The Tired Among Us
What's the state's first lady doing with the same condition as Lindsay Lohan and Paula Abdul?
It’s puzzling, this condition called “exhaustion.” Broken bones, migraines, sciatica – no confusion there. But exhaustion? I mean, why does it seem to strike only celebrities, when so many of the rest of us are so very tired, too? Lindsay Lohan, Ashlee Simpson, Colin Farrell, Mariah Carey . . . oh, how the fabulous have suffered. But is entourage management really more strenuous than caring for a colicky baby, running a start-up, or working the returns desk at Filene’s Basement?
Like a lot of Americans, I’d pretty much written off the malady as yet one more celebrity perk, a get-out-of-jail-free card used by stars to mask behavioral problems. But then last month Governor Deval Patrick’s office announced that his wife was suffering from depression and, yes, exhaustion. Hmmm. Diane Patrick’s certainly no hard-partying paparazzi target. She’s a partner with the law firm Ropes & Gray, for goodness’ sake, a widely admired first lady who doesn’t seem to be looking for an excuse to play hooky from work.
So what’s the deal here?
Because the condition straddles several domains – the physical, the emotional, the tabloid – medical doctors don’t have all the answers. Spin doctors must be consulted, too. Famed New York publicist Howard J. Rubenstein says that actors and rock stars sometimes use exhaustion as a “fig leaf” to cover up drug or alcohol abuse. “And it can be a code word for failure. They’ll rush off a stage or stop singing or cancel a performance. It’s an easy way out. But I wouldn’t say all exhaustion is something else. There is exhaustion.”
And yet, as Rubenstein points out, “if you’re an average person, Joe Blow in the street, who are you going to use the excuse on? Your wife? ‘I’m exhausted. Leave me alone.’ ” He snorts. “Yeah, right.”
The boss might not be so sympathetic, either, according to Sue Murphy, manager of the National Human Resources Association in Nashua. Some exhausted workers fear revealing the true reason they’re calling in sick, she says. “They worry their supervisor will say: ‘You’re tired? I’m tired, too. Welcome to the club.’ ”
But guess what? Despite exhaustion’s dilettante reputation, in the real world, it can actually be a sign of a serious illness, such as diabetes, cancer, or depression. “Exhaustion is very common,” says Dr. Rick Kellerman, president of the American Academy of Family Physicians in Leawood, Kansas. “People come in and say, ‘Doc, I’m just tired all the time.’ You check for thyroid level. Ask if they snore at night. Could they have sleep apnea? Oftentimes it could be depression, or they’re just under so much stress they don’t have time to recharge their batteries. Anemia is another one, especially in women.” While women are more likely to complain of exhaustion, he says, men suffer, too.
Dr. John Winkelman, medical director of the Sleep Health Center at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says exhaustion falls into two overlapping categories: physical and mental. “People can understand on an intuitive level that if you run 5 miles and you’re not accustomed to that, you will have exhaustion,” he says. Similarly, problems that affect the brain – sleep deprivation, anxiety, depression, stress – can produce mental exhaustion. (He emphasized he was not talking about Diane Patrick’s condition.)
But even though there are real health issues associated with exhaustion, when it makes news, it’s likely to be on a gossipy website such as jossip.com, which earlier this year reported “Paula Abdul Pulls a ‘Britney Spears,’ Citing Exhaustion (and Not Binge-Drinking) as the Cause for Her Slurred, Incoherent Interview.”
Without a public-service campaign, it’s likely to be Lindsay Lohan, not Diane Patrick (who recently returned to her law practice after a several-week break), whom the public will think of when exhaustion comes up. And that’s the shame here. The prevailing attitude toward the condition – that you’re lucky if you can get it – was summed up by Stephen Greenberg, a reference librarian in the History of Medicine Division at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland: “If you’re rich, you can get away with all sorts of stuff.”
Beth Teitell is the Boston-based author of From Here to Maternity: The Education of a Rookie Mom. E-mail her at bteitell@gmail.com. 