Tom and Erik on the confusion between "fatigue" and CFS

Tom Kindlon:

  I remember learning French and coming across a list which they
  called "Faux amis" (literal translation: false/wrong friends). These
  were lists of French words which one might think had one mean
  (because they were the similar or the same as English words) but were actually different.

  I think this is the problem with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - people
  whether lay people or doctors think they know what it is. I'm not
  convinced that it is worth keeping in the long-term for this reason.
  The problem mightn't be so bad but people with CFS (strictly
  defined/Incline-Village defined!) have unusual reactions to things
  that people/doctors often wouldn't have expected in all sorts of
  systems in the body.

Erik Johnson:

  Assertions that the similarity to "chronic fatigue" is too confusing
  brings up the question of whether or not this is true.

  Are they truly intellectually incompetent, or merely saying so as a
  passive aggressive ploy?
  A simple test follows:

  "I am cold".

  "I have a cold".

  If one is mentally capable of discerning the difference in this
  example, they are not sufficiently impaired to be unable to understand
  the critical components of CFS history, and cannot reasonably rely upon
  personal confusion as a continued excuse for miscomprehension.

  They're only pretending to be dumb, hoping you won't notice their little trick, and call attention to how transparently disingenuous their little ploy is!

* * *

And therein lies the problem.  The name CFS was intentionally chosen (per documents Hillary Johnson received via FOIA request) for its similarity to "chronic fatigue" which every working woman has, and the psych-based "fatigue syndrome" to cause just such confusion.

That soon after admitting they had an incurable virus named AIDS on their hands, CDC didn't want to admit to having another incurable virus that caused severe problems, so they gave it a name designed to minimize it.

Psychologists jumped on it, and played mind games (their specialty) to convince everyone that CFS is just another name for depression.  When patients described symptoms that don't go with depression, they were told they were imagining things.  It was implied that the patients were too stupid to know what they were experiencing. 

I threw up every morning (which is not a symptom of depression) and then went to work anyway, yet I was initially diagnosed with "not wanting to work".  If you don't want to work, then you call in sick every time you throw up ... you don't go to work anyway.  But apparently logic is not a mandatory course in medical school, because so much of what doctors tell CFS patients is wholly illogical.

And then they have the gall to tell us "you make no sense."  Well, yeah, because I studied logic in law school (and before) and I recognize when someone is twisting my words and reversing cause and effect, in order to make my story fit what he wants to hear.  It won't make sense to a doctor who wants to diagnose post-divorce depression to have the patient insisting that she had the same symptoms before, during and after marriage.  So, he pulls out the attitude of "I am the doctor, so I'm smarter than you" (or, conversely, "you are not a doctor therefore you cannot possibly have enough intelligence to know what symptoms you have and when they started").

If you want to write fiction, write fiction.  But don't do it under the guise of medical records and medical research!