After being sick for almost 20 years, I feel some days as though I have heard every rude and ignorant remark by people that can possibly be made. We started a list on my forum a while back to list the Rude Things People Say to us CFS, Fibromyalgia, IC Disease and other chronically ill patients.
I thought we could all start a list here too and as you comment, I will add your responses to the list I have started. Here is what we came up with on my Fighting Fatigue Forum:
– “I’m tired too but I have learned how to push myself”.
– “If it were me, I wouldn’t be lying in bed all day like you do – I would be working regardless”.
– “You should not be parked in a handicapped stall. That should be saved for someone who is really sick.”
– “You can’t possibly feel as bad as I do.”
– “You don’t look sick.”
– “You can’t be that sick if you were able to do ___________________ yesterday.”
– “You need cognitive rehabilitation.”
– “Every time you start feeling tired or sick, just picture a big red stop sign in your mind. Once the thoughts stop, your symptoms should stop too.”
– “Must be nice to get to sleep in every morning and only work part time.”
– “You need to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get on with it.”
– “Yeah, my cousin had CFS. She was always out to get attention.”
– “Maybe if you had more faith then God would heal you.”
– “If you would go to church every Sunday maybe you wouldn’t be sick.”
– “What could you possibly know about being tired? You don’t even work!”
– “It must be nice to live off the government and not have any responsibility.”
– “So and so is a lot sicker than you and he/she still manages to work. Why can’t you?”
What have people said to you? (These are from comments below):
– “But it’s only for a couple of hours.”
– Youre just too emotional.”
– Move around and blow the stink off you. Youll feel better.”
Just reading these make me angry. Here’s my fav: but it’s only for a couple of hours.
Thanks, Free! I’ll add that to the list!
Wow! I’m surprised..not really, but these people haven’t walked in your shoes for just a few moments. I don’t know what it is…ignorance, lack of knowledge or plain stupidity. Probably all of the above and unlimited stupidity.
Let’s see…
“You’re just too emotional”-I don’t remember who said this to me, it may have been a doctor on the way out of the first, and last appointment I had with him.
“Move around and blow the stink off you. You’ll feel better”- My mother said this when I was a kid-
however, this was way before I was diagnosed with CFS, but was still exhausted and feeling crappy. Once I was diagnosed, it became a joke between us.
Sophia, yes it is ignorance mainly. Thanks everyone for your additions! I added them above.
my favorite stupid comment happened when i was in the emergency room with the pain that was so severe that i started to scream that i wanted to die and kill myself, if you have any kind of chronic pain you know what i mean by that, so the nurse came in and gave me an adivan to calm me down. i took it and when i stopped screaming the doctor came in and said to stop crying and to be brave. i could make the pain stop by not thinking about it, at this point i was ready to kick him in the you know whats, so he gave me some acetaminophen and that did not do anything for the pain so i started to cry again, the docotr came back about two hours after giving my the tylenol and asked what the otherdoctors did when i came in with this pain. i told him that they usually gave me 20mg of morphine and a shot of demerol, he looked through my charts (may i add that i have been sick for four years now and i take morphine on a regular basis, and it’s the only thing that takes the edge off the pain) and he looked at me and said and i quote”just because you asked for the morphine and demerol doesn’t mean i am goig to give you any.” so he gave me a prescription for tylenol. i ended up back in emregency three hours later and there was a different doctor on, he told me that i had a kidney infection caused by stones and if it wasn’t caught then it would have gotten worse and could have caused bigger problems. the doctors don’t lisiten to you and i feel like they are accusing me of going in for fun and just to get “high” if i were to get high i would chose a better method than laying in a hospital be for 11 hours screaming and suffering through the pain just to be made feel guilty about going into the hospital.
“You’ve got to go back to school, I mean what are you going to do with your life if you’re acting like this?”
“I think you are just exaggerating.”
“It’s allergies.”
“CFS huh? So… why are you here?”
“Just buck up.”
“Everyone feels this way!”
“Are you really THAT tired?”