This is interesting, as a kid I sent you a PM nearing a decade ago that you never responded to but now use as ammo here to... embarrass me. Lovely work Valka D'ur. Class act.
Also, lyme infected ticks are all across North America, and expanding thanks to climate change. It causes fibromyalgia symptoms and most doctors and most specialists are ignorant of this, and no I don't know nor care what you have.
I started to reply, the reply got eaten by a browser crash, and then I realized I was too angry with you to bother trying to reconstruct my reply. I will assume that you think you meant well, but the fact is that you came across as some guy on a forum telling me I'm wrong about my own life, and what people have told me in RL, face to face, when you weren't there and to the best of my knowledge, you have no medical credentials (not that people who do have them are supposed to indulge in diagnosing people on the forum).
I had to fight with my doctor for years just to have tests done, for fibromyalgia and even the ulcer issue (had to do my own research on that and shove it under her nose that there actually is a test available and I wanted it - and was later proven to be correct, as a stiff course of antibiotics, medication, and a diet change to eliminate citrus fruits is what did the trick). As for the fibromyalgia issue, she finally sent me to a specialist in Calgary, fully expecting him to say I was imagining things, or was just faking it. To her surprise, the diagnosis was indeed fibromyalgia. She adjusted her attitude after that, and now takes me seriously when I tell her about issues that are going on, side effects of medications, and whatever reading or research I've done on my own.
But of course you know better than a specialist in Calgary, my doctor here, and I guess I must have been sleepwalking miles from home and you were there to witness it when you decided I have Lyme disease.
One of the things I'd intended to say in the PM I ended up not sending is that Lyme disease is usually contracted by people who are in the woods and don't take precautions against being bitten.
Since there were only two times I've been out walking in the woods in the last 25 years - and both were well after my fibromyalgia diagnosis (a brief hike to Lake Minnewanka in May of 2004 - when there was still snow on the ground, the lake was frozen over, the bears were still taking it easy, and we kept to a wide trail away from trees and grass - and an even briefer walk to the bird blind at Kerry Wood Nature Centre in the fall for one of those "send a whatever around the world" projects - the camera one; there should still be the thread where I related how the day I went there, there were signs warning of bobcat sightings and everyone figured I should get up nice and close and have a really good picture before the animal attacked me; at no time did I leave the trail or go into or near the trees or grass), I would say that I'm in a better position than you to know if I've been at risk for Lyme disease.
Why would she ever respond to your mansplaining her illness to her? She's right how it does seem to me to be very ironic you talk about people not believing you about your disability, but you continue going on to her about how you think you're right in diagnosing her, even when you don't have a clue what you're talking about (Lyme Disease isn't an issue in Alberta) How would you feel if someone told your fatigue is caused by a vitamin deficiency rather than your illness?
I'm sorry for seeming harsh, I just felt your second line seemed very rude, making me feel like you still think you're right to say that to her. I also don't understand why this thread exists, I feel it's meant to make jest of issues minorities face. When you do this, either deliberately or not, you're just adding to peoples' struggles by making a joke of it, especially when you as a white man try to say you've got it worse than anyone. You may think it's funny, but really that's why it's even worse.
Exactly. This "no, you don't have that, you have this" and dismissing what I was saying just made me too angry to continue that conversation.
When people talk about medical issues here, I will sometimes say that it sounds like symptoms of _____, but I would never presume to say it's
definitely _______. I'm not a medical professional, and can only base my opinions on my own personal experience or things I've read. As always, people who are unsure of what their symptoms mean should consult a doctor (the offline sort).
I've seen people here diagnosing me for physical and mental health issues, and not one of them has any right to do so, particularly when they're either wrong, or if they're doing it for unfriendly purposes (as has happened).
I do no such thing. You are projecting.
Good of you to arrive. You entered in the game thread changing the discussion to general oppression of women, which is not Germane to that topic despite any nearby triggers. You can make your case here.
The "game" thread is about treating women as though we're a prize in some game, or prey to be "won." I don't see a problem with any of the women on this forum taking issue with that.
People have evolved to cope with sad realities, some joke, some cry, some do both. Some push the source of the sadness away to give their own mental health relief, and some become suffocating with their concern.
Would you care to explain the bolded part? Your meaning is unclear.
That hit a little closer to home than I care to remember. What's interesting is that even if that help is possible and you receive it, your actions/lack thereof while disabled are judged as if the disability weren't there. Even in the face of obvious evidence, including a ridiculous and otherwise-improbable turnaround of productivity on par with a completely different person, the tendency is just to remember the disability as some kind of lazy phase. Arguments to the contrary are met with doubt, even if absent the disability you can (and have) mopped the floor with people doubting performance-wise.
Still, who's the oppressor in such a case? Life itself? Some spread societal unfairness concept?
Chronic fatigue is one of the "invisible" disabilities in that it can't be discerned just by looking at someone, and when the person tries to explain how frustrating it is to not have the energy to get up out of bed or walk across a room, let alone do a full day's work at whatever they do and they're not believed, it is incredibly frustrating. If the person runs out of energy in an unsafe situation (ie. crossing a street), they could end up falling/getting run over.
The concept of laziness, and the extent to which we fetishize work, perhaps?
I bet if there were some way to measure a person's subjective energy level, we would find that it's pretty strongly correlated with any measure of "success" we'd care to use. The question to my mind is whether baseline energy is something pretty unchangeable like adult IQ, or whether it's much more environmental than that so that a significant chunk of low-energy people, such as me, or Jeb!, could actually improve it through a series of interventions.
As it is, I'm barely able to get through 40-hour weeks, and I just lie in bed doing almost nothing on weekends. I doubt any fixable energy-sapping disorder will ever be found - I'm probably just a treatment-resistant bipolar depressive. If anything I'm jealous of anyone who actually has found the cause of their disorder and had it fixed, because the depression/chronic fatigue/etc. diagnosis of exclusion cluster is really frustrating.
Fibromyalgia is part of that awful "vague but debilitating chronic condition, no explanation, no treatment, people dismiss you" cluster of disorders too, although I don't have that. Chronic Lyme probably is real and common despite the controversy around it, but the odds would still greatly favor fibromyalgia over Lyme disease for an Albertan and probably explain only a minority of cases even where Lyme is common.
We do get warned about Lyme disease and it's one of the things that Elizabeth May (leader of the federal Green Party) is trying to get people to understand, how to protect themselves against it, and she wants the government to take it more seriously than they do. Of course she wants doctors to be more aware of it.
But as I mentioned, I rarely leave the apartment, and when I do, it's for doctor's appointments and shopping - not for rambles in the woods. Given that parts of the trail system here are steep or have stairs, it's not exactly accessible for someone in my situation.
Yeah, it is remarkable how little perspective people have for things involving chronic fatigue and "brain fog" causing diminished thinking ability, when most people have had the flu or some similar illness at least once. I can't really wrap my head around that empathy failure. That goes double since you recovered so that friends and family actually got to see the before and after versions of you. Triple, for anyone you told about your diagnosis with an explanation of what the illness was like.
It's very difficult to explain what fibromyalgia is like to someone who's never experienced it. I see a lot of nurses these days (it's been like that since my hospitalization over a month ago) and some of them have spouted textbook-like walls of speech at me and expected me to retain it all (I explained that the last time I had to learn anything like that was 40 years ago, in high school and I'd forgotten most of it). Then they ask me "if" I'm in pain or "how long" I'm in pain. It flabbergasts some of them when I say I haven't had a pain-free day in over 20 years. Some days are more manageable than others, of course.
