What I really do

I made this. Click on it for a larger version.

Maybe, like me you've seen a lot of these memes on your Facebook page. First it was directors, then photographers, then wedding photographers, then geologists. Most of them are for professions, but they are branching out. Yesterday I saw one for Mormons. The idea is to show all these different stereotypes held by others, and then in the last frame show how mundane the job really is with a picture of someone doing paperwork or sitting in front of a bunch of monitors.

I don't have a job or a profession. Unfortunately, the closest thing I have is CFS. And CFS was really perfect for this template because everyone has misconceptions of it and it's a major problem.

The final frame is supposed to be the punchline, the funny, mundane reality of the seemingly glamorous profession. I couldn't do that. Maybe there's someone who can, but I couldn't. I couldn't think of anything to put in the "What I actually do" square that would be funny. And I can't try to seriously sum up the reality of CFS with one image. So I left it blank. And then it looked too white and cheery to I made it gray. I'm hoping it at least in conveys some sort of sense what everyone with CFS knows, that what it really does is steal your life away.

I would like to explain my thought process behind some of the other images before I offend my friends, parents, doctors, and society.

Society

The idea that CFS is not a serious disease. That it's the yuppie flu. That it's something only upper class white women get and they make it up so they don't have to work and can spend all day in yoga classes instead. I am thinking specifically of something erv said. Erv is a science blog that I read during the whole XMRV thing to ge a different perspective. The comments section was always a circus and a battleground. Offended PWC's vs. erv and her readers. Someone left a comment trying to make the point that CFS was a serious disease. Here is how erv, a grad student researching HIV, replied, "Those poor, poor CFSers with their yoga classes and homeopathic 'physicians' and computers and internet" (Comment 144)

Doctors

Sadly, I think this one is pretty accurate. Certain CFS specialists excluded, there are still too many doctors who do not think CFS is a real disease, and that the people who think they have it actually have depression. The fact is, as I wrote in my last post, doctors don't treat me like I have CFS, they treat me like I have depression, which is no help at all. They think it is something I will snap out of in a few years and are surprised year after year when I get worse.

Friends

Obviously, the closer someone is as a friend, the better idea they will have of the reality of your disability. But how many of us, when first getting our diagnosis, have told a friend we have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and heard them answer "I think I have that too" or "We all get tired"or "You just need some coffee!" etc. Because of the name, people think it just means we have normal fatigue like everyone else.

Parents

By now my own parents know that my problem goes beyond not being a morning person. But still, when I was looking for an image to use for parents, this one just resonated with me. It describes my experience in high school when day after day I could not get up for school and my parents, who like me, didn't know what was wrong, tried everything to get me out of bed. That was more than ten years ago. But still, when I go home to visit, this is how I feel I look to them. They want me to do everything on their time schedule. I have felt guilty over and over again because I could not get up early enough at the time they set to go have lunch with grandma. "Come on, get up, don't disappoint grandma!" We are working on talking about it though and we are getting better.

I

This is actually pretty accurate for me. I am mostly housebound, but not bedbound, so I pretty much spend all my time sitting or lying on the couch. And I am highly dependent on my laptop. For some more severe people it would be a person lying in bed. I said in my last post that I told my doctor, "I do nothing." That's what it feels like. She asked if I went to school or worked or volunteered and I can't do any of these things. And what else is there to do that seems like a real thing besides raising children? So in my dark moments I feel my life is being wasted and there's nothing I can do about it. Which is true, but on the other hand not entirely true. I have my boyfriend and my friends and my family who all make me so happy. And even though I can't write as much as I used to, I can still write a bit, and I can still read most of the time. Little things like that. I have to remember they are meaningful too.

So anyway, there is is. Please feel free to share if you think it's entertaining or useful.

When I was making it I noticed that there is no need for a square called "what my boyfriend thinks" because he lives with me and sees me every day, so he knows better than anyone. I know I could do a better job trying to help the rest of the people in my life understand. But it's something I'm not very good at. Sometimes I want to give everyone the impression that I'm better than I am, mostly people my age, so they'll be more likely to stay friendly if they think I'm young and energetic like them and able to do the things they do, even if I'm not. Sometimes with my friends and family I say I think I can do things I know I can't do because I don't want to disappoint them. And sometimes I am just being self-delusional and really think I can do things I can't do.

It's a complicated situation. But one thing I know is that a lot would change if only this disease had a different name.