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Visual Representations: ME/CFS/CFIDS/SEID/Etc.

Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Please just say if there's a thread like this elsewhere--I looked but didn't find one. I thought it might be interesting to create/collect a visual history of how ME/CFS (in all its various labels) has been presented. So, here's an initial contribution: (Please share dates and please archive links, for example https://archive.org/web/.)

(Edit & note: My thoughts were of actual visual (photos, drawings) images, but maybe written descriptions of what ME/CFS "looks like" could be included too? Would eventually too be nice to know where photos originated -- actual person with ME/CFS, or a stock image of someone who is "tired", etc. Any duplicate images?)

Stockholm University KTS (CFS) Paper 2006.PNG


https://web.archive.org/web/2015062...tal.org/smash/get/diva2:196979/FULLTEXT01.pdf
 
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Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Medscape: "20 More Rare and Unusual Psychiatric Syndromes" / Christoph U. Correll, MD; Bret S. Stetka, MD / July 10, 2014

Text with photo: "Shenjing Shuairuo (Neuresthenia) Region Culture: China
Shenjing shuairuo is a broad Chinese folk diagnosis characterized by fatigue, poor concentration, irritability, pain, and a variety of somatic complaints. Traditionally, it likely included a range of mental health disorders and accompanying somatic symptoms, which would meet today's DSM-IV criteria for a mood or anxiety disorder.[1,13] Across all cultures, it is not uncommon that mood disorders are expressed as somatizing -- rather than mental -- symptoms, partly to avoid the stigma often associated with mental disorders. This would fit with somatoform disorders such as conversion disorder or somatization disorder. The description of shenjing shuairuo would also fit chronic fatigue syndrome, which remains poorly understood. Image from Thinkstock"

http://www.medscape.com/features/slideshow/culture-synd#15
 

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Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
P2P Infographic: https://web.archive.org/web/2015062.../mecfs/P2PWorkshop_MECFS_InfographicFINAL.jpg

P2P Infographic suggests: "Join the conversation #NIHP2P" https://web.archive.org/web/20150622121635/https:/twitter.com/hashtag/nihp2p

Compare patient-authored infographic, as shared on Twitter (above link), 24 November. https://web.archive.org/save/https://twitter.com/polarbearish/status/536989817796849665

Compare also: https://web.archive.org/save/http:/...ecfs/fantastic-infographic-me-vs-cfs-vs-seid/
 

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Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Suzanne O’Sullivan It’s All in your Head cover art: Cracked egg / bad egg: http://web.archive.org/web/20150624132539/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Its-All-Your-Head-Imaginary/dp/0701189266


Elaine Showalter Hystories cover art: TV snow?: http://web.archive.org/save/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hystories-Hysterical-Epidemics-Modern-Media/dp/0231104596

Unidentified collage: http://web.archive.org/web/20150623173054/http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hystories-Hysterical-Epidemics-Modern-Culture/dp/0330354779

Columbia University Press (CUP), generic: http://web.archive.org/web/20150623164055/http://cup.columbia.edu/book/hystories/9780231104593
This provocative and illuminating book charts the persistence of a cultural phenomenon. Tales of alien abduction, chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, and the resurgence of repressed memories in psychotherapy are just a few of the signs that we live in an age of hysterical epidemics… Elaine Showalter is Avalon Foundation Professor of the Humanities and professor of English at Princeton University. Hailed by the New York Times as ‘one of the country's most renowned feminist critics,’…
Click to expand...


Hystories.PNG
 
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AaroninOregon

AaroninOregon

noob
Messages
170
Location
Hippietown
Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
http://web.archive.org/web/20140916155150/http://www.cdc.gov/Features/cfsawarenessday/ (Note laundry photo and peacefully sleeping woman)

http://web.archive.org/web/20141006232415/http://www.cdc.gov/features/cfsawarenessday (Note laundry photo removed / ribbon added)

http://web.archive.org/web/20141008132150/http://www.cdc.gov/features/cfsawarenessday/ (Note laundry photo reinstated / ribbon removed)

http://web.archive.org/web/20150512072152/http://www.cdc.gov/features/cfsawarenessday/ (Note laundry photo and peacefully sleeping woman removed) / smiling patient with smiling doctor photo added, plus ribbon again)
 
Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
The newsroom image library is home to the images journalists request most often. These high-resolution, public domain images are ready to print in your publication.

For images not available in this library, visit the Public Health Image Library (PHIL) We also recommend the National Library of Medicine image library....

The Public Health Image Library (PHIL) offers an organized, universal electronic gateway to CDC’s pictures. We welcome public health professionals, the media, laboratory scientists, educators, students, and the worldwide public to use this material for reference, teaching, presentation, and public health messages. The content is organized into hierarchical categories of people, places, and science, and is presented as single images, image sets, and multimedia files.
Click to expand...
http://www.cdc.gov/media/subtopic/images.htm

http://phil.cdc.gov/phil/home.asp

A search in PHIL for "chronic fatigue syndrome" yields an old black and white photo of a man looking into a microscope. A search for "fatigue" yields images of microbes, rashes, diseased male/female genitalia, mouth ulcers (?), a woman standing in a driveway, petri dishes, and mice -- but no images of anything good or bad that could possibly represent ME/CFS or even chronic fatigue.

I haven't looked at NLM yet, but the link is https://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/ihm/
 
Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
I remember those - beautiful! Maybe my thoughts though were more about how the media represents us, government agencies, patients themselves, advocacy groups, etc. if that makes sense... what does a person with ME look like or how are they portrayed? :) Thank you for keeping images in mind and helping collect them here.
 
Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Added thought - maybe just "humans" doesn't fully work either...since there's the cracked egg cover and a static tv cover... But maybe the light photo would work if it were on a book cover? I guess it was featured on Phoenix Rising's home page though and that's a sort of cover... I don't know! Maybe it does fit! :)
 
Hip

Hip

Senior Member
Messages
17,858
Asa said:
I thought it might be interesting to create/collect a visual history of how ME/CFS (in all its various labels) has been presented.
Click to expand...

ME/CFS patients tend not too look ill, and even the severe case who are totally bedbound don't necessarily look bad, they just look as if they are in bed.

So I am not sure what kind of visual images might illustrate a ME/CFS history. Possibly pictures of the places where ME/CFS outbreaks occurred.
 
Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Hip said:
ME/CFS patients tend not too look ill, and even the severe case who are totally bedbound don't necessarily look bad, they just look as if they are in bed.

So I am not sure what kind of visual images might illustrate a ME/CFS history. Possibly pictures of the places where ME/CFS outbreaks occurred.
Click to expand...

Maybe I should have said I'm interested in the perception of ME patients -- which can include human or non-human imagery. The photos that people with ME -- or people who genuinely know something about ME -- choose to accompany an article/book/etc. on ME are often quite different than photos chosen by government and private media.

Theoretically, if all the photos/images (and/or written physical descriptions of people with ME) which accompanied magazine/newspaper/online articles/posters/government info/books/lectures etc.on ME could be assembled (and arranged chronologically? by decades? by "camps"? across countries? by publication circulation numbers? by gender? by physical environment? by facial expression? by person vs inanimate object?), what would we see? When people write/talk about ME, what visual imagery do they choose to accompany their text/lecture?

What images have been flashed at the collective these past decades when the word(s) ME/CFS/"ME/CFS"/CFIDS/PVFS/etc. appear?

Hope that makes a bit more sense. I guess the idea isn't fully formed for me yet... :) Thanks for thinking about it though. If articles and such have used photos of places where outbreaks occurred, then I believe that fits.
 
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Effi

Effi

Senior Member
Messages
1,496
Location
Europe
Asa said:
Theoretically, if all the photos/images (and/or written physical descriptions of people with ME) which accompanied magazine/newspaper/online articles/posters/government info/books/lectures etc.on ME could be assembled [...] what would we see?
Click to expand...
Just a loose thought that came up when I thought about the written words used to describe this illness over time: how would a word cloud of these words look like? (i.e. words that are used most look bigger). And how would it change over time, as the view on the illness changes?

e.g.
CFSWordCloud1.png
 
Asa

Asa

Senior Member
Messages
179
Effi said:
Just a loose thought that came up when I thought about the written words used to describe this illness over time: how would a word cloud of these words look like? (i.e. words that are used most look bigger) And how would it change over time, as the view on the illness changes?
Click to expand...

I love it!! (Makes me think of the symbolism of storm clouds too. And seeing the words made me remember / think of blackout poetry too. That might (one day - someday) be fun/interesting to do with some of the medical texts - see what lexical surprises there might be.) The cloud visual's really good though (in my humble opinion). :)
 
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