What I'm currently saying via Twitter Direct Message:
"Anyway,
I have concluded that it is time to step back from the fray. I do not
see progress in M.E for quite some time. I think medicine and patients
will continue to fight, and that's a shame, but it's also a choice."
Moving
forward my role is quite simple. I've to continue to urge people with
M.E to end M.E activists' vicious, horrible, abuse of patients (as
"sick and crazy") and of doctors (as "Nazi garbage").
Until the
abuse issue is sorted, science and research in M.E will be thoroughly
unsafe and hobbled by extreme political bias. Until the abuse issue is
resolved, M.E patients will self-stigmatize, lower awareness and harm
everyone.
My stand against abuse in M.E activism will always, by necessity, be a small part of my life and that's okay.
It really is.
Secondly, I should work to flesh out the bare bones of the route out of M.E I've already started to put forward.
In
the end, when all is said and done, I survived medicine removing my
food and I survived M.E activists removing my social support network, in
fact, I've come out of this awful time both recovered from severe M.E
and a stronger person.
I've often described M.E as a series of betrayals.
Betrayal by medicine, by family, by society, by activists and betrayal by my own body.
But
you know, looking back, I can see each of these events in a new light,
for each was a time when I personally overcame my own expectations and
bias.
And this is what science is all about. It's not
about re-enforcing dogma and preconceptions. It's about creating a
context where discovery can occur and then allowing positive change to
take place.
I never thought I'd get better. I'm very glad to find that I was wrong.
Anyhow, until we next speak, I wish you all, ⏳ & 🔋.
James/.
