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So many parallels to #pwme in Europe forced into graded exercise. Push people past their limits, then give a form of CBT to disabuse of them of the “false belief” that exertion is killing them. Here, put teens in pain in more pain and then forbid them from talking about pain.
Here is the original piece. This should always be a warning sign: “It mostly affects girls, though a small number of the cases are in boys” that we are about to see failure to diagnose lead to psychologization and medical abuse.
Doctor: “American medicine now routinely asks patients to rate their pain on a scale of 1 to 10, and treats it like an emergency, [this] has led to more pain in our society”
Mother: In a dark corner of her mind, she privately worried that her daughter's identity was being built around being sick. "You know she's gone from dancer to performer to sick girl ... because right now all her friends are kids with chronic pain.”
Teenager in a swimming pool: “One of the girls had lost the use of one side of her body — which sometimes happens with amplified pain — so it was especially hard for her [to swim].”
Daughter: “30 seconds in, she began to have an asthma attack. Her breathing got more and more labored, until she was gasping, struggling to get the air she needed.”
She told the physical therapist that she probably should get her inhaler, but since inhalers are medicine, the therapist directed Devyn to simply walk around the gym and calm herself down.
Later, when Devyn got a nosebleed, the therapist signaled her to continue with her workout. Again, she did not want Devyn to linger over the problem, to give more attention to pain.
So Devyn did push on. And through it all, her attitude never seemed to waiver from a cheerful can-do.
This is torture and it’s cultish and we need a name for it so we can build a theory about why it happens and can quickly help others to recognize it, regardless of the diagnosis or specifics of the treatment.
The doctor’s theory? Girls’ nervous systems go haywire because “They're not in touch with their feelings” and they don't have the sophisticated emotional skills they need to manage in an increasingly stressful world.”
The Victorians also believed hysteria/neurasthenia hit women at higher rates due to an increase in the number attending college and reading advanced books, which their naturally weaker nervous systems just could not handle.
This isn’t the worst of it but I am sick of doctors and family thinking the worst thing in the world is that disabled people find connection, friendship and meaning in one another.
A part of the problem is that “false illness belief” treatments are really attractive to journalists. Inherent in them is that “strange but true” twist every good storyteller needs. That Aha! Gotcha! The problem is that it’s strange because it isn’t true.
This is why it may never matter what the science actually says. There will always be someone willing to report on this story without digging any deeper.
