LOL Simon, particularly the part about using CFS as an excuse to stop the non-stop pestering for sex!
CFS symptoms are at least as debilitating as most chronic diseases, how dare patients express concern?
Constantly feeling like shit and decades of struggle,
Relapses without prospects of overall improvement,
Being forgotten or ridiculed by society at large,
"These are a few of my favourite things".
"Part of the normal human condition to exaggerate" was funny, given their own exaggerated emphasis on such factors.
Sarcasm etc are also normal, so in an improvised rant in the same spirit as yours ...
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Yeah, I just love bragging about CFS and all the awesome attention and social mystique it brings. I'm addicted to the fact that a mere mention of having "CFS" makes people look at me as if I just dropped a loud smelly fart in a crowded elevator. The disdain and disgust from society at large makes me feel like an important part of the human race.
Getting a fraction of the income, living in a small run down apartment, having trouble paying bills, and unable or struggle to do hobbies, taking hours to do what should take minutes; all these things are everything I ever dreamed of as a kid when thinking about my future career, I am so happy and fulfilled with how things are, I don't want it to change!
All the constant admiration from peers makes me feel like a megastar. Talking about CFS just makes me the life of the party, especially the part about not being able to drink alcohol, smoke weed, pop acid, eat mushrooms, or do white lines. Forgetting stuff and not being able to talk for long just makes party conversations so interesting.
The number of friends I have just grew exponentially after getting CFS. My Facebook and Twitter accounts are just overloaded with fans and real friends who follow my every move. Being unable to shower in the mornings without POTS and eventual migraine does wonders for hygiene and self-confidence.
Using the CFS crutch is so empowering and useful. I feel so brave and manly, even better than having buff muscles or cage fighting. All the hot chicks just melt when I talk about PENE prohibiting normal sex, and urinary symptoms are so sexy. Asking for embarrassing help only when needed just makes me feel so much of a man in the eyes of society. I'm a man among men. All the men want to be like me, and all the women want to be with me so they can feel my CFSness.
I crave the medical attention of disbelief. It makes me so excited to be a burden on the health system. Barred from extensive testing and receiving no useful treatment is great. Explaining over and over ad nauseam that GET was unhelpful, and risking another round of GET to amuse a new doctor, does wonders for my health and sense of being believed.
I'm so uninformed about philosophy of mind and medical research that I just can't get past Cartesian substance dualism. There is a strict division between mind and body, psychological factors influencing health is impossible! I attack psychological research if it goes against these preconceived notions, never because of methodological flaws. I swallow every piece of quackery under the Sun without question, I'm just go gullible and love wasting money on fads!
I fear the stigma of mental illness so bad that I'm in a massive denial about my psychological and social problems. My ego is so fragile that my whole world would come crashing down if I dared to consider the possibility that my mind is not in a state of Buddha perfection. Who cares if CFS has more stigma than mental illness and receives even less funding?
My insight is so poor that I woke up one day with a touch of fatigue and freaked out. I talked myself into thinking mild fatigue was paralysis, and I panic at the tiniest tingle in my body, it must be proof of a serious life threatening disease. I can't distinguish PENE from DOMS, or between symptoms of illness from symptoms of transient emotions. I really should snap out of the faulty association between activity and symptoms. All those biological abnormalities that occur after exercise in the research are just coincidence and fueling my delusions.
Ahhh, isn't this truly the good life?
