this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Chronic Illness

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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 people to spout 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”.

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.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I think at it's core this is deeply rooted in a fear of death/disability

People offer unhelpful platitudes because deep down they know that they can also one day get some kind of diagnoses for an illness. Cancer, dementia, alzheimers, you name it.

It's coming for all of us.

So when they ask "did you try x????" It's them really saying "god please let miracle cures still exist, I can't handle confronting my own mortality"

And if you go "no, I havent tried that yet", they get to smile and proceed in life, "oh well if I was sick, I'd try everything!"

Which is pretty much all that seperates them, for now, from acknowledging the void they just brushed up against.

Some people would rather very carefully arrange a thin sheet covering the giant black pit in the middle of their living room, so they never have to look at it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yep this is denial of the very real fact that some things you simply cannot control or cure, that you do not “deserve,” and those things can be bad. Having to then contend with the fact you still (probably) want to live is hard and essentially a lifelong grief cycle, and for abled people that’s scary to imagine.

But that’s our lived experience for years/decades and they don’t get that eventually you get sort of used to it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I still think there are so many adults out there that wholeheartedly believe in the Just World Fallacy. It's honestly baffling how many people have a hard time accepting that things just happen to people without any moral value being assigned to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

The people in power have the most influence. The people in power tend to also believe they deserve to be in power — ie. Just World Fallacy — so it’s really unsuprising how societally engrained that bias is.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 days ago (1 children)

OMG - the diabetes bullshit...

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

What is cinnamon supposed to do for diabetics?

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Choking to death on cinnamon means you don't have to worry about blood sugar levels anymore.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That reminds me of one doctor advising me to look into assisted suicide…

That felt absolutely awful. The person I trust to help me live, because I want to live, doesn’t see my life worth living.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Holy fuck that is awful.

I am so sorry.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

The doctor:

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Cinnamon does lower blood glucose slightly. You just cannot eat enough cinnamon to get a significant effect.

Well — thinking about it — if you put loads of cinnamon without sugar into every food you eat, you'll probably stick to a low calory intake diet with ease, which might enhance the slight intrinsic antidiabetic effect of cinnamon?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

if you put loads of cinnamon without sugar into every food you eat, you’ll probably stick to a low calory intake diet with ease

That is intense! Guess it's easier then doing a zero sugar diet

[–] Stalinwolf 12 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (5 children)

I have had similar experiences throughout my life with cannabis enjoyers offering up all kinds of theories and approaches for solving my severe incompatability with the plant. It would seem that my extreme panic attacks/psychedelic anxiety spirals brought on immediately with the chemical's onset are just simple matters of my mindset, paranoia, and/or the particular strain I'm smoking. It can all be solved by smoking indica instead of sativa, or by consuming a higher quality bud like Golden Berry Diesel or Anal Bifida. Nevermind that I've enjoyed countless other psychedelics throughout my life without the presence of the negative psychological effects brought on by THC specifically. This is all just me needing to not worry about it so much, or to smoke Buddha Fart Punch or Goatse Golddigger next time around.

Sorry, I got way off topic there.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

I think people really misunderstand how differently people are affected by things. Putting drugs aside, people can have completely different reactions to regular food or mundane environmental conditions like dust and humidity.

I know a lot of people that enjoy cannabis and if you go one at a time and ask them what they enjoy about it, you get a huge variety of answers. Some of the things people say the get from it will be directly contradicting other things that other people say they get from it.

"It calms me down!" vs "it gets my creative juices flowing" "It settles my stomach" vs "it makes me nauseous" "It makes boring stuff exciting!" Vs "it makes me content doing nothing." And a thousand other reactions people have to it.

For some people pot gives them anxiety attacks, for other people pot eliminates their anxiety attacks. I think it's foolish to expect people to have the same or even similar experiences as each other when consuming substances.

I know plenty of people that don't like grapefruit, I love that shit. You do you!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

Jesus that’s practically an allergy. You can’t “chill” your way out of a severe reaction 🤦🏻‍♀️

I’m sorry you had to deal with that.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Gotta hit that THC infused fish.

[–] Stalinwolf 4 points 3 days ago

That shit is off the scales, bro.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Psychedelic Anxiety Spiral would make a great band name.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

Goatse Golddigger

😂

Next time I'm at the dispo I'm gonna ask if they got any in stock. And if it's not sold in a mason jar, imma need a full refund

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

As someone with decades of experience in the liquor industry and some science in college I suspect Im the most qualified person available to suggest treatments for your ulcerative colitis. /s

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (3 children)

Because people at their core just want to help.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago

They want to feel helpful, which is different than selflessly helping.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

These same people don’t actually help me if I need it, they can’t seem to deal with the reality of my disability.

If people want to help, there are so many ways to actually help them.

You don’t “help” a blind person by trying to sell them a random sham, you help them by asking them if you can do something for them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Because people at their core just want to ~~help~~ feel like they're helping.