I can understand why so many chronic fatigue patients are reacting this way. My doctor once told me that during his medical training, he was taught that people claiming to be suffering from this are bonkers and must be treated as if they are psychotic.
Nowadays, the evidence is stacking up that there are metabolic, viral, and neurological factors involved, and while all of these can effect alertness, they are not ever dealt with via willpower.
The patients who have been royally insulted are the ones likely reacting this way. Whether or not the physician or scientist on the receiving end is deserving of the ridicule is case specific.
What percentage of patients are bonkers? What percentage would benefit from psychiatric treatments rather than non-psychiatric?
It’s really hard with some conditions to get a good diagnosis and course of treatment?
Being called bonkers doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to act bonkers (tweetharras someone).
It’s kind of like that narcissism test where narcissists just respond that they are.
I think non-bonkers people should be able to work around the frustration of being considered bonkers by a polite and civil doctor. It’s a real pain to navigate the health system and I think terrible things happen because of it, I fear there are deaths because it’s so hard to see healthcare workers and get useful outcomes.
So being “royally insulted” is pretty typical. Trying to shut down a researcher’s life work means there’s something wrong with the insulted, not the insulter.
I study neurology and metabolism. If any of these patients are delusional, its an exceedingly small fraction of them. Same goes for people diagnosed with "conversion disorder", which is the idea that they are exhausted because they are dealing with some buried repressed childhood trauma.
Some psychiatrists can have a real discussion with you about the intricacies of the hypothalamus. Others ..... really not..... they will try and deal with your systemic inflammatory problems with Fruedian psychoanalysis. Worse yet is that many patients dealing with these deep fatigue and metabolism issues have been institutionalized because people think they are just faking it.
Nowadays, the evidence is stacking up that there are metabolic, viral, and neurological factors involved, and while all of these can effect alertness, they are not ever dealt with via willpower.
The patients who have been royally insulted are the ones likely reacting this way. Whether or not the physician or scientist on the receiving end is deserving of the ridicule is case specific.