Read Jeanette's write-up and am bowled-over stunned. I know she presented it in a certain light, but if you just read what he says without reading any of her text, and even without seeing his facial expressions, you get a VERY clear picture.
He's a pretty skilled manipulator. Enough of what he says is the case to cause confusion in naive doctors who have not studied the illness. The weird "easier for everybody" that he repeats in one way or another is certainly aimed at making doctors feel relieved: you don't have to find anything for this illness; you don't have to help anyone with this illness; if you 'counsel' them and 'witness' their pain, that is enough. You even, according to him, are not responsible for helping them manage the pain on a day-to-day basis.
Convince them their pain is normal.
If you're trying to find an easier profession where you have less responsibility for people's health, perhaps become a GP and treat sniffles, and refer everyone else out. Or become a bricklayer, or an office manager, or a paper delivery boy.
I think that 'over-responding nerves' idea is really another way to do precisely what Walitt suggests: hand-wave symptomology as though our sensitive little wilting-flower bodies are merely 'over-reacting' to 'normal' stress.
Geez, man. The ladies, seriously, amirite?
They are feeling this pain for a reason, after all. It's a growing experience. The universe has a message for me.
I'm reminded of people who say that hurricanes and floods and AIDS are 'for a reason'. It literally sounds like Walitt says that God is punishing sick people; only replace 'God' with 'society' or 'the higher power' or whatever. The principle is the same.
Far be it for me to deny the mind-body connection. I just don't understand why it's given so much weight in certain illnesses, and other illnesses it's hand-waved away. Heart attacks are certainly brought on in part by stress, but I don't think I've ever heard of anyone being sent in for counseling after having one (and I know many who have had a 'cardiac event'.) Damn, I should be quiet. I might be giving the NIH some ideas.
Perhaps the answer is in Walitt's frequent references to middle-aged women. While not all people with FM are middle-aged women, that is the most common patient subset. So this entire thing may rest in the ladies, seriously, amirite? Taking up an important doctor's attention with their silly little complaints.
It's a mad world.
-J