For some reason Sugarpuss, your comment brought up something I have been thinking about for a long time. I wonder if men really are reacting to a quality in women that has always been more evolved, both physically and emotionally. For example, even sexually, female ‘equipment’ is more refined, like nanotechnology! And of course, their overall hairiness just makes men look two steps behind in the evolutionary scheme of things in general. Smaller has always had a quality of ‘more developed’ to my mind. Or at least, the Japanese might agree :)

Emotionally, women are more complex in my opinion because of course they are deeply empathic and intelligent, but also have had to be so as primary caregivers. The question is, since it is women who give birth to males, what is the benefit in having men stuck at a primitive stage? Though many will say men are the way they are simply because of testosterone, in an attempt to stop the uncomfortable questions there…

@ RidiDill: Sorry, but I have little interest in fighting your strawman. Spinning my words around, to make it look as if I hate sick people, isn’t exactly the best idea… as everyone can clearly see what I did say and (most importantly) didn’t say. It is in the interest of the unwell for which I speak, but your negativity has apparently warped your comprehension skills. Did you just wake up with the false assumption that it’s Opposites Day… or… what?

Lastly, I don’t know why you feel the need to constantly inform me of your “skepticism”. I have already made it quite clear that those who perceive me as a liar, crackpot or otherwise, are the types of individuals whom I don’t concern myself with. What? Am I supposed to throw myself off of a bridge just because you don’t believe me? Or, maybe, just maybe, this is your way of demanding a demonstration? Well, I regret to inform you that, due to the obvious limitations of the internet, there will be no levitating or turning clay pots into gold. LOL This is what makes your “skeptic” announcements so ludicrous.

Thinking out loud: How does one go about proving they no longer suffer from acid reflux disease???

Fair enough, I should not have lumped you in with those people, I apologise. The treatments I refer to are expensive courses which teach you how to use your ‘energy’ to heal yourself, and have been pushed at me by pretty much every single person I have ever met who talked in the way you just did, so I jumped to conclusions. As Lizor mentioned, maybe I should consider this co-optation rather than something totally wrong with it, but I’m still skeptical.

‘However, those who choose to deny the existence of this power will never be able to utilize it. I don’t concern myself with such individuals.’

Oh really. Well, that explains how you manage to be such an asshole towards them I guess. How long do you have to try before it’s rational to stop believing? If it doesn’t work is it always just because you didn’t believe hard enough or what? Don’t you see that there is no way to say this works or not, seeing as you can always say failure was because you didn’t try hard enough or believe in it right or something?

Criticism is not silencing. And why the hell are you tying this whole thing up with declaring yourself proud of your individuality? As if I was trying to tell you to be ashamed of who you were! Get off your high horse. It’s not about that. It’s about you shitting all over sick people and making them feel worse cos you’re so damn self righteous about having ‘healed yourself’.

I’m just asking you to be sensitive to those worse off than you and appreciate that perhaps while your methods worked for you, they don’t work for everyone or in every case. And yeah, in my experience, the people with your kind of attitude were more interested in reinforcing their self righteousness by declaring how awesome they were for having ‘earned’ their health than actually being helpful to anyone. Which, given your last comment, describes you perfectly.

If you actually want to offer some advice or techniques I would be very happy to hear, but it sounds like you’re more interesting in flouncing around telling me to STFU cos you’re PROUD of who YOU are (even though this was totally irrelevant) and I’m the bad guy for saying, HEY you’re being hurtful to people please can you think about that when you speak.

This attitude experienced by other sick people rather the same as a rich person saying to a poor person, well I did it so get off your ass and try harder! If only you TRIED you could be as rich as me.

It adds insult to injury.

I’m not saying my reality is your reality. I’m saying be mindful of other people, please.

Who am I to come ‘waltzing in here?’ you don’t own this blog FFS. It’s public.

Thank YOU Hecate, ND and all the other wonderful posters here for creating this space. To call it an oasis is an understatement.

“I’m still poor (by choice), disorganized, reclusive, cynical, impatient and not the type of person you’d want to invite to a block party (unless you’re a glutton for biting criticism echoing from the deep end of the pool)… but goddammit I’m Me, so you can bet your ass I’m smug. I’m the most interesting & fascinating person I’ve ever known. I actually used to feel shameful of my unique personality; “Why can’t I think & act like the other girls?” I would often wonder. But the fact that I could not force myself to assimilate was something to celebrate! And that difference, in addition to my abilities, is something I have a great deal of pride in, today. Yes, PRIDE.”

I emailed this to myself so I can read it every morning in hopes of breaking the habit of apologizing for who I am and how I see.

Thank you for writing it.

And lizor, I wish there were more like you, too. You’re also wonderfully straightforward and I have really enjoyed reading your brilliant comments and following your suggested reading links, etc. Thank you! May we all continue ‘speaking our truths.’

“To me, brave, strong women go straight to the source of what’s bothering them, and they will settle for no less. The fact that people get such a bee in their bonnet every time a radical feminist expresses an opinion, means she is doing something right. Very few people have the guts to act and/ or speak from their gut, to put it bluntly. And they are deeply envious of those who seem to do so with such ease and flair. Except it’s far from easy. It really takes courage.”

I really really needed to hear that. Thank you. I have recently been the recipient of some fairly vile abuse for the sin of speaking the truth. It’s done a number on me, I have to admit – to the extent that I have not had the energy to comment further on this thread, despite my keen interest.

However, I am grateful to everyone’s recent posts regard science and medicine. Medicine is so fundamentally poisoned by patriarchy it is truly a dangerous space for a woman to navigate. The guy who almost killed me did so because he saw me as another complaining woman – similar to the gross sexism in that scary BMJ article linked above. The fact that the infection was so bad that I had not urinated for over 72 hours and my obvious physical agony was apparently invisible to him. The next doctor I saw was a woman and she had me admitted immediately.

I have also been privy to some clinical research into brain/neuro-response to threat. However the test subjects are all male – because, in the words of the (male) scientists “females are too complicated”. However, the drugs that will be marketed as a result of this research will no doubt be heavily prescribed to women.

On the other hand, I had knee surgery years ago which improved my life significantly. A close friend had joint replacement surgery after a bad accident and this has enabled her to continue to make her art.

I think that the body and mind are not so much connected as the are one and the same. As Cordelia Fine makes clear, we know very little about how the brain functions and I would add that we know nothing concrete about the physical location of the mind/soul/self. Unfortunately the little understanding we do have of the non-cartesian way of being most often gets co-opted and exploited in pretty cynical ways as Ridilill points out. However, I think the root of body-mind theory is not the problem, but like science, it is the agenda-driven interpretation.

Thanks for being here, all you fabulous women, and sharing your thoughts and stories. It’s a real source of strength and healing for me.

more people now have direct access to scientific papers through the internet and libraries

You’re missing the main point I’m trying to make. The vast majority of these “scientific papers” are authored by MEN, based on research by MEN, because science is dominated by MEN. They’re not going to risk their livelihood by confirming that the human male is a sick, twisted freak of nature that destroys everything he touches, now are they?

Besides, I don’t need “science” to tell me that which is plainly obvious to the un-brainwashed eyes. Everyone knows there is something deeply wrong with men (even they know it; that’s why they are so desperate to keep Feminists quiet), but few people are willing to openly discuss it. The pestilence of the male sex is a very taboo topic in the mainstream media… but they never hesitate to over-magnify some miniscule crime committed by a random woman that almost always pales in comparison to the countless atrocities perpetrated by men on the very same day.

Firstly, everyone I have ever met who believed in this was involved with, or was pushing me towards extremely expensive new age treatments that had no evidence of working and the people were openly hostile to having their methods questioned. They thought they were anti capitalist-materialist but actually they were the worst kind, and the worst kind of hypocrites. It was literally just as bad as the standard health industry, with profit motives and manipulation, but no evidence to back it up.

Kindly point out the portion of my comment where I advised people to purchase any type of “treatments”. What I speak of cannot be bought because everyone already has it. However, those who choose to deny the existence of this power will never be able to utilize it. I don’t concern myself with such individuals.

And then RidiDill said:

Sugarpuss, you say are you proud of your ability to heal yourself… in my experience that ‘pride’ comes of as insufferable smugness to people who are actually ill, so be careful how you present it.

Well, pardon me all over the place for being happy about the fact that I am no longer dependent on Prilosec & Rolaids. I suffered with acid reflux disease through most of my childhood, teens & twenties; constant vomiting and severe burning in my esophagus that was practically unbearable. I was one of the guinea pigs for Prilosec when it was still in it’s experimental stage. I thought it was a miracle drug… until I discovered the potential side effects (kidney damage, gastric polyps, etc.). When I kicked all of the negative people out of my life, and decided to truly take control of the few things that I can control (my thoughts, my energy, my body), everything fell into place wonderfully.

I’m still poor (by choice), disorganized, reclusive, cynical, impatient and not the type of person you’d want to invite to a block party (unless you’re a glutton for biting criticism echoing from the deep end of the pool)… but goddammit I’m Me, so you can bet your ass I’m smug. I’m the most interesting & fascinating person I’ve ever known. I actually used to feel shameful of my unique personality; “Why can’t I think & act like the other girls?” I would often wonder. But the fact that I could not force myself to assimilate was something to celebrate! And that difference, in addition to my abilities, is something I have a great deal of pride in, today. Yes, PRIDE.

Who are you to waltz into this blog and attempt to silence me? How am I offending “people who are actually ill” (I guess I was never “actually ill”, right? Fuck you) by expressing my joy for having discovered a solution to a quite miserable illness (and much more)? Your reality is not my reality. You’re not the boss of me, so you can take that “be careful” crap elsewhere. Silencing tactics will get you nowhere; just pisses me off.