this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2026
10 points (91.7% liked)

Chronic Illness

624 readers
1 users here now

A community/support group for chronically ill people. While anyone is welcome, our number one priority is keeping this a safe space for chronically ill people.

This is a support group, not a place for healthy people to share their opinions on disability.

Rules

  1. Be excellent to each other

  2. Absolutely no ableism. This includes harmful stereotypes: lazy/freeloaders etc

  3. No quackery. Does an up-to date major review in a big journal or a major government guideline come to the conclusion you’re claiming is fact? No? Then don’t claim it’s fact. This applies to potential treatments and disease mechanisms.

  4. No denialism or minimisation This applies challenges faced by chronically ill people.

  5. No psychosomatising psychosomatisation is a tool used by insurance companies and governments to blame physical illnesses on mental problems, and thereby saving money by not paying benefits. There is no concrete proof psychosomatic or functional disease exists with the vast majority of historical diagnoses turning out to be biomedical illnesses medicine has not discovered yet. Psychosomatics is rooted in misogyny, and consisted up until very recently of blaming women’s health complaints on “hysteria”.

  6. Respect the Group’s Purpose. It’s a support forum for people with chronic illness to vent and share and talk together. It’s not a place for healthy people to come and give their opinions.

Did your post/comment get removed? Before arguing with moderators consider that the goal of this community is to provide a safe space for people suffering from chronic illness. Moderation may be heavy handed at times. If you don’t like that, find or create another community that prioritises something else.

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I read somewhere that the average time before diagnosis of POTS is 5 years, and people need to see 7 different medical professionals. I'm sure CFS and Fibro and other chronic illness are similar, or even worse.

Every person I've met with chronic illness has been mistrustful of the medical system, and for good reason. They've been told their symptoms are "psychosomatic", depression, anxiety, laziness, deconditioning, etc… Gaslighting and poor treatment seems to be the norm. I wouldn't be surprised if most people in our situation have medical trauma; being defined as: "psychological or emotional symptoms associated with negative medical experiences."

I know that, personally, I hate going to doctors, especially new ones.

  • I expect it to go poorly.
  • I don't feel like they will believe me about my symptoms, or they will ignore what I say.
  • I don't trust that they even know anything about my conditions or their treatments.
  • Often the treatments given to me are actively harmful.
  • If I disagree with them on anything, it turns into an argument.

The worst part is, I'm usually correct. I'm not sure you can even classify it as trauma, because that implies it's not continuing to happen. If anything, it's a wise adaptation to be wary.

You might argue that everyday family doctors aren't equipped to treat us. Often I'm treated like a hot potato, tossed between specialists because I'm nobody's problem. There is a huge gap in the medical field for knowledge about chronic health conditions. The analogy that stuck with me was: "they can set a broken bone, but they can't help my arthritis."

What do you guys think?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] chunes@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Often the treatments given to me are actively harmful

Not just treatments, either. Diagnostics. And then they act like it's no big deal when one puts you in the hospital for a week? Like............????