My name is Jim. I'm 58 years old. This disease has wrecked my health, but it is society that has wrecked my life. The disease has confined me to the house, but a culture of cruelty has confined me to poverty and isolation. Illness stops me from growing food, while official gatekeepers tell me I don't deserve any. Illness means I still feel cold under all the blankets, while public policy says I don't need heat.
It wasn't disease that physically and emotionally abandoned me, forced me into bankruptcy, sued to take my house, claimed I just need exercise and therapy, and constantly forces me to prove I'm poor and sick. It was people who did all that.
In the US and many other "civilized" societies it is a Crime Against Capitalists to be permanently sick. It's acceptable to be sick for a week. After that, we're depriving The Economy of a chance to exploit our labor and enrich Our Dear Leaders and their wealthy handlers.
This situation will not change until many, many more people, both sick and well, come to understand what modern social institutions are really about and who they serve. Here's a hint: they aren't here to serve working people.
The horrendous, barbaric treatment we receive is not unique to this illness, and the attitudes we experience will not change if the puzzle of ME is solved. Patients of the next mysterious, potentially expensive illness will have to go through this misery as well. AIDS patients were not the first group of sick people to be brutalized, insulted and ostracized, and we won't be the last.
When a reporter asked Mahatma Gandhi what he thought of western civilization, his response was, "I think it would be a good idea".
