Is it because I’m angry?

Many people only have 10 minutes to explain to their GP exactly what is wrong, so be sure to make the most of your time.

Many people only have 10 minutes to explain to their GP exactly what is wrong, so be sure to make the most of your time.

Published Jul 16, 2015

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Cape Town - A few months ago I got a boil on my back. At first, I thought it was a sun spot. If I ignored it, it would disappear. Then I thought it was a spider bite, which made me feel adventurous. I would tell people I got it while riding a guanaco through the Amazon on a charity trek for kids with spinal bifida. By the time it became the Khulubuse of skin lumps, I could do nothing but lie on my bed, weeping into a pile of Marmite sandwiches.

“It’s because you’re angry,” my sister-in-law said. “That’s what Louise Hay says.” She also told me that, according to the self-help guru, a sore throat means you have repressed emotions, yeast infections mean you don’t trust anyone and a snotty nose indicates you are crying out for help. And cystic fibrosis? That’s down to too much self-pity. Breast cancer? Well, that’s all your fault because you struggle to say no.

As my boil continued to grow, I tried to be less angry. Maybe my sister-in-law was right. Maybe Louise Make Hay While Everyone Is Dying was on to something. Hadn’t she cured herself of cancer through self-acceptance and happy thoughts?

I tried to be more self-accepting and stuck inspirational messages to myself on the bathroom mirror. My husband wandered into the bedroom one morning in his underpants, grinning like someone who’d just won a yacht. “Aw, you think I’m fabulous and have an awesome butt. You’re so cute!”

“The message is for me, you doofus,” I growled. “And don’t call me cute.”

I thought happy thoughts: discussing Buddhist wrist bands with Richard Gere; having a washing machine that doesn’t leak; riding a guanaco; touching an ape. Things just got worse. The bump grew so big I could see its profile through my clothes. Soon I would be talking to it and taking it shopping for hats. We would discover a common love for gnocchi.

I eventually went to the doctor. He looks like the farmer from Babe. “I have a thingy on my back,” I said, rubbing the boil through my blouse. “Does it mean I’m dirty? Or dying? Is it because I want to touch apes, and then they get used to humans and start smoking and end up on Carte Blanche? It’s because I’m angry, right? I’m angry. Oh, God, it’s because I’m angry.”

The doctor injected me, cut me and gave me two stitches. “That was quite a whopper,” he said, writing a script. He told me boils often start as blocked pores. Sometimes they come from a nose bacterium that sounds like the Russian name for the Northern Lights.

When I got home, I googled pictures of Louise Hay. She’s all powdery and blonde and has very clean nostrils. And for an 85-year-old, her cheekbones are unnaturally plump. I wondered about the cause of that. Happiness in the heart? Nope. The miracle of eternal youth? Nought, bru. Self-acceptance? Definitely not. Raking in millions by making people - mostly women - feel even worse about themselves, and then blowing a couple of grand on some silicone? That would be it.

While I do believe positive thinking can help us feel better about ourselves, and therefore be better people in the world, the growing cult of being grateful and self-loving and relying on the universe to provide holidays and money and nice boobs and a man who understands Rumi feels so privileged. More than a quarter of our country’s population is unemployed and an estimated 65 000 women are raped every year. Louise Hay might suggest these people just haven’t been positive enough. Come on! Stick inspirational quotes on your mirror! Oh, you don’t have a mirror. Okay, then, put self-affirmation messages on your fridge! Oh, you don’t have one of those either. Then write a message to yourself and pop it in your handbag or prop it against the phone! Oh, you don’t have a handbag. Or a phone. Or a pen. Okay, then, just think the positive thoughts: I am fabulous, I deserve to be happy, I will be successful! Oh, all you can think of is how hungry you are.

Two days after my boil had been vanquished, my husband developed one - on his awesome butt. Between sitting on cushions and groaning in man-pain, he confessed he’d been suffering from some weird nostril bumps for a few weeks. “It was you!” I cried. “You brought the Russian Northern Lights into our home.”

He went to the Babe doctor, lied about knowing me and returned home with pills and potions. “Do you think we’re angry?” I asked. He laughed and offered me a blob of his cream for staphylococcus aureus. He’s romantic like that.

I then googled gorilla tours in Uganda. None of the apes in the pictures were smoking.

Cape Argus

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