency in a world that often reduces the sick to a stereotype.

There’s something deeper at play here. Sadly, in our social and cultural setting, vulnerability is often stitched to weakness. Men must be stoic, women must be self-sacrificing, and families must keep a brave face. A cheerful cancer survivor or a smiling cardiac patient becomes an oddity—someone who isn’t following the script. If you’re really sick, shouldn’t you look it? Shouldn’t you act like it?

We grow up watching movies where sick characters lie dramatically in bed, surrounded by tears and violins. Where pain is loud, visible and audible, public and tragic.

So we internalise those cues. We forget the human reality: that we are capable of joy and sorrow in the same breath; that strength sometimes hides behind the lightest laugh.

Even caregivers aren’t spared. A wife who doesn’t look worried enough, a nephew who cracks a joke to keep the mood light—society wonders if they’re being callous. We forget that sometimes, it’s about simply being there without fixing anything. Being a shoulder to lean on or a willing ear, without judgement.

But perhaps the heaviest burden falls on the patients. Beyond the pills and procedures, they must manage the emotional labour of seeming ‘appropriately sick’. Not too happy, not too sad, just visibly ill enough to be believed. And when they dare to smile, dare to live fully despite their diagnosis, they are questioned. As though resilience and suffering cannot coexist.

Illness is not only invisible. It is also deeply personal. It saps you—physically, mentally, emotionally, and, very often, financially. It can slowly strip away your sense of identity, your ability to be your own self. Your dignity, once intact, now hangs by a thread through hospital gowns and invasive procedures. Your privacy is chipped away with each test, scan, and scrutiny. And in that fragile place, self-confidence often takes a hit. The challenge then is twofold—not just to battle the illness itself but to find ways to hold onto a sense of self, to preserve one’s personhood when everything feels unsure.

Illness doesn’t stop at the hospital door. It walks into office cubicles and video calls, into emails marked “urgent” and calendars packed with deadlines. There’s a silent pressure to show up, to smile, and to not let anyone sense a falter. Especially in professional settings, disclosing it feels risky—will I be seen as less capable? Will I be passed over for that next opportunity?

Illness also has a way of quietly fracturing families. Plans are deferred, roles are renegotiated, and distances, emotional and physical, sneak in through cracks that didn’t exist before. The person who was once the anchor may now need anchoring. The caregiver’s fatigue grows invisible over time. Resentments can creep in, even when love remains. It is painful and real and common. And it is another layer of the illness no one talks about.

My experience with ill health has taught me more about human beings than any book or mentor ever could. From the waiting rooms of doctors’ clinics to the corridors of hospitals, from ICU stays to hours of tests and monitoring—I have seen more about society in those moments than through any lecture or conversation. I have learnt to watch body language, to listen to the tones behind words, and to recognise the soft fatigue in a nurse’s eyes or the quiet worry in another patient’s companion. And through this journey, I’ve come to understand a powerful truth, amongst many others: it takes a town to even try to keep one person healthy.

Doctors, nurses, technicians, receptionists, pharmacists, dietitians, transport staff, family, friends, and neighbours—it is a collective web that holds you, especially in times of crisis. And those of us who have access to this web, however imperfect, are among the luckiest. We may not always get the outcomes we pray for, but we get the scaffolding to keep going. And that’s not something to take lightly.

Illness makes you notice things others don’t. The lack of seating in public spaces; the steep steps at clinics with no ramps; oily food at hospital canteens; insensitive visitors blaring loudly their Insta reels or videos in waiting rooms; and the endless walking and long queues at hospital complexes. You start measuring the world in terms of energy spent per errand and in how many breaths a short slope might steal. For those with chronic illness or invisible disabilities, even a trip to the local market becomes an obstacle course. The infrastructure forgets them, deleting a part of their dignity.

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They struggle to name what makes them uncomfortable. They call pain “discomfort”, terminal illness becomes “a difficult phase”, and dying is softened to “not doing too well”. In these euphemisms lies our collective anxiety—if we don’t name it, maybe it won’t hurt as much. But anxiety about one’s future, fear of recurrence, uncertainty about finances, and loneliness—it all exists. Sometimes it is soothed by an unexpected kind word from a stranger; sometimes it explodes quietly behind closed doors. So where do we go from here?

Perhaps we begin by unlearning the idea that suffering must look a certain way. We pause before we judge. We stop asking, “Are you really that sick?” and start asking, “How are you, really?” We need to learn that true kindness is accepting someone’s truth even when it doesn’t fit our expectations.

No one chooses to be unwell. The next time you see someone living fully despite health issues, wonder instead what it takes to show up every day in a body that aches and a mind that worries; wonder what kind of quiet courage that requires. What quiet battles might they be fighting? And ask yourself, what story am I missing? What strength am I overlooking? What kindness am I withholding? And more importantly, what grace can I offer?

Dr Srinath Sridharan is a policy researcher and corporate adviser. X: @ssmumbai