I just can't see how we can make this work.
The "abuse" is used as a shield to stop discussion on the points important to patients
If we continue to apologise then nothing good happens. It just adds to the air time for the obstruction.
They will never "move on". They like their shield, they are not interested in an apology.
The problem here is that we are fighting with people using sociopathic bullying techniques -- deflection, misdirection, lies, exaggeration, humiliation, insult, false compliments, pretend sympathy, selective hearing, over-generalization (all women do xyz, ME patients are hostile militants). Bullies and sociopaths (and bullying sociopaths) have been successful throughout history because those techniques are effective in altering the view of the general public in their favor. Whether these people are actually bullying sociopaths, or just knowledgeable and nasty enough to use the techniques for their benefit is a difficult call. I'd say the best assumption is that they are not sociopaths, just people willing to use whatever nasty technique works to their advantage.
We can't let ourselves play into their game. It's a "when did you stop beating your wife" scenario. If we apologize for the the behavior of people who don't represent us, then the bullies twist it to mean that we accept responsibility for it. If we refuse to apologize, then they cast it as condoning the behavior. It's difficult to win if we allow ourselves to be forced into the dialogue at all. As soon as you try to answer "when did you stop beating your wife", you lose.
Let us remember that this question is not about comforting people who are hurt by abuse and insults. That's not where they're standing. These people bring this up because they are using this unfortunate situation as a weapon against us. They don't need our apologies and comfort. What they're looking for is our defeat and humiliation.
Perhaps the best we can do is either ignore their weapon or make an attempt to damage the weapon. Does the weapon actually have any substance, or is it imaginary? Is it real, or is it the emperor's new clothes? Is being called a bitch or an idiot in social media abuse at the level that makes it acceptable to cast an entire patient group as militant terrorists unworthy of sympathy and support? Is having your professional failures called out in public actually abuse?
Where is the evidence of abuse at the level necessary to label an entire group hostile terroristic militants? A few nasty insults in an email are unpleasant (and unjustifiable), but it hardly justifies the incredible over-reaction we're seeing. "One black guy on the street insulted me when I called him a n****r and told him not to drink out of the water fountain, therefore all black people are vicious, violent, abusive militants." I don't think so. That says more about the over-reacting person than the vilified group as a whole or even the individual who responded to the original insults with further insults and thereby handed the bigot a weapon.
Is this issue of a bit of nastiness in social media worth focusing on, or is the whole point of their weapon to keep us focused on it instead of on the real issues?
