Canaries in the mine revisited

When I wrote about ME here and here,  I had not come across an excellent substack post by Lorelei, which details the history of ME and how debilitating its symptoms can often be. It’s a moving account of her experience of this much misunderstood illness. It also dissects the persistent belief among psychiatrists that, because most ME patients are female, the cause must be psychological, not physical, and their unbelievably cruel claim that ME patients don’t want to get better because they would lose the benefits of remaining sick.

“Perhaps to someone who hasn’t experienced ME that speculation sounds less contemptible than it is.

Many people with it are stuck in darkened rooms, wearing earplugs because their senses hurt them. They are bed bound and isolated. They are in great pain. Their limbs feel so heavy that any movement requires Herculean effort, if it can be achieved at all.

When I was at that stage I had to be left entirely on my own except for a few moments a day I was brought food. There are many ME patents whom spend more years in solitary confinement than a murderer.”

Read Lorelei’s post here. It’s a powerful critique of a major, and too little acknowledged, medical scandal.