Finding the right word

Disease.

I hate that word.  It conjures up images of the lungs of a chain-smoker, or the liver of an alcoholic.  The kind of images that are shown to grade-school students to teach them to take care of themselves.

Or images of someone who caught some nasty virus or bacteria and now struggles to do the things many of us take for granted.  Someone who, when they board a train, people tend to migrate in the opposite direction, afraid themselves of catching the affliction, which is quite visibly apparent.  Some just can’t bear the sight.

Or maybe it’s just the alliterative similarity to words like “death” or “dying”.  It has a connotation of someone who is sick, or even sickly.  Someone whose existence, at that moment, is hard to justify living.

Search Google Images for the word “disease”.  The results are not pretty.

The word as an “ick” or an “eeeeww” factor to it.