I don't want to derail this thread, but I do want to apologize for a couple of things - especially to
@ArgieM.
When I went to the link in his first post, it seemed to me like the study was to be about parents' stress making children psychologically sick. I read it several times, to try be sure, and obviously I completely misinterpreted. I also saw nothing about illness criteria on that page, so a red flag went up in my foggy and apparently jaded mind.
So, I wrote a bit of a rant which was basically about illness criteria (CCC vs Fukuda vs Oxford, etc), and that there is a difference between being chronically fatigued vs having ME/CFS. I also said that although he may have the best of intentions, a study like this (parents making children sick, I wrongly thought), could have a severe negative impact on children and would he please reconsider.
I think that the paragraph from my self-deleted post that was quoted above was the most inflammatory thing that I said, and I take 100% responsibility for having posted it. However, I want to clarify that it was never my intention to imply that Dr. Medlin was lying or that his children were not sick or do not have ME/CFS.
The flavor of my original sentence "Whether or not you have children who have ME/CFS, obviously I have no idea" was
intended as something along the lines of '
Of course I don't think that your children don't have ME/CFS, but, obviously I don't know you.' I was actually trying to ramp things
down, not up. As I mentioned earlier, posts are now missing that would make the meaning behind this poorly worded sentence more clear, but I don't feel it is my place to go into it. An earlier poster even said something about not accusing Dr. Medlin of lying, and I had no idea, until later, that this was addressed to me, as this was the opposite of my intentions. But I wrote the words and take full responsibility for having done so.
Most important, I want to apologize to
@ArgieM/Dr. Medlin for coming across as not believing him about his children's illnesses. I am so sorry that this is the way my words came through. We are all fighting being disbelieved and this is the last thing I would want to do to anyone. Dr. Medlin, I hope you can accept my sincere apology.
I also apologize for thinking your motives were only to get published, Dr. Medlin. I misunderstood your intentions and I am sorry.
On a slightly different note, if I have offended a member of PR, I also offer My apologies. I can think of one post where I made a joke that could have been misinterpreted as poking fun at someone else, when I was intending to poke fun at myself. It has been on my mind and I have been wanting to clarify this for a couple of days. I can offer excuses for not having done so yet, but really, I should have made it a priority and will go clarify that post now.
Because of my ME and also having a touch of Tourette's, I sometimes I have a hard time putting the right words together. Or sometimes I make jokes, which I hope have not come across the wrong way or caused PR members to be offended. If so, please let me know so that I can clarify and make amends. This is why I use a lot of smilies, so that I can try to get my meaning across. A writer I'll never be.
Last, I want to say that I was not accusing anyone of some sort of nefarious post removal (if there is such a thing). In an earlier post, I said that several posts had been removed. However, I have been told that there were two posts removed, and, of course, I have no reason to doubt this. This was just a mistake on my part. I didn't know if the posts were removed by the posters or by the mods, nor do I think it matters, and it was not my intention to exaggerate or accuse anyone of wrongdoing. I was simply referring back to something that was no longer there.