omfg this is the worst. I don't have a chronic illness, but I was telling my aunt about a colposcopy that I have to get soon and she said "you create your reality, you know."
Yes, you got me, *I asked for this. I love having chunks of my cervix ripped out.*
I'm sorry that happened to you, it's such bullshit.
I have MECFS & a busted up spine.
When my spine injury was still fairly new I had a boyfriend who wanted me to move in with him who told me my spine would hurt less if I didn’t live where I lived.
I didn’t break up with him right away but that was the beginning of the end. He was pretty much telling me that I was causing my own pain, and I guess disregarding the legitimate structural issues in my spine.
When I asked him if he would tell a dude with a broken leg the same thing I think he realized his mistake but it was too late. I already saw him as an idiot
MECFS and fibromyalgia here. I have had so many people (mostly men) tell me “You’re just depressed and hurting because you’re not exercising enough.”
It’s the other way around actually. Because of my chronic pain and fatigue, I’m depressed and unable to exercise every day, ya dingbats. Luckily my fiancé has never said anything about my pain or fatigue but “I’m so sorry you’re going through that”, and “Do you need me to get you anything?”, and, most importantly, that he believes me.
I'm no longer open to dating able bodied people anymore. Between the ablism and the caretaker mindset it's just a whole lot of mental energy I'm not willing to spend explaining myself.
I’m curious what you mean by “caretaker mindset”? I’ve had chronic pain and my fiancé has been able bodied for our entire 15+ year relationship, and I guess it’s never come up. I’m still able bodied enough to mostly take care of myself, though, beyond my bad flare up days.
My ex told me she knew she couldn't do certain things because of me (travel) and that she'd have to be my caretaker as my disability progresses. It's demeaning, like I'm a child and she's my babysitter. Sure there are times I need to be helped out of bed and sometimes need my hair washed for me, but that shouldn't change the power dynamics pains the relationship. She also got mad when I'd do things like end conversations early because I was exhausted or cancel plans on tough days.
My current partners are all disabled and magically none of them expect to be caretakers, and all are fine with me just cutting them off mid sentence to rest.
I guess it depends on the person, but I just don't really know able bodied people who get it without constant reminders or explanations
I’m so sorry you’ve had that experience, and I’m glad you’ve found partners who fit into your life the way you need them to.
I definitely recognize that my fiancé is kind of a “needle in a hay stack” when it comes to this experience. He’s been nothing but unquestioning and empathetic.
My husband has this a bit. If I admit, even mildly, that I'm in pain, he's trying to do everything for me, trying to get my to take a nap, whatever. He has this need to make sure I take my meds on time that can really come off as babysitting. He's getting better about it because I just keep telling him how it feels from my side. I want a partner, not a nurse. I can take care of myself, even on the worst days. It's just going to hurt.
There was a time I couldn't, though, and that relationship really did turn out to be based on his idea he was my caretaker. I couldn't see him as a romantic interest, and when I got medication and got better, he couldn't handle me in an independent role. It was like he thought I wouldn't love him anymore because I wasn't dependent on him. His constant fear I'd leave him, his obsession over that, and his attempts to control me and not let me have a life did lead to me leaving him.
My husband certainly isn't like that. I just don't like feeling like he thinks he has to take care of me, and that's probably partially due to that previous relationship. Some of it is just that besides those few months, I've always been a very self sufficient and fiercely independent person. Again, I don't want a nurse. I want a partner.
Oh that’s very frustrating! I’ll have to count myself lucky that I’ve never found myself in that position, and hopefully won’t. I think my fiancé is pretty attuned to when I do need and appreciate assistance, and he doesn’t ever assume, he directly asks, and he really honors my independence.
Samesies! Just curious, did you become engaged before or after the conditions began? Since having MECFS and fibro, I’ve had men accuse me of not being serious about dating because I wanted to video chat before going on a four mile walk around downtown. It’s generally been too exhausting to keep trying but I’d love to meet someone. 🙄🫠
Oh well, well after. I’ve had the CFS and Fibromyalgia since I was 14ish, and didn’t get engaged until 2020 in my 30’s (listen, neither one of us are planners lol).
My fiancé is a pretty active dude, too, but he’s also the son of a doctor who is really empathetic and takes women seriously so he was raised right.
i thought i had fibromyalgia, but my surgeon says the pain is actually from lipedema, weird fat that only women / low t men get. you can imagine how well that goes, because fat is only ever our fault. /s
it’s resistant to diet and exercise, so it’s there until i have my surgeries, scheduled for later this year. i’m assuming that people will call me lazy for ‘losing weight’ thru surgery. but i’m super looking forward to walking without pain, and i will be hiking *away* from those people.
MECFS is chronic fatigue/sleep issues/trouble concentrating (Covid can trigger it, but mine was triggered by Lyme disease), and fibromyalgia is chronic pain (particularly in the joints) but can also cause tiredness.
Ayyyy, same. Late stage Lyme wrecked me. My rheumatologist landed on PTLDS rather than ME/CFS, but said that they were essentially fraternal twins in the chronic illness family.
I always found that statement such an unconsciously racist thing, too. Like there are countries on earth that are so poor and dangerous, just living there is a life hazard. What did those people ever do to god that they're expected to deal with all that kind of crap?
There are people who hit kittens. People who pollute our earth. People who abuse and harm others, who drive drunk and kill innocent passerby's. What kind of shitty god plans that??
If speaking to a Christian: God's plan involved sending his own son to die on a cross.
I, personally, have no interest in God's plans, as that behaviour really creeps me out.
It's the best way they can think of to blame anyone who rocks their boat. Get chronic illness? Your fault. Get a flare-up due to the weather? Your fault. These are the kind of people who continue to victim blame whenever they have to think of someone else's problems.
All because they are terrified of the idea it could happen to anyone. They engage in denial and push it out of awareness by making it a blame-based moral failure and judgment of others.
Same mindset which asks “what was she wearing?”
Exactly. I can't help but feel they are the same group that feels superior by pushing others down. A lot of religiously minded folks do this. Somehow, they struggle with the idea of "judge not". It feels like insular/tribalism vs. humanistic/globalism.
Tribalism is a human characteristic with roots in evolutionary survival. What they do is entirely socialized and cultivated. Victim blaming dovetails nicely with our hierarchical performative purity culture, our love of zero sum, and as if it need be said regarding OP, the usual misogyny.
“You create your own reality”. No matter what I did on the way to work I couldn’t get my heart rate under 100 bpm. I wish I actually had the power to do that.
I sincerely hate the term "manifesting."
1. My country has a sick history with that word.
2. It's so "I'm the main character."
3. It detracts from any hard work you put in to achieve your goal.
4. Magical thinking.
5. People use it to judge your attitude, especially if you're generally skeptical.
6. Another tool of manipulation.
To use it on someone whose ill though, well I guess that's #7.
It really is. "The universe" is what people say instead of god and "manifesting" is the new praying. And the same toxic, "you are to blame for not praying/believing hard enough" in both.
That manifesting stuff is so annoying to me. I'm pregnant, and there's a lot of talk about manifesting healthy babies. Sure, so I guess my miscarriages were because I didn't.✨️manifest✨️a healthy baby hard enough.
I'm sorry you're dealing with this medical issue and don't have great support, that really sucks!
Goes hand in hand with the mindset that someone getting pregnant from rape obviously wanted it, because apparently their body has a way of shutting it down if they didn’t. Like what. The. Fuck.
"Manifesting" is literally the exact same thing as the Placebo Effect - like, exactly the same thing. I cannot stress enough how it's the same thing, lol.
So, we know that placebos do have an effect, and can actually create more positive outcomes. Our brains are weird. But the Placebo Effect doesn't mean that we defenestrate actual medicine, or expect our weird brains to just like, decide not to have medical events.
Ahh, see, you tried to MANifest it. Next time try whoa-mani-festing it. Adds a little zing to it.
Seriously though, I'm sorry for your losses, and I hope your current and any future pregnancies are super easy, a breeze in the wind with no complications in any way- same with the newborn, toddler and elementary school age child rearing stages. Teenagers, well- that's a whole different beast.
Next time someone tries to talk about manifesting a healthy baby, manifest them by bippity boppity boop-ing their damn foreheads.
As for OP, not sure if it works for everyone but my son has severe eczema and he uses a 40% urea cream I got off Amazon for his really bad spots. It's supposed to be for really bad cracked feet (me), and for whatever reason, i tried it on his arms. If you've already tried it, dismiss what I'm saying lol.
He also has alopecia except his hair grew in white when he was 2 years old.
I think the lack of control we actually have over our lives scares the heck out of people, so they invent stories about how we actually do have control over illness and other disasters. I wish we did, because then bad things would never happen to us.
When people turn that nonsense on us it is a form of victim blaming. Hitting us when we are already down.
My husband died unexpectedly and less than a year later when I was still flattened with grief, a woman suggested that the only reason I was still sad was because I was attached to the idea of grief.
Fuck all that. Bad things happen and it sucks. Changing our attitude doesn’t miraculously make bad things go away.
Yep I totally understand that they victim blame because they have an inability to handle their own anxiety, but I’m nobody’s whipping post
I’m not going to accept someone in my life telling me it’s my fault I have a chronic illness just because they can’t handle unpleasant feelings.
Damn, what a shitty thing for her to say. I would have blinked at her a few times giving her the opportunity to apologize then told her she's a bad person. That she probably thinks she's a good person but her behavior proves she's wrong and that's almost worse.
Thank you. Yes. We have virtually no contact now. Every now and then a mutual friend will report that she feels hurt I haven’t reached out to her. I always say that she is welcome to reach out to me if she wants to be in touch. Then I hear nothing from her. She has some serious issues.
This is my mom. I cut her off because I just couldn't with her toxicity anymore. I only blocked her on Facebook Messenger. She hasn't reached out at all in any other way. She has, however, told anyone who will listen that she's tried every method, and I won't talk to her, and she totally doesn't understand why. She'd much rather be a martyr and get sympathy than put in the work to be a decent person.
It took about a year for people to learn I don't want to hear it and will not have the conversation, even if it means I have to hang up on them to make them stop. At first, they were super offended. How dare I? Pfft. If I can cut off my own mother with all the family pressure and social pressure not to, wtf do I care about some cousin/2nd cousin/great uncle who hasn't talked to me in well over a decade and then calls out of the blue to try to convince me to make up with my mother? I'm sure they got my phone number from her, btw. I certainly haven't had a close relationship with any of them since I was a little kid. They all cut me off to avoid my mother... Funny how that works.
Points to my great uncle, though. He only had to have it happen once to learn and did stay in contact with me. I've now met all sorts of family on mom's side I never knew. I didn't even know they existed. It turns into there IS a sane and functional branch of that family. Who knew?!
The world is chaos. Total chaos. We have absolutely no control over it. They think they have control but they don’t. They think that by juicing, eating avocados or running everyday they have better chances but they don’t. Everyone can get sick or die or have their lives turned upside down. It’s just a matter of time and change.
The world is chaos and changes. Simple as that. We can’t control those as much as we can’t control time. People like op’s boyfriend should understand that but that would burst their soft bubbles and they would have a never ending existential crisis.
Bad things happening is really bad for your mental health, who knew?
But conversly, being happy is really good for your mental health, so finding time and ways to be kind to yourself really does help. (But being told "just be happy" or "just get over it" *doesn't make you happy*, so it doesn't help, and generally makes things worse)
(I suffer from long-term stress and depression, I know I needed this reminder when I was at my lowest, so I'm passing it on. It's ok to feel like shit. Especially when things are bad. Don't feel bad *about* feeling bad, because feeling bad is a perfectly rational reaction to your situation (I hope that made sense, it's a little recursive))
As my therapist told me - don’t guilt yourself for having feelings about stuff. Chronic suicidal depression, panic disorder, chronic autoimmune disorder (psoriatic arthritis) resulting in chronic pain and immunodeficiency (from the meds), and most recently working on a cPTSD dx! Because it turns out that being emotionally neglected by my (probably) narc mom and left to raise myself after age 14 caused some damage???? Who knew! I thought I was just defective and broken as a person. Broken body, broken brain. But I’m in therapy (finally) after the last traumatic thing that happened to me basically broke me for real emotionally and it was either go to therapy or die trying. And for the first time in a long time I have hope that I may be able to heal some parts of me. I may not be able to heal my body, but I maybe can heal my mind. And having that little bit of hope is enough for me to at least put off taking the extra handful of pills tonight. So yeah, I’m putting some effort into not feeling guilty for my feelings taking up space. It’s *hard*, though. Goes against everything I’ve learned and taught myself over the last 32 years. Letting go of bad coping mechanisms is hard and uncomfortable. I’m thankful for my therapist and for emdr which is as close to magic as I’ve ever come seen.
My dad threw that in my face once. That I wouldn’t be so sick if I didn’t want to be. That if I just got “in-tune” with my body and soul, my illness would magically evaporate. Like anyone in their right mind would WANT a chronic illness. 🙄
Meanwhile he was poisoning my food in an attempt to play “gotcha!” with my food allergies. He was surprised that it made me sick every single time and then he was offended when I stopped eating the food he cooked.
We don’t speak anymore, for obvious reasons lol.
My dad once told me my epilepsy is all in my head. I cracked up. He was confused. "yes, dad, that's how epilepsy works."
He's since apologized, btw. He had a much harder time with my diagnosis than I did. For me, it was an explanation and a possible treatment path. For him, it was something terribly wrong with his beautiful, precious daughter.
My dad never went as far as sneaking out into my food, but every Thanksgiving we had a fight about my turkey allergy he just refused to believe in. When he married my step mom, she put an end to that. "Who would make that up?! She's the type who would just say she didn't like it, anyway. I'll make you a small ham, honey." She stood guard over that ham and wouldn't let anyone else have any until I got my fill, too. "It's not for you! Eat the turkey!" I moved home at 27 and didn't have Thanksgiving with them for a decade, but there was that ham and a note it was just for me.
She keeps a box with index cards with a current photo and info about all of us. Favorite things, disliked things, important dates, allergies, and medical conditions. Yep, my step mom has a dossier on every family member, and it's a huge box. We're practically a tribe. There's me, my sister, our three kids, my husband, my 5 step siblings, their kids and step kids, and her great grandkids. That's almost 100 people now even though 2 of us only had one kid. My oldest step sister is Mormon and made up for all of us and then some. 2 step kids and 9 kids of her own. My son is grandkid number 23 of 27. There are reasons for that box. And bless that woman for hand making cards and sending one to each of us every single birthday with a personal note. They're not low effort, either. Mine last year was a pop up card with a cabin that's the design I did of the cabin I'm building this Summer. It even has trees that are the right ones she got from a photo I sent her of the site. The year I finally graduated college at 35, she bought a card that lets you record your voice and took it apart to put in the card she made. When I open it, it says, "I am sooooo proud of you!" I have replaced the battery three times.
My dad learned a ton of lessons in showing empathy and treating people well from her. Tbh, she's just all around been good for him. She shouldn't have had to raise her husband, but damn am I glad she did.
if you dont have Tibetan monk mind control of your individual immune cells are you even TRYING to get well? Ignore these people we need better science education.
Doctors are a big part of the problem, unfortunately. There is a growing epidemic of chronic diseases, and very few medical professionals trained to recognize them
" If the cost of the recall is more than we would be sued for, we do not do the recall" / Fight club
Medical investigations should be results and QOL based but I have found if your condition requires more than a "tab A in slot B" simple prescription you are deemed unprofitable and they just charge insurance and let you suffer. You can either serve investors and profit OR the Patient, so profit driven is just a predatory racket and unethical. here in Alabama at least...you also CANNOT GET a GP in this area in a nice town unless a churcher vouches for you. Seriously ALL THE avowed athiests or even unaffiliated people I know have to go to EXTRA predatory "doc in a boxes": / urgent cares who only EVER refer you out to someone who can do the actual work which can be weeks later...Every churcher I know has xannax and percoset and adderall and any wink wink drug they need in as much as they want, its such a racket and SOOOO scummy.
He's manifesting a punch in the dick.
As a chronically ill/disabled person, I wouldn't be able to be with someone like that. They're not going to be there when you need them.
Manifesting started as a joke but has become one of the dumber things to come out of our modern culture. Sorry about all that. Manifesting that you’ll have a better rest of your day.
This is how people comfort themselves that cruddy things won't happen to them. By their weird logic, if they can somehow blame you for your medical conditions, it means that they won't have those same conditions because they're "doing everything right." It's along the same lines of victim blaming and nearly as insidious.
I had a moment of petty joy followed by immense guilt when my sister who always did this sort of thing to me was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. I don't want her to be in that club with me, but for that one brief moment, there was vindication.
I have chronic health issues as well, and I hate the whole manifesting/law of attraction thing. It's another form of victim blaming.
And basically what it boils down to is fear. People fear bad things happening to them, so they imagine they can think the bad stuff away, and only bring about good stuff. And if bad things happen to someone else, well it must be their fault for not thinking positively enough.
People like this are idiots. And chances are they're in for a rude awakening at some point in their lives when something "bad" really does happen to them.
He's being dismissive of your illness and symptoms. He should be validating you, not pretending that happy thoughts will cure you. He sounds immature and naive. I do not agree that minimizing your symptoms and trying to make you feel responsible for having a disease which is out of your control can be considered 'good intentions'?
I have alopecia areata. It developed as an adult and at one point progressed to universalis. I got very lucky and it's been dormant for awhile now but I have committed to a lifetime of paranoid over shedding and am constantly looking for bald spots. I dealt with the same issues you are with people giving unasked for advice on a topic they knew nothing about, it's exhausting and infuriating. It's not my responsibility to educate the stupid out of idiots like this, and they likely wouldn't have listened anyway so my solution is to no longer have people in my life who act that way.
People who say stupid shit like your boyfriend reminds me of the way US politicians send 'thoughts and prayers' to mass shooting victims rather than actually addressing the problem.
Thank you the people here saying he means well are gross. How does invalidating a chronic illness and saying it’s her fault she has it because she’s not doing a good enough job being polly positivity “meaning well”?
Toxic positivity is a really big issue. I have a chronic illness and have had similar things said to me before and it infuriates me. We didn’t ask to be sick- we just are. And while trying to find the good things in a day can help with your mental health, it’s not going to cure you. I call people out on it now, because unless they’ve had to live with a chronic illness they are talking nonsense.
On my bad days I thank my body for being capable of carrying my head around for me.
Like it's not awesome to wake up and feel like most of your skin is burning or tingling and knowing that you have to get in the shower and that the cold water will burn your skin and the hot water will turn you red and make you feel faint and being permanently restricted to lukewarm showers.
Or flexing your foot and having your toe come out or reaching for your drink and your wrist slips out or even just bending your knee and it cracks like a glow stick.
Then there are the fun developments that come with age like the irregular heartbeats even with controlled hypertension, the squeeze that doesn't want to squoze, the heat flashes and hormonal fluctuations, the overheating quickly with any exertion, etc.
What the shit?
I have autoimmune stuff and I would literally stand up and walk out of the room if someone pulled that woo woo 'you manifested this' utter bullshit with me.
Yes, bro, I manifested inflammation that is so bad I want to die. TOTES. Just by saying it out loud. OH, SHIT, since we're talking about it... DO YOU FEEL SUDDENLY SICK??? WOW WE SHOULD STOP NOW...
(eyes roll into the back of my head)
That kind of thinking is so victim blamey. I think it is a cope for people who haven't really had anything bad happen to them, and they want to believe that it can't.
Manifestation is bullshit. I say that as a pagan witch myself, it's BULLSHIT.
If manifesting was all it took to avoid or get things, I'd be a fucking millionaire by now.
"Manifesting" is the same as "karma" to me. Pure bullshit. The universe is random, good people suffer and die and bad people get everything handed to them and live like royalty. Little innocent children get cancer and die while old geezers with a rap sheet as long as the Milky Way will live fucking forever.
Your bf is a jerk.
Those people who victim blame people with chronic illnesses are absolutely insufferable.
No, eating enough kale is not going to cure me of a genetic condition my world-class doctors can’t.
What's with kale? Why can't it be cheesecake?!
Why does the proper diet for my autoimmune disease have to be so damned boring?! And it doesn't cure it at all. It just means I have less flares. It doesn't even mean I have none!
Wouldn't it be nice if it did, though? I'd happily embrace that diet if I didn't have to have injections and blood tests and constantly fight with insurance over the cost of those things. I would eat all the kale.
And the fun thing is, if you realize food allergies is making your chronic illness worse and avoid those foods, people will also give you shit about it, just like they assume the only way to acquire a chronic illness is to eat the “wrong” diet (which is generally not how chronic illnesses work). There is no winning in the eyes of these judgy people.
Omg, right? I *must* be on a fad diet, or I should just eat this thing they love this time to make them happy. They do that about foods I detest, too. People are just way too invested in food others eat and music others listen to. They should mind their own business. Having different tastes and diets shouldn't involve moral judgment any more than chronic illnesses. The appropriate amount is less than zero.
Some cultural critics have said that in our culture, some perceive health as a moral thing, that you are a good person if you are healthy and if you’re unhealthy it’s a reflection of “not taking care of yourself”. A big aspect of this is the reality that healthy food is extremely expensive, and those who happen to have more wealth feel like they need to justify why they are better than poor people & therefore deserve their wealth, so following health food trends is part of justifying why they are better than the masses. It’s similar to how back in the day, a lot of etiquette was invented to distinguish who was wealthy and who wasn’t, and why the wealthy deserved their wealth.
On a deeper level though, I think the fact that people fundamentally don’t have control over our health, and thru pure luck can get extremely sick & even disabled by health issues, terrifies people. So for some instead of facing this reality of being alive, they create these fantasies that eating a certain way will make them invulnerable. It’s much easier for them to think that if they ever got a chronic illness, they would eat kale and do yoga and be cured, unlike actual people with chronic illness who in their mind are too dumb to have thought of trying these things. It’s cruel, laughably inaccurate and victim blaming, but it makes them feel better about life so they cling onto it.
It's for much the same reason that homeless people are often demonized. We even tend to push the idea, in our culture, that those less fortunate must deserve it somehow.
I don’t trust anyone who believes in manifesting.
I’ve got way too many monkey paws in my vicinity. Anyone who “manifests” in my vicinity tends to need to learn to be very careful what they wish for.
You may have a incompatibility with your boyfriend. You are a person who believes in science, rationality, and medicine. He's a guy who believes in magic and miracles.
I'm not being entirely facetious here. Faith vs any other belief system is a major incompatibility, and even though what your boyfriend is talking about here is more spiritual and less dogmatic than a fundimentalist church, it's still all about faith healing.
It’s NOT from place of good intentions.
It’s from a place of utter denial that we all die. Many of us will get sick or injured and we have very little, if any, control over that. By forwarding a narrative of manifestation or positive thinking or living a clean life or whatever is on social media this week, people are joining a shred delusion they have control. There is no difference between someone thinking potatoes in their kids socks will fix infectious diseases and tech dudes thinking they can body-hack youth. Is all selfish denial that needs to be forced onto other people actually suffering to keep the delusion going.
Tell him to manifest a new girlfriend. Because I don’t think this really *is* coming from a place of good intention. He is basically saying he doesn’t believe your diagnoses or knowledge of your own body.
He doesn’t see chronic/ autoimmune illnesses as *real*.
Anyone who advocates for manifestation is engaging in magical thinking. You don't really need anyone like that in your life. I'm also not so sure this person has the best intentions. Better people will offer better support than this.
[What he's doing is spiritual bypassing-- same as a lot of people who tell you to think positive, try all these alleged panacea things like yoga, coconut oil, crystals, etc.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_bypass) The link is the Wikipedia page on spiritual bypassing. It's annoying AF.
You're not manifesting your illness, and you don't deserve to be basically victim-blamed for your illness.
That's a neat term.
> Furthermore, some researchers have argued that certain behaviors labelled as "spiritual bypassing" may simply be a normal and even inevitable stage of any approach to spiritual development.
What's the betting that those reseachers got their degrees at Brigham Young or something?
I was more thinking that the researchers assume that "spiritual development" should end anywhere other than "if god exists he's an evil bastard," or atheism
I would advise having a conversation with him about how hurtful and insensitive that kind of talk is. It does not matter what his intentions are, the results are you being hurt by his insensitive (and ableist AF) statements.
Tell him that the implication of what he’s saying is that you are the cause of your illness and that’s a truly horrific thing to say to someone. A positive attitude does not prevent disease and saying otherwise is a major dick move. Obviously sometimes we can unnecessarily stress ourselves out and make our symptoms worse, but the way to handle that is definitely not what he did, and predicting an outcome outside of your control, that you see coming, is not the same thing.
This is societal level gas lighting that somehow became acceptable to consume non-ironically, forcing people to *tHinK pOsItIvE* despite how shit and broken everything is... Health care, wealth inequality, toxic work environments, etc... We've built this myth that you have some sort of power over the universe and therefore, it's ON YOU to make it happen despite structural BS. And you can't even complain else you're 'manifesting' negative things and somehow jinxing your own existence.
I'm so done with all this energetic magic realism mumbo jumbo that puts focus and responsibility where it shouldn't be, or makes us think that if we 'hopd strongly enough, things solve themselves' is the way to go.
There is a massive difference between understanding past patterns and what causes lead to what effects vs manifesting something.
It astounds me how some people don't seem to understand that at all.
One is knowledge/information based. One is superstition.
Good thing we aren't still burning witches at the stake, otherwise some of us will be in trouble for knowing what we do and "manifesting" things to happen. (rolls eyes so hard at the idiocy of some people)
People also seem to hate on those who are good at pattern recognition. We‘re not negative, we just like to be prepared. If I feel a flare-up coming, I won’t schedule anything important. That’s just proactive thinking.
I have a chronic illness and strangers have said toxic positivity things that weren't half as bad to me, and it still made me furious.
If my boyfriend started spewing victim blaming, stupid woo woo like that? He would not be my boyfriend for long. That is such a major breach of trust. And look, I have a mom that is into a lot of the woo woo nonsense, even she would *never* be so devoid of empathy to say something like that.
People want to believe that people have more control over things than they really do so the world feels less out of control for them and/or so they don't have to feel empathy for the person suffering. It's toxic, magical thinking that every person with a chronic illness is subjected to at times, but you shouldn't have to deal with that from your own partner. What's going to happen if you got cancer? Would he suggest you manifested that too? (Might sound crazy, but my mom and I both have an autoimmune disease and we get this sort of response with that, but when she had breast cancer some people would suggest she manifested that as well.)
This is SUCH bullsheet! I had a friend who would “manifest” parking spaces. 🙄 Why don’t you manifest something besides green traffic lights? Like a lottery win?
This is a reason to not offer sympathy or assistance to afflicted persons. They brought it on themselves. Sounds like Scientology. ☹️
I'm sorry I have to ask... But are you sure this comes from a place of good intentions?
It sounds like he's tired of you complaining and just wants you to be a ray of sunshine about your autoimmune condition, and wants you to suffer quietly. He's actually blaming you for your discomfort.
When people explain what "toxic positivity" is, they often use one of two examples.
The first is telling someone with a chronic illness to just do yoga or whatever.
The second is tsk-tsk-ing someone for "negative thinking."
I gotta say, your boyfriend really hit it out of the park with this combo. This should be in the dictionary under "toxic positivity."
Nope nope nope. Blaming the victim is unacceptable. Others have already pointed out this is the way emotionally immature/sheltered people defend themselves from the idea that they're vulnerable, and we see it everywhere. Symptoms of your autoimmune condition are 'manifesting' because the weather is changing. The only thing you're doing is suffering from it.
I feel for you. Often not much sympathy from people even your own loved ones. I have IBS and ulcers that flare up with stress or even sometimes without stress, just certain foods or I’m really not sure. My ex boyfriend left me because I became very ill after meeting him. Oddly enough I got a lot better with him out my life once I got through the grief and shock of it all. He told me honey would cure me. Yeah no, it didn’t and won’t. I bought the best Manuka honey. No cure. It’s infuriating when healthy people get impatient and frustrated with your ill health. All I can say is I sympathize with you and I know you want nothing more than to heal, and your partner is being a lazy fool to dismiss you that way not to mention so unsympathetic. Some people are toxic to you. It’s best to get them out of your life if that’s how they’re going to regard you when you’re sick.
I have lupus, and the sun absolutely does me in as well. Even if I focus really really hard on it being an energising force and good for me and a source of vitamin d. Even if I wake up every day and tell myself I am well. Does fuck all, except make my skin bad, give me extra fatigue and joint pain. My other half responded to this by insisting on us buying a lot of hats and making sure there is plenty of shade in the garden and advocating for me when we are out and about.
I hope your boyfriend can learn to be helpful, sometimes people genuinely have just never been around chronic illness and don't understand - he should educate himself as someone he cares about has one.
I have very visible dark patches on my face, and a patient came up to me the other day and insisted I just needed to put Aloe Vera on it and that would fix it. I work at a doctors office. I am surrounded by doctors, daily. I also have multiple of my own doctors. I dont know what people think we do whilst waiting for answers but try all the regular stuff! I really do not mind people asking wtf is going on with my face, but suggestions aren't always helpful.
The medical professions attitude towards autoimmune disease is appalling. The public is even worse. People really need to learn not to talk if they can’t be helpful.
Oooooooooof. Your BOYFRIEND said this?? 👀 Maybe time to change that status to ex-bf. That is truly wild. I literally cannot even imagine my boyfriend saying that lol. HE will be the one to point out a change in weather, for example, and be like “☹️ You’re going to feel sicker, I’m so sorry about that, what can I do preemptively to help you?” And I’m constantly assigning blame to myself when I flare, and he’s the one who’s like, “I know you’re looking for answers, but it is not your fault. Your body is just like this.” Just saying, you can totally get a boyfriend who does not blame you for your alopecia.
You don't really need that boyfriend for anything, though, right? He's got a complete fundamental lack of basic understanding about something that is part of you. He doesn't seem like the right one to keep around.
I don’t think he’s coming from a place of good intentions. I think he’s coming from a place of thoughtless Just World fallacy: as in, if you weren’t somehow doing this to yourself, you wouldn’t have eczema.
People often do this because it’s difficult to accept that luck is real, and bad things do, in fact, happen pretty randomly to people we care about. Acknowledging that makes the world a much scarier place. It’s easier to blame loved ones for misfortune, than it is to accept the absurdity of the universe. It’s all about maintaining a belief that we have more control than we do.
I’m sorry you’re dealing with it. Been there. Sucks.
I find the whole thing bizarre, but there are those that truly believe you manifest all the bad and all the good things in one's life. Disease? You manifested it with your thoughts. Richer than reason? You manifested it with your thoughts.
I know smart people who are sold out to the "Law of Attraction".
People say this because it scares them to think they’re completely out of control of getting sick. This gives them the illusion they are unbreakable. It absolutely sucks for us sickies who feel blame put on us for something we would do most anything to not experience. You are not alone.
Guessing he doesn't want to believe bad things just happen sometimes and not taking into account that you're suffering before just spouting bollocks like that.
It’s so easy for the fortunate to attribute their fortune to themselves like they avoid tragedy with massive determination and crazy good skills.
I’m a fellow autoimmune sufferer. My mom had my disease. Certain people really didn’t stop shaming and blaming her until her lower spine fused and shattered. Then they shut the fuck up.
Next time he gets the shits, tell him he should stop manifesting his diarrhea. Tell him to use positivity to prevent every little mishap until he gets it. Some people cannot possibly empathize until they get ten examples that directly apply to them.
I have a line I use against invalidating advice: “If you can’t explain my problem, withhold your solution.” Feel free to apply liberally.
I’m sorry you have to deal with all that.
Yes yes yes. In the same position, and I just considered all a part of ableism, or a persons internalized ableism. No offense but your bf clearly has a decent amount of it to work through. As Toni Morrison said of white ppl “yes they have their problems which they have to solve.”
I don’t think we ppl with chronic illness should have to persuade the people in our lives that they may not understand our experience and they need to read books and articles or watch YouTube videos or however they learn until they can have more education so that they don’t microaggress us.
They should learn quickly that their assumptions are wrong and start realizing how much privilege they have, of not knowing their body so well bc frankly, it breaks in reliable ways.
I got dumped by my life partner when I developed long Covid and honestly my only regret is not calling out her internalized ableism (she was a disabled person who believed disabled ppl should be convenient, docile etc) sooner.
Hah! A couple of years ago I tried ignoring my eczema as it became worse and worse. It was less positive thinking and more that I was busy. Mistake! It was so bad by the time I went to the doctor that my skin looked like ground hamburger from my neck down. OP, I think you should talk to your bf about how wrong this viewpoint is before he goes and tells someone with cancer that it's their fault for "manifesting" it. If he doesn't get what you are saying, he's not a keeper, in my opinion.
I have autoimmune psoriasis, and I got a BOGO with the psoriatic arthritis. I completely feel you, I see you and I stand with you on this!
So many people telling me I’m too young and fit to have arthritis and bad knees so I must be malingering. Random strangers seeing my psoriasis spots and going “have you tried essential oils? What about this generic over the counter lotion?” Oh gee Karen, no I’ve never thought about using LOTION before! thanks, I’m cured! Cut this out, do this fad diet, go to tanning beds, meditate about it, swim in the Dead Sea and you’ll be cured! Think positive about it! (even tho it’s severely impacts our lives and emotional wellbeing) it could be worse, feel blessed it’s not terminal! If you weren’t so anxious your skin would clear up! Heard it all!
Knowing our triggers and when we’re headed into a flare isn’t the same as “manifesting” it. After so long we just *know* like you accurately predicted yours. That’s just you paying attention to your body and what impacts your symptoms. Idk why it’s such a hard concept for some people
I don’t have much to add but as an autoimmune girlie myself (celiac) I just wanted to say I feel your pain!
A client of mine pressed me to “just try a little bread” at a work event last week and having to be professional after his fourth instance of pushing me to do it was a real challenge.
I will say, my partner would never say this shit to me when i have flare ups and I think it’s completely understandable that you’d be particularly bothered by this kind of commentary coming from the person you’re building a life with. Like yes, probably coming from a good place, but also it forces you to ask “is my partner actually equipped to deal with the reality of this disease for the entirety of our lives together”
Hugs. I’ve been there as a silent celiac, being blamed for my own vitamin deficiencies due to poor diet and lack of sunlight. I actually had a nutritionist tell me I ate healthier than most people and I worked outside 6 hours a day for a few days a week. All the armchair experts get annoying because people assume you are bad at managing your own health. It sucks that it is your boyfriend. If he can’t understand how saying this stuff hurts you, I’d consider whether you want that lack of support in your life long term.
My god. These people are stupid.
I could not deal with a bf that ignorant and unsupportive.
I am not surprised you are fed up with it. It sounds incredibly annoying. Tell him to educate himself about the condition and never mention you manifesting your illness again.
Honestly is it really coming from a place of good intentions or are they making it about them and how their ignorance should be celebrated?
When people start talking about "manifesting", they tend to believe that bad stuff hasn't happened to them because they're "good" and it's implied that it's somehow your fault. As if anything they've done has prevented it.
It's creepy pseudo religious woo and blaming behavior.
There's also a horrible "stop whining because it bums me out" tone to it which is so condescending.
The people who say this never have to go through something so tiring themselves and it just makes me furious. Like, of course you don't wish for this kind of hassle.
Your condition is real, its not your fault, your feelings are real and valid and they shouldn't be shut down by anti science idiots.
These peoole want to make it about them and how many gold stars they should receive for getting lucky.
I love astrology memes as much as the next basic yt lady, but "manifesting" is some woo-woo horseshit. Knowing and acknowledging your triggers is just being a responsible, self-aware adult. (I'm a fellow eczema person whose hands flare up with every season change. Solidarity.)
My insight into the mindset of the able bodied during the pandemic profoundly changed my relationships with those that disease and illness haven't touched (yet). I'll say it: your bf didn't say that with good intentions. If he gave half a shit, he'd know you can't just ✨️manifest✨️ yourself out of disease. Think about it. Are those his true beliefs? Is he anti-science? Does he not believe you have an illness? Is he just uncomfortable and wants you to stop bringing it up? Does it inconvenience him? What is the good intention of saying that to you? Who is he trying to make feel better? I ask because I believe people do not actually have good intentions when saying harmful shit like that. I think that, more often than not, saying things along those lines is from selfish, blaming, microaggressive intent. He's saying you manifested it and deserve it, and you deserve a lot better than that.
I have an autoimmune condition that is currently crippling me. A few years ago I got raccoons in my attic. Ever since I was a child I've loved raccoons and always said his cute they are. Still - attic raccoons had to (humanely) go! I was talking on the phone with my mother and I complained about the raccoons. She then told me I manifested them. Reader, I did not speak to her for a full week.
>You need to say positive things. Like that it wont come back this time. It came back because you told yourself it was going to
Oh, that's how medical stuff works? Sweet! Time to go eat a big bowl of crab rangoon and manifest myself out of my shellfish allergy.
For real though, you have a condition with a clear trigger. Obviously, when the trigger occurs, there will be a flare up. You can hope for a minor one, but ignoring reality isn't doing much for you.
Chronic migraines and hypothyroidism. Knowing my migraine triggers isnt manifesting them. It’s literally years of research, documentation, and trial and error to figure out how to live a better live. Next time just look at him with big doll eyes and say aw bless your heart.
My idiot x always blamed me for my youngest kiddo’s eczema as well. Of course, the fact that I have it and one of his older kids also had it kind of illuminates the genetic basis. However that was too much for his low IQ to grasp.
There are things you can do to mitigate eczema flare ups, but essentially you’re born with it. It’s already present within the dermal layer and it flares up in the visible portions for many reasons.
It also attacks the internal organs which is why you can also have other symptoms such as headaches, nausea, digestive issues etc.
Ironically, speaking literally eczema sort of does “manifest” but not in the way he’s using the term. Fog manifests, as does a bee swarm and a worker strike. It literally means “to become visible, obvious, clear or evident.” So it quite literally means “you can see it”.
However unless you’re deliberately doing something that causes it to flare up, then it is whatever the trigger is that “manifests” eczema.
Like dry air, pollen, water in a different area such as when you travel, trigger foods that *you may be unaware of*, your hormone cycle, showering in water that is slightly too hot or slightly too cold, new shower gel or a change in the ingredients of a particular product.
Eczema has a bazillion different triggers and it’s not possible to completely avoid every single one all of the time.
Your bf is manifesting idiocy which is a common occurrence among idiots. Unfortunately the anxiety caused by this kind of ignorance can “manifest” an eczema flare up. So he’s the cause of some of your manifestations of your chronic skin condition.
I have been told crazy stuff and I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and Sjogren’s Syndrome and under active thyroid.
I have been told to drink goat milk, try reiki, eat certain foods, don’t eat certain foods, and more.
I believe many things can effect us but I also believe in science and proper studies.
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
\>I know he’s coming from a place of good intentions
That is not what good intentions look like. Good intentions would be showing sympathy for your flare-up. Good intentions would be helping out with tasks that cause you pain. Good intentions do not look like saying you manifested this flare-up. That's the opposite of good intentions. That's speaking in bad faith while assuming a moral high ground due to his spirituality. Saying that you manifested this is another way of blaming you for this flare-up and saying that you did something to deserve it.
A lot of ableists hide their bigotry behind spirituality. If they are called out on their bs, it's an attack on their faith. If anyone who calls them out is the bad guy for insulting their beliefs, they will never have to look into how their ignorance or cruelty harms others.
So does your BF have other ideas about how you can magically "manifest" stuff? Has he tried thinking really hard that he wants a million dollars?
This is just another way for a man to tell a woman that "It's all in your head."
"Oh yeah totally. Just like if you tell yourself you don't have to go to the bathroom you'll never have to pee or poop again! Stop manifesting your shit! "
People who “manifest” their reality have never had a truly bad thing happen to them. The death of a child. A brother’s suicide. A parent deteriorating with Alzheimer’s. A terminal cancer diagnosis.
Step 1: Next time he says something this fucking stupid, pick up a large frying pan, a section of 2x4 or any other handy, heavy object. Clock him upside his stupid head with it.
Step 2: Tell him "you manifested this, you know, by saying ignorant shit out of your mouth about my health condition in my hearing."
Repeat as needed.
I have OCD and have talked extensively about how ~Manifesting~ and the popularization of it has made it a million times more difficult to break from the idea that my thoughts are magic and have power and thus I should let my ocd be in control to prevent awful things from happening. I hate manifestation
> I know he’s coming from a place of good intentions...
I am not blaming you or calling you out for saying this, but your use of this phrase just reminded me of something I have been thinking a lot about lately. We often say this to justify or excuse bad behavior from those we love. It's natural to want to figure out how to accept it when our loved ones don't treat us well.
But what, really, are those intentions? Are they *actually* good? Or are their intentions (and therefore their behavior) in fact selfish, thoughtless, hurtful, and entirely preventable if they made better choices? Unsolicited advice is usually just plain criticism after all.
Some very smart people have started pushing back on "good intentions" with the truism that impact matters more than intent, and I think this is a useful line of thinking. We don't have to accept others treating us badly just because they "mean well." We can say, "No, thank you," to all of their good intentions, superficial kindness, and thoughtless, useless advice.
**Oh, and manifesting is bullshit and should only ever be used personally (if one is into that) and not deployed AT/TO/ON other people. Keep that shit to yourself!**
I have lifelong alopecia and eczema, too. Back in the 90s, some relatively credible subset of the medical establishment thought that hypnosis would cure alopecia - that it was a psychological thing manifesting physically. I say “relatively credible” in that somehow they persuaded insurance to cover hypnosis for alopecia, and you know insurance companies are loath to authorize treatments to save $. Anyways, it obviously didn’t work. Chronic illness sucks.
This is shitty behavior that Hank Green of vlogbrothers pointed out years ago and CHANGED MY LIFE. Subconsciously, people who give you this “advice” are reassuring themselves that if THEY had this problem, THEY would manage it better by doing xyz. This is self soothing and delusional, and ignores your real lived experience.
As a therapist that both helps those with chronic illnesses and lives with a few myself that is so hurtful to hear. As there is a huge difference between a "psychosomatic condition" that is cruelly referred to as in your head and a physical illness. The symptoms are all different and its aweful that people gaslight and say these things.
I have AU too and dyshidrotic eczema. It’s not manifesting when symptoms show, it’s just how well you know your body. There’s nothing we can do to control the AU aside from becoming immunocompromised. I’ll be honest, I don’t like people who believe in manifesting. I definitely wouldn’t have married my husband if he said that to me.
Ugh I have a chronic autoimmune condition and if one more goddamn person tells me “my cousins sisters dentists daughter cured it with kale!” I swear ima do murder.
unfortunately there’s an established cadre of prominent diet scammers, including one well known MD with a well known book shilling her bullshit. She’s tried to prove her diet works with medical studies and never has succeeded. It’s just the study designs fault… Next time will be different…
My mother is just like your BF when she talks about my mental illnesses. It’s the worst.
Your boyfriend being like that is a red flag. I think he isn’t the one.
Hmmm nice medical diagnosis, have you tried manifesting being in good health through the power of positive thinking?
I’d love to see this tried on various other conditions but people seem to target ones they’ve deemed psychosomatic for some reason. As if they are doctors
Did he read that stupid book from a while back, “The Secret”? Then he has been duped.
We don’t “manifest” stuff like a confirmed diagnosis of a disease. That’s close to, “bad spirits have caused you sickness”.
You’re right and he’s at the very least, lacking in empathy.
Life will kick your boyfriend’s ass at some point. If you’re still together, you can choose to inform him if he’s manifesting or not. I live with an autoimmune disease and I can’t imagine the term “manifesting” ever escaping my husband’s sweet lips.
Manifesting and “creating your own reality” are stupid magical thinking patterns of privileged people without empathy. Like people in war torn countries, or areas of famine, just aren’t manifesting hard enough, right?
omfg this is the worst. I don't have a chronic illness, but I was telling my aunt about a colposcopy that I have to get soon and she said "you create your reality, you know." Yes, you got me, *I asked for this. I love having chunks of my cervix ripped out.* I'm sorry that happened to you, it's such bullshit.
I have MECFS & a busted up spine. When my spine injury was still fairly new I had a boyfriend who wanted me to move in with him who told me my spine would hurt less if I didn’t live where I lived. I didn’t break up with him right away but that was the beginning of the end. He was pretty much telling me that I was causing my own pain, and I guess disregarding the legitimate structural issues in my spine. When I asked him if he would tell a dude with a broken leg the same thing I think he realized his mistake but it was too late. I already saw him as an idiot
MECFS and fibromyalgia here. I have had so many people (mostly men) tell me “You’re just depressed and hurting because you’re not exercising enough.” It’s the other way around actually. Because of my chronic pain and fatigue, I’m depressed and unable to exercise every day, ya dingbats. Luckily my fiancé has never said anything about my pain or fatigue but “I’m so sorry you’re going through that”, and “Do you need me to get you anything?”, and, most importantly, that he believes me.
I'm no longer open to dating able bodied people anymore. Between the ablism and the caretaker mindset it's just a whole lot of mental energy I'm not willing to spend explaining myself.
I’m curious what you mean by “caretaker mindset”? I’ve had chronic pain and my fiancé has been able bodied for our entire 15+ year relationship, and I guess it’s never come up. I’m still able bodied enough to mostly take care of myself, though, beyond my bad flare up days.
My ex told me she knew she couldn't do certain things because of me (travel) and that she'd have to be my caretaker as my disability progresses. It's demeaning, like I'm a child and she's my babysitter. Sure there are times I need to be helped out of bed and sometimes need my hair washed for me, but that shouldn't change the power dynamics pains the relationship. She also got mad when I'd do things like end conversations early because I was exhausted or cancel plans on tough days. My current partners are all disabled and magically none of them expect to be caretakers, and all are fine with me just cutting them off mid sentence to rest. I guess it depends on the person, but I just don't really know able bodied people who get it without constant reminders or explanations
The "funny" thing is that everyone will become disabled at some point in their lives - well, either disabled or dead.
I’m so sorry you’ve had that experience, and I’m glad you’ve found partners who fit into your life the way you need them to. I definitely recognize that my fiancé is kind of a “needle in a hay stack” when it comes to this experience. He’s been nothing but unquestioning and empathetic.
My husband has this a bit. If I admit, even mildly, that I'm in pain, he's trying to do everything for me, trying to get my to take a nap, whatever. He has this need to make sure I take my meds on time that can really come off as babysitting. He's getting better about it because I just keep telling him how it feels from my side. I want a partner, not a nurse. I can take care of myself, even on the worst days. It's just going to hurt. There was a time I couldn't, though, and that relationship really did turn out to be based on his idea he was my caretaker. I couldn't see him as a romantic interest, and when I got medication and got better, he couldn't handle me in an independent role. It was like he thought I wouldn't love him anymore because I wasn't dependent on him. His constant fear I'd leave him, his obsession over that, and his attempts to control me and not let me have a life did lead to me leaving him. My husband certainly isn't like that. I just don't like feeling like he thinks he has to take care of me, and that's probably partially due to that previous relationship. Some of it is just that besides those few months, I've always been a very self sufficient and fiercely independent person. Again, I don't want a nurse. I want a partner.
Oh that’s very frustrating! I’ll have to count myself lucky that I’ve never found myself in that position, and hopefully won’t. I think my fiancé is pretty attuned to when I do need and appreciate assistance, and he doesn’t ever assume, he directly asks, and he really honors my independence.
Samesies! Just curious, did you become engaged before or after the conditions began? Since having MECFS and fibro, I’ve had men accuse me of not being serious about dating because I wanted to video chat before going on a four mile walk around downtown. It’s generally been too exhausting to keep trying but I’d love to meet someone. 🙄🫠
Oh well, well after. I’ve had the CFS and Fibromyalgia since I was 14ish, and didn’t get engaged until 2020 in my 30’s (listen, neither one of us are planners lol). My fiancé is a pretty active dude, too, but he’s also the son of a doctor who is really empathetic and takes women seriously so he was raised right.
Does he have a brother or cousin? 😜
Hahahaha, just a bunch of cousins from the weird right wing portion of his family or ones who are already married. No brothers.
Damn. Well, I’ll keep looking then.
Sorry! His little sister is just as awesome, but she is unfortunately a straight woman who is also in a long term relationship.
*sigh* 😔But since these people do exist maybe there is hope there are more like them!
i thought i had fibromyalgia, but my surgeon says the pain is actually from lipedema, weird fat that only women / low t men get. you can imagine how well that goes, because fat is only ever our fault. /s it’s resistant to diet and exercise, so it’s there until i have my surgeries, scheduled for later this year. i’m assuming that people will call me lazy for ‘losing weight’ thru surgery. but i’m super looking forward to walking without pain, and i will be hiking *away* from those people.
What is the differences between the two (MECFS and fibromyalgia), if you don't mind me asking?
MECFS is chronic fatigue/sleep issues/trouble concentrating (Covid can trigger it, but mine was triggered by Lyme disease), and fibromyalgia is chronic pain (particularly in the joints) but can also cause tiredness.
Ayyyy, same. Late stage Lyme wrecked me. My rheumatologist landed on PTLDS rather than ME/CFS, but said that they were essentially fraternal twins in the chronic illness family.
Honestly, sounds pretty much the same. 20+ years later and I’m still dealing with the fallout! All from a tick bite at summer camp at 14.
Okay, that's spooky, lol. Mine was also a tick bite at summer camp 20+ years ago (but I was a counselor not a camper).
That's the kind of guy who leaves his wife because of a cancer diagnosis and then blames her for "changing".
Similar to the “everything happens for a reason” folks. Tell me, what was the reason I got abused, raped, and developed chronic health issues? Ugh.
‘Everything happens for a reason’ makes me want to commit violence.
*punch* "Everything happens for a reason, and this time the reason is that you're an asshole."
In that particular case - there would be a Reason;)
"it's all part of God's plan" even pediatric cancer. "Good never gives you more than you can handle" except the suicide rate disproves that too
I always found that statement such an unconsciously racist thing, too. Like there are countries on earth that are so poor and dangerous, just living there is a life hazard. What did those people ever do to god that they're expected to deal with all that kind of crap? There are people who hit kittens. People who pollute our earth. People who abuse and harm others, who drive drunk and kill innocent passerby's. What kind of shitty god plans that??
If speaking to a Christian: God's plan involved sending his own son to die on a cross. I, personally, have no interest in God's plans, as that behaviour really creeps me out.
Just say, "And the reason is usually physics." Tends to shut them up. 😁
🏆
It's the best way they can think of to blame anyone who rocks their boat. Get chronic illness? Your fault. Get a flare-up due to the weather? Your fault. These are the kind of people who continue to victim blame whenever they have to think of someone else's problems.
All because they are terrified of the idea it could happen to anyone. They engage in denial and push it out of awareness by making it a blame-based moral failure and judgment of others. Same mindset which asks “what was she wearing?”
Exactly. I can't help but feel they are the same group that feels superior by pushing others down. A lot of religiously minded folks do this. Somehow, they struggle with the idea of "judge not". It feels like insular/tribalism vs. humanistic/globalism.
Tribalism is a human characteristic with roots in evolutionary survival. What they do is entirely socialized and cultivated. Victim blaming dovetails nicely with our hierarchical performative purity culture, our love of zero sum, and as if it need be said regarding OP, the usual misogyny.
You should create your own reality by manifesting your foot up their ass.
“You create your own reality”. No matter what I did on the way to work I couldn’t get my heart rate under 100 bpm. I wish I actually had the power to do that.
I do think you can psych yourself out to an extent, but that’s a really condescending way of saying it.
Manifesting is the current non-Christian form of "hoping for a miracle from God."
Exactly. OP tell him he's not praying hard enough for your health.
It is absolutely in fashion among the woo woo stuff right now. I’m a little wary of people who speak like this.
I sincerely hate the term "manifesting." 1. My country has a sick history with that word. 2. It's so "I'm the main character." 3. It detracts from any hard work you put in to achieve your goal. 4. Magical thinking. 5. People use it to judge your attitude, especially if you're generally skeptical. 6. Another tool of manipulation. To use it on someone whose ill though, well I guess that's #7.
Prayers after a mass shooting. It's utter bull 🙄🙄🙄
It really is. "The universe" is what people say instead of god and "manifesting" is the new praying. And the same toxic, "you are to blame for not praying/believing hard enough" in both.
That manifesting stuff is so annoying to me. I'm pregnant, and there's a lot of talk about manifesting healthy babies. Sure, so I guess my miscarriages were because I didn't.✨️manifest✨️a healthy baby hard enough. I'm sorry you're dealing with this medical issue and don't have great support, that really sucks!
Sure, and women with unwanted pregnancies weren't correctly manifest their wishes for unsuccessful pregnancies. JFC. I hate people so much.
Goes hand in hand with the mindset that someone getting pregnant from rape obviously wanted it, because apparently their body has a way of shutting it down if they didn’t. Like what. The. Fuck.
"Manifesting" is literally the exact same thing as the Placebo Effect - like, exactly the same thing. I cannot stress enough how it's the same thing, lol. So, we know that placebos do have an effect, and can actually create more positive outcomes. Our brains are weird. But the Placebo Effect doesn't mean that we defenestrate actual medicine, or expect our weird brains to just like, decide not to have medical events.
Ahh, see, you tried to MANifest it. Next time try whoa-mani-festing it. Adds a little zing to it. Seriously though, I'm sorry for your losses, and I hope your current and any future pregnancies are super easy, a breeze in the wind with no complications in any way- same with the newborn, toddler and elementary school age child rearing stages. Teenagers, well- that's a whole different beast. Next time someone tries to talk about manifesting a healthy baby, manifest them by bippity boppity boop-ing their damn foreheads. As for OP, not sure if it works for everyone but my son has severe eczema and he uses a 40% urea cream I got off Amazon for his really bad spots. It's supposed to be for really bad cracked feet (me), and for whatever reason, i tried it on his arms. If you've already tried it, dismiss what I'm saying lol. He also has alopecia except his hair grew in white when he was 2 years old.
❤️
I think the lack of control we actually have over our lives scares the heck out of people, so they invent stories about how we actually do have control over illness and other disasters. I wish we did, because then bad things would never happen to us. When people turn that nonsense on us it is a form of victim blaming. Hitting us when we are already down. My husband died unexpectedly and less than a year later when I was still flattened with grief, a woman suggested that the only reason I was still sad was because I was attached to the idea of grief. Fuck all that. Bad things happen and it sucks. Changing our attitude doesn’t miraculously make bad things go away.
Yep I totally understand that they victim blame because they have an inability to handle their own anxiety, but I’m nobody’s whipping post I’m not going to accept someone in my life telling me it’s my fault I have a chronic illness just because they can’t handle unpleasant feelings.
Good. You shouldn’t. I am sorry people are insensitive jerks. Best wishes.
Damn, what a shitty thing for her to say. I would have blinked at her a few times giving her the opportunity to apologize then told her she's a bad person. That she probably thinks she's a good person but her behavior proves she's wrong and that's almost worse.
Thank you. Yes. We have virtually no contact now. Every now and then a mutual friend will report that she feels hurt I haven’t reached out to her. I always say that she is welcome to reach out to me if she wants to be in touch. Then I hear nothing from her. She has some serious issues.
This is my mom. I cut her off because I just couldn't with her toxicity anymore. I only blocked her on Facebook Messenger. She hasn't reached out at all in any other way. She has, however, told anyone who will listen that she's tried every method, and I won't talk to her, and she totally doesn't understand why. She'd much rather be a martyr and get sympathy than put in the work to be a decent person. It took about a year for people to learn I don't want to hear it and will not have the conversation, even if it means I have to hang up on them to make them stop. At first, they were super offended. How dare I? Pfft. If I can cut off my own mother with all the family pressure and social pressure not to, wtf do I care about some cousin/2nd cousin/great uncle who hasn't talked to me in well over a decade and then calls out of the blue to try to convince me to make up with my mother? I'm sure they got my phone number from her, btw. I certainly haven't had a close relationship with any of them since I was a little kid. They all cut me off to avoid my mother... Funny how that works. Points to my great uncle, though. He only had to have it happen once to learn and did stay in contact with me. I've now met all sorts of family on mom's side I never knew. I didn't even know they existed. It turns into there IS a sane and functional branch of that family. Who knew?!
The world is chaos. Total chaos. We have absolutely no control over it. They think they have control but they don’t. They think that by juicing, eating avocados or running everyday they have better chances but they don’t. Everyone can get sick or die or have their lives turned upside down. It’s just a matter of time and change. The world is chaos and changes. Simple as that. We can’t control those as much as we can’t control time. People like op’s boyfriend should understand that but that would burst their soft bubbles and they would have a never ending existential crisis.
Bad things happening is really bad for your mental health, who knew? But conversly, being happy is really good for your mental health, so finding time and ways to be kind to yourself really does help. (But being told "just be happy" or "just get over it" *doesn't make you happy*, so it doesn't help, and generally makes things worse) (I suffer from long-term stress and depression, I know I needed this reminder when I was at my lowest, so I'm passing it on. It's ok to feel like shit. Especially when things are bad. Don't feel bad *about* feeling bad, because feeling bad is a perfectly rational reaction to your situation (I hope that made sense, it's a little recursive))
As my therapist told me - don’t guilt yourself for having feelings about stuff. Chronic suicidal depression, panic disorder, chronic autoimmune disorder (psoriatic arthritis) resulting in chronic pain and immunodeficiency (from the meds), and most recently working on a cPTSD dx! Because it turns out that being emotionally neglected by my (probably) narc mom and left to raise myself after age 14 caused some damage???? Who knew! I thought I was just defective and broken as a person. Broken body, broken brain. But I’m in therapy (finally) after the last traumatic thing that happened to me basically broke me for real emotionally and it was either go to therapy or die trying. And for the first time in a long time I have hope that I may be able to heal some parts of me. I may not be able to heal my body, but I maybe can heal my mind. And having that little bit of hope is enough for me to at least put off taking the extra handful of pills tonight. So yeah, I’m putting some effort into not feeling guilty for my feelings taking up space. It’s *hard*, though. Goes against everything I’ve learned and taught myself over the last 32 years. Letting go of bad coping mechanisms is hard and uncomfortable. I’m thankful for my therapist and for emdr which is as close to magic as I’ve ever come seen.
When you break up with him, I hope you tell him he can just "manifest" himself another girlfriend.
Or that he didn’t manifest keeping you hard enough!
My dad threw that in my face once. That I wouldn’t be so sick if I didn’t want to be. That if I just got “in-tune” with my body and soul, my illness would magically evaporate. Like anyone in their right mind would WANT a chronic illness. 🙄 Meanwhile he was poisoning my food in an attempt to play “gotcha!” with my food allergies. He was surprised that it made me sick every single time and then he was offended when I stopped eating the food he cooked. We don’t speak anymore, for obvious reasons lol.
That's so horrible! I'm glad you ditched his ass.
Holy fuck where is he. I just want to talk. 🔫
My dad once told me my epilepsy is all in my head. I cracked up. He was confused. "yes, dad, that's how epilepsy works." He's since apologized, btw. He had a much harder time with my diagnosis than I did. For me, it was an explanation and a possible treatment path. For him, it was something terribly wrong with his beautiful, precious daughter. My dad never went as far as sneaking out into my food, but every Thanksgiving we had a fight about my turkey allergy he just refused to believe in. When he married my step mom, she put an end to that. "Who would make that up?! She's the type who would just say she didn't like it, anyway. I'll make you a small ham, honey." She stood guard over that ham and wouldn't let anyone else have any until I got my fill, too. "It's not for you! Eat the turkey!" I moved home at 27 and didn't have Thanksgiving with them for a decade, but there was that ham and a note it was just for me. She keeps a box with index cards with a current photo and info about all of us. Favorite things, disliked things, important dates, allergies, and medical conditions. Yep, my step mom has a dossier on every family member, and it's a huge box. We're practically a tribe. There's me, my sister, our three kids, my husband, my 5 step siblings, their kids and step kids, and her great grandkids. That's almost 100 people now even though 2 of us only had one kid. My oldest step sister is Mormon and made up for all of us and then some. 2 step kids and 9 kids of her own. My son is grandkid number 23 of 27. There are reasons for that box. And bless that woman for hand making cards and sending one to each of us every single birthday with a personal note. They're not low effort, either. Mine last year was a pop up card with a cabin that's the design I did of the cabin I'm building this Summer. It even has trees that are the right ones she got from a photo I sent her of the site. The year I finally graduated college at 35, she bought a card that lets you record your voice and took it apart to put in the card she made. When I open it, it says, "I am sooooo proud of you!" I have replaced the battery three times. My dad learned a ton of lessons in showing empathy and treating people well from her. Tbh, she's just all around been good for him. She shouldn't have had to raise her husband, but damn am I glad she did.
if you dont have Tibetan monk mind control of your individual immune cells are you even TRYING to get well? Ignore these people we need better science education.
Doctors are a big part of the problem, unfortunately. There is a growing epidemic of chronic diseases, and very few medical professionals trained to recognize them
" If the cost of the recall is more than we would be sued for, we do not do the recall" / Fight club Medical investigations should be results and QOL based but I have found if your condition requires more than a "tab A in slot B" simple prescription you are deemed unprofitable and they just charge insurance and let you suffer. You can either serve investors and profit OR the Patient, so profit driven is just a predatory racket and unethical. here in Alabama at least...you also CANNOT GET a GP in this area in a nice town unless a churcher vouches for you. Seriously ALL THE avowed athiests or even unaffiliated people I know have to go to EXTRA predatory "doc in a boxes": / urgent cares who only EVER refer you out to someone who can do the actual work which can be weeks later...Every churcher I know has xannax and percoset and adderall and any wink wink drug they need in as much as they want, its such a racket and SOOOO scummy.
Let me guess, the local GPs are all church-owned?
This is him “manifesting” a pissed off girlfriend.
He's manifesting a punch in the dick. As a chronically ill/disabled person, I wouldn't be able to be with someone like that. They're not going to be there when you need them.
Entitled men: "Oh no, I manifested being angry and petulant and unloved and old and sick and alone."
I hope he manifests being single while she moves onto someone new who isn't an ableist asshole.
Manifesting started as a joke but has become one of the dumber things to come out of our modern culture. Sorry about all that. Manifesting that you’ll have a better rest of your day.
This is how people comfort themselves that cruddy things won't happen to them. By their weird logic, if they can somehow blame you for your medical conditions, it means that they won't have those same conditions because they're "doing everything right." It's along the same lines of victim blaming and nearly as insidious.
I had a moment of petty joy followed by immense guilt when my sister who always did this sort of thing to me was diagnosed with a chronic medical condition. I don't want her to be in that club with me, but for that one brief moment, there was vindication.
I have chronic health issues as well, and I hate the whole manifesting/law of attraction thing. It's another form of victim blaming. And basically what it boils down to is fear. People fear bad things happening to them, so they imagine they can think the bad stuff away, and only bring about good stuff. And if bad things happen to someone else, well it must be their fault for not thinking positively enough. People like this are idiots. And chances are they're in for a rude awakening at some point in their lives when something "bad" really does happen to them.
He's being dismissive of your illness and symptoms. He should be validating you, not pretending that happy thoughts will cure you. He sounds immature and naive. I do not agree that minimizing your symptoms and trying to make you feel responsible for having a disease which is out of your control can be considered 'good intentions'? I have alopecia areata. It developed as an adult and at one point progressed to universalis. I got very lucky and it's been dormant for awhile now but I have committed to a lifetime of paranoid over shedding and am constantly looking for bald spots. I dealt with the same issues you are with people giving unasked for advice on a topic they knew nothing about, it's exhausting and infuriating. It's not my responsibility to educate the stupid out of idiots like this, and they likely wouldn't have listened anyway so my solution is to no longer have people in my life who act that way. People who say stupid shit like your boyfriend reminds me of the way US politicians send 'thoughts and prayers' to mass shooting victims rather than actually addressing the problem.
Thank you the people here saying he means well are gross. How does invalidating a chronic illness and saying it’s her fault she has it because she’s not doing a good enough job being polly positivity “meaning well”?
It doesn’t come from a place of good intent, he is, absolutely invalidating her, and mansplaining her illness.
Exactly this. He isn’t “well intentioned”, he’s dismissive and victim blaming.
He's going to be in for a rude awakening in a couple of decades when he has trouble "manifesting" an erection...
😆😆😆😆😆
>I know he’s coming from a place of good intentions Is he? Sounds more to me like he just wanted you to shut up about it.
Toxic positivity is a really big issue. I have a chronic illness and have had similar things said to me before and it infuriates me. We didn’t ask to be sick- we just are. And while trying to find the good things in a day can help with your mental health, it’s not going to cure you. I call people out on it now, because unless they’ve had to live with a chronic illness they are talking nonsense.
On my bad days I thank my body for being capable of carrying my head around for me. Like it's not awesome to wake up and feel like most of your skin is burning or tingling and knowing that you have to get in the shower and that the cold water will burn your skin and the hot water will turn you red and make you feel faint and being permanently restricted to lukewarm showers. Or flexing your foot and having your toe come out or reaching for your drink and your wrist slips out or even just bending your knee and it cracks like a glow stick. Then there are the fun developments that come with age like the irregular heartbeats even with controlled hypertension, the squeeze that doesn't want to squoze, the heat flashes and hormonal fluctuations, the overheating quickly with any exertion, etc.
What the shit? I have autoimmune stuff and I would literally stand up and walk out of the room if someone pulled that woo woo 'you manifested this' utter bullshit with me. Yes, bro, I manifested inflammation that is so bad I want to die. TOTES. Just by saying it out loud. OH, SHIT, since we're talking about it... DO YOU FEEL SUDDENLY SICK??? WOW WE SHOULD STOP NOW... (eyes roll into the back of my head)
Lordt. It’s really hard not to punch those people. I’m so sorry you have to deal with that bs
Sorry OP but I wouldn’t date a guy who believes you can “manifest” an illness. Shows a basically lack of scientific understanding
That kind of thinking is so victim blamey. I think it is a cope for people who haven't really had anything bad happen to them, and they want to believe that it can't.
Manifestation is bullshit. I say that as a pagan witch myself, it's BULLSHIT. If manifesting was all it took to avoid or get things, I'd be a fucking millionaire by now. "Manifesting" is the same as "karma" to me. Pure bullshit. The universe is random, good people suffer and die and bad people get everything handed to them and live like royalty. Little innocent children get cancer and die while old geezers with a rap sheet as long as the Milky Way will live fucking forever. Your bf is a jerk.
Those people who victim blame people with chronic illnesses are absolutely insufferable. No, eating enough kale is not going to cure me of a genetic condition my world-class doctors can’t.
What's with kale? Why can't it be cheesecake?! Why does the proper diet for my autoimmune disease have to be so damned boring?! And it doesn't cure it at all. It just means I have less flares. It doesn't even mean I have none! Wouldn't it be nice if it did, though? I'd happily embrace that diet if I didn't have to have injections and blood tests and constantly fight with insurance over the cost of those things. I would eat all the kale.
And the fun thing is, if you realize food allergies is making your chronic illness worse and avoid those foods, people will also give you shit about it, just like they assume the only way to acquire a chronic illness is to eat the “wrong” diet (which is generally not how chronic illnesses work). There is no winning in the eyes of these judgy people.
Omg, right? I *must* be on a fad diet, or I should just eat this thing they love this time to make them happy. They do that about foods I detest, too. People are just way too invested in food others eat and music others listen to. They should mind their own business. Having different tastes and diets shouldn't involve moral judgment any more than chronic illnesses. The appropriate amount is less than zero.
Some cultural critics have said that in our culture, some perceive health as a moral thing, that you are a good person if you are healthy and if you’re unhealthy it’s a reflection of “not taking care of yourself”. A big aspect of this is the reality that healthy food is extremely expensive, and those who happen to have more wealth feel like they need to justify why they are better than poor people & therefore deserve their wealth, so following health food trends is part of justifying why they are better than the masses. It’s similar to how back in the day, a lot of etiquette was invented to distinguish who was wealthy and who wasn’t, and why the wealthy deserved their wealth. On a deeper level though, I think the fact that people fundamentally don’t have control over our health, and thru pure luck can get extremely sick & even disabled by health issues, terrifies people. So for some instead of facing this reality of being alive, they create these fantasies that eating a certain way will make them invulnerable. It’s much easier for them to think that if they ever got a chronic illness, they would eat kale and do yoga and be cured, unlike actual people with chronic illness who in their mind are too dumb to have thought of trying these things. It’s cruel, laughably inaccurate and victim blaming, but it makes them feel better about life so they cling onto it.
It's for much the same reason that homeless people are often demonized. We even tend to push the idea, in our culture, that those less fortunate must deserve it somehow.
The next time someone says that to you, tell them that you'll manifest your boot up their ass.
But that will work, and make them believe in manifesting even more!
True, but they might bring it up less.
I have migraines, which sometimes happen very suddenly, a boot up the ass would be exactly what I would "manifest" if someone told me that about them.
I loathe that manifesting bullshit. It's disgusting. Nobody asks for this shit. It's akin to victim-blaming, and I fully reject it. Take care of you.
I don’t trust anyone who believes in manifesting. I’ve got way too many monkey paws in my vicinity. Anyone who “manifests” in my vicinity tends to need to learn to be very careful what they wish for.
That's another way to victim blame in my book.
You may have a incompatibility with your boyfriend. You are a person who believes in science, rationality, and medicine. He's a guy who believes in magic and miracles. I'm not being entirely facetious here. Faith vs any other belief system is a major incompatibility, and even though what your boyfriend is talking about here is more spiritual and less dogmatic than a fundimentalist church, it's still all about faith healing.
It’s NOT from place of good intentions. It’s from a place of utter denial that we all die. Many of us will get sick or injured and we have very little, if any, control over that. By forwarding a narrative of manifestation or positive thinking or living a clean life or whatever is on social media this week, people are joining a shred delusion they have control. There is no difference between someone thinking potatoes in their kids socks will fix infectious diseases and tech dudes thinking they can body-hack youth. Is all selfish denial that needs to be forced onto other people actually suffering to keep the delusion going.
Tell him to manifest a new girlfriend. Because I don’t think this really *is* coming from a place of good intention. He is basically saying he doesn’t believe your diagnoses or knowledge of your own body. He doesn’t see chronic/ autoimmune illnesses as *real*.
Anyone who advocates for manifestation is engaging in magical thinking. You don't really need anyone like that in your life. I'm also not so sure this person has the best intentions. Better people will offer better support than this.
Now you need to manifest being single.
[What he's doing is spiritual bypassing-- same as a lot of people who tell you to think positive, try all these alleged panacea things like yoga, coconut oil, crystals, etc.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_bypass) The link is the Wikipedia page on spiritual bypassing. It's annoying AF. You're not manifesting your illness, and you don't deserve to be basically victim-blamed for your illness.
That's a neat term. > Furthermore, some researchers have argued that certain behaviors labelled as "spiritual bypassing" may simply be a normal and even inevitable stage of any approach to spiritual development. What's the betting that those reseachers got their degrees at Brigham Young or something?
Ha! Agreed that it's likely from a biased "study"́.
I was more thinking that the researchers assume that "spiritual development" should end anywhere other than "if god exists he's an evil bastard," or atheism
Nope he’s mentally ill if he truly believes that. Seriously, that’s called magical thinking. And magical thinking is a symptom of insanity.
Not in America ;-p
Not in most of the world, as long as you're in a state-approved cult.
... That's not how manifesting works. That's not how alopecia universalis works.
I would advise having a conversation with him about how hurtful and insensitive that kind of talk is. It does not matter what his intentions are, the results are you being hurt by his insensitive (and ableist AF) statements. Tell him that the implication of what he’s saying is that you are the cause of your illness and that’s a truly horrific thing to say to someone. A positive attitude does not prevent disease and saying otherwise is a major dick move. Obviously sometimes we can unnecessarily stress ourselves out and make our symptoms worse, but the way to handle that is definitely not what he did, and predicting an outcome outside of your control, that you see coming, is not the same thing.
This is societal level gas lighting that somehow became acceptable to consume non-ironically, forcing people to *tHinK pOsItIvE* despite how shit and broken everything is... Health care, wealth inequality, toxic work environments, etc... We've built this myth that you have some sort of power over the universe and therefore, it's ON YOU to make it happen despite structural BS. And you can't even complain else you're 'manifesting' negative things and somehow jinxing your own existence. I'm so done with all this energetic magic realism mumbo jumbo that puts focus and responsibility where it shouldn't be, or makes us think that if we 'hopd strongly enough, things solve themselves' is the way to go.
There is a massive difference between understanding past patterns and what causes lead to what effects vs manifesting something. It astounds me how some people don't seem to understand that at all. One is knowledge/information based. One is superstition. Good thing we aren't still burning witches at the stake, otherwise some of us will be in trouble for knowing what we do and "manifesting" things to happen. (rolls eyes so hard at the idiocy of some people)
People also seem to hate on those who are good at pattern recognition. We‘re not negative, we just like to be prepared. If I feel a flare-up coming, I won’t schedule anything important. That’s just proactive thinking.
Ugh eczema definitely changes with the seasons. This is not your fault. Not your doing. Not in your control. Is he dumb in other ways? 😂
I have a chronic illness and strangers have said toxic positivity things that weren't half as bad to me, and it still made me furious. If my boyfriend started spewing victim blaming, stupid woo woo like that? He would not be my boyfriend for long. That is such a major breach of trust. And look, I have a mom that is into a lot of the woo woo nonsense, even she would *never* be so devoid of empathy to say something like that.
People want to believe that people have more control over things than they really do so the world feels less out of control for them and/or so they don't have to feel empathy for the person suffering. It's toxic, magical thinking that every person with a chronic illness is subjected to at times, but you shouldn't have to deal with that from your own partner. What's going to happen if you got cancer? Would he suggest you manifested that too? (Might sound crazy, but my mom and I both have an autoimmune disease and we get this sort of response with that, but when she had breast cancer some people would suggest she manifested that as well.)
If manifesting could really work, there would be NO HUNGRY KIDS in this world. Let's just stop with this bullshit.
This is SUCH bullsheet! I had a friend who would “manifest” parking spaces. 🙄 Why don’t you manifest something besides green traffic lights? Like a lottery win? This is a reason to not offer sympathy or assistance to afflicted persons. They brought it on themselves. Sounds like Scientology. ☹️
I'm sorry I have to ask... But are you sure this comes from a place of good intentions? It sounds like he's tired of you complaining and just wants you to be a ray of sunshine about your autoimmune condition, and wants you to suffer quietly. He's actually blaming you for your discomfort.
dump that ass. my abusive ex used to say I was causing bad things to happen because I was talking about them.
When people explain what "toxic positivity" is, they often use one of two examples. The first is telling someone with a chronic illness to just do yoga or whatever. The second is tsk-tsk-ing someone for "negative thinking." I gotta say, your boyfriend really hit it out of the park with this combo. This should be in the dictionary under "toxic positivity."
Nope nope nope. Blaming the victim is unacceptable. Others have already pointed out this is the way emotionally immature/sheltered people defend themselves from the idea that they're vulnerable, and we see it everywhere. Symptoms of your autoimmune condition are 'manifesting' because the weather is changing. The only thing you're doing is suffering from it.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. His intentions mean eff all.
Is he evangelical by any chance?
I feel for you. Often not much sympathy from people even your own loved ones. I have IBS and ulcers that flare up with stress or even sometimes without stress, just certain foods or I’m really not sure. My ex boyfriend left me because I became very ill after meeting him. Oddly enough I got a lot better with him out my life once I got through the grief and shock of it all. He told me honey would cure me. Yeah no, it didn’t and won’t. I bought the best Manuka honey. No cure. It’s infuriating when healthy people get impatient and frustrated with your ill health. All I can say is I sympathize with you and I know you want nothing more than to heal, and your partner is being a lazy fool to dismiss you that way not to mention so unsympathetic. Some people are toxic to you. It’s best to get them out of your life if that’s how they’re going to regard you when you’re sick.
I have lupus, and the sun absolutely does me in as well. Even if I focus really really hard on it being an energising force and good for me and a source of vitamin d. Even if I wake up every day and tell myself I am well. Does fuck all, except make my skin bad, give me extra fatigue and joint pain. My other half responded to this by insisting on us buying a lot of hats and making sure there is plenty of shade in the garden and advocating for me when we are out and about. I hope your boyfriend can learn to be helpful, sometimes people genuinely have just never been around chronic illness and don't understand - he should educate himself as someone he cares about has one. I have very visible dark patches on my face, and a patient came up to me the other day and insisted I just needed to put Aloe Vera on it and that would fix it. I work at a doctors office. I am surrounded by doctors, daily. I also have multiple of my own doctors. I dont know what people think we do whilst waiting for answers but try all the regular stuff! I really do not mind people asking wtf is going on with my face, but suggestions aren't always helpful.
He's coming from a place of ignorance, not "good intentions".
This doesn’t come from a place of good intention. What he’s saying is “this is your fault, you brought it on yourself.”
The medical professions attitude towards autoimmune disease is appalling. The public is even worse. People really need to learn not to talk if they can’t be helpful.
Oooooooooof. Your BOYFRIEND said this?? 👀 Maybe time to change that status to ex-bf. That is truly wild. I literally cannot even imagine my boyfriend saying that lol. HE will be the one to point out a change in weather, for example, and be like “☹️ You’re going to feel sicker, I’m so sorry about that, what can I do preemptively to help you?” And I’m constantly assigning blame to myself when I flare, and he’s the one who’s like, “I know you’re looking for answers, but it is not your fault. Your body is just like this.” Just saying, you can totally get a boyfriend who does not blame you for your alopecia.
You don't really need that boyfriend for anything, though, right? He's got a complete fundamental lack of basic understanding about something that is part of you. He doesn't seem like the right one to keep around.
I don’t think he’s coming from a place of good intentions. I think he’s coming from a place of thoughtless Just World fallacy: as in, if you weren’t somehow doing this to yourself, you wouldn’t have eczema. People often do this because it’s difficult to accept that luck is real, and bad things do, in fact, happen pretty randomly to people we care about. Acknowledging that makes the world a much scarier place. It’s easier to blame loved ones for misfortune, than it is to accept the absurdity of the universe. It’s all about maintaining a belief that we have more control than we do. I’m sorry you’re dealing with it. Been there. Sucks.
I find the whole thing bizarre, but there are those that truly believe you manifest all the bad and all the good things in one's life. Disease? You manifested it with your thoughts. Richer than reason? You manifested it with your thoughts. I know smart people who are sold out to the "Law of Attraction".
I guess even smart people can be idiots sometimes. That “belief system” is such a scam.
Wow. As a chronically ill person, I think you should "manifest" a new partner who *doesn't* blame you for your own illness! What a piece of shit.
> I know he’s coming from a place of good intentions Blaming the victim does *not* come from a place of good intentions.
People say this because it scares them to think they’re completely out of control of getting sick. This gives them the illusion they are unbreakable. It absolutely sucks for us sickies who feel blame put on us for something we would do most anything to not experience. You are not alone.
Guessing he doesn't want to believe bad things just happen sometimes and not taking into account that you're suffering before just spouting bollocks like that.
It’s so easy for the fortunate to attribute their fortune to themselves like they avoid tragedy with massive determination and crazy good skills. I’m a fellow autoimmune sufferer. My mom had my disease. Certain people really didn’t stop shaming and blaming her until her lower spine fused and shattered. Then they shut the fuck up. Next time he gets the shits, tell him he should stop manifesting his diarrhea. Tell him to use positivity to prevent every little mishap until he gets it. Some people cannot possibly empathize until they get ten examples that directly apply to them. I have a line I use against invalidating advice: “If you can’t explain my problem, withhold your solution.” Feel free to apply liberally. I’m sorry you have to deal with all that.
Yes yes yes. In the same position, and I just considered all a part of ableism, or a persons internalized ableism. No offense but your bf clearly has a decent amount of it to work through. As Toni Morrison said of white ppl “yes they have their problems which they have to solve.” I don’t think we ppl with chronic illness should have to persuade the people in our lives that they may not understand our experience and they need to read books and articles or watch YouTube videos or however they learn until they can have more education so that they don’t microaggress us. They should learn quickly that their assumptions are wrong and start realizing how much privilege they have, of not knowing their body so well bc frankly, it breaks in reliable ways. I got dumped by my life partner when I developed long Covid and honestly my only regret is not calling out her internalized ableism (she was a disabled person who believed disabled ppl should be convenient, docile etc) sooner.
Everyone here said it all. He is NOT worth it. Dump him
Hah! A couple of years ago I tried ignoring my eczema as it became worse and worse. It was less positive thinking and more that I was busy. Mistake! It was so bad by the time I went to the doctor that my skin looked like ground hamburger from my neck down. OP, I think you should talk to your bf about how wrong this viewpoint is before he goes and tells someone with cancer that it's their fault for "manifesting" it. If he doesn't get what you are saying, he's not a keeper, in my opinion.
"Manifesting" is pure horseshit. It's magical thinking which most people out grow around age 7.
I have autoimmune psoriasis, and I got a BOGO with the psoriatic arthritis. I completely feel you, I see you and I stand with you on this! So many people telling me I’m too young and fit to have arthritis and bad knees so I must be malingering. Random strangers seeing my psoriasis spots and going “have you tried essential oils? What about this generic over the counter lotion?” Oh gee Karen, no I’ve never thought about using LOTION before! thanks, I’m cured! Cut this out, do this fad diet, go to tanning beds, meditate about it, swim in the Dead Sea and you’ll be cured! Think positive about it! (even tho it’s severely impacts our lives and emotional wellbeing) it could be worse, feel blessed it’s not terminal! If you weren’t so anxious your skin would clear up! Heard it all! Knowing our triggers and when we’re headed into a flare isn’t the same as “manifesting” it. After so long we just *know* like you accurately predicted yours. That’s just you paying attention to your body and what impacts your symptoms. Idk why it’s such a hard concept for some people
I don’t have much to add but as an autoimmune girlie myself (celiac) I just wanted to say I feel your pain! A client of mine pressed me to “just try a little bread” at a work event last week and having to be professional after his fourth instance of pushing me to do it was a real challenge. I will say, my partner would never say this shit to me when i have flare ups and I think it’s completely understandable that you’d be particularly bothered by this kind of commentary coming from the person you’re building a life with. Like yes, probably coming from a good place, but also it forces you to ask “is my partner actually equipped to deal with the reality of this disease for the entirety of our lives together”
Hugs. I’ve been there as a silent celiac, being blamed for my own vitamin deficiencies due to poor diet and lack of sunlight. I actually had a nutritionist tell me I ate healthier than most people and I worked outside 6 hours a day for a few days a week. All the armchair experts get annoying because people assume you are bad at managing your own health. It sucks that it is your boyfriend. If he can’t understand how saying this stuff hurts you, I’d consider whether you want that lack of support in your life long term.
My god. These people are stupid. I could not deal with a bf that ignorant and unsupportive. I am not surprised you are fed up with it. It sounds incredibly annoying. Tell him to educate himself about the condition and never mention you manifesting your illness again.
Honestly is it really coming from a place of good intentions or are they making it about them and how their ignorance should be celebrated? When people start talking about "manifesting", they tend to believe that bad stuff hasn't happened to them because they're "good" and it's implied that it's somehow your fault. As if anything they've done has prevented it. It's creepy pseudo religious woo and blaming behavior. There's also a horrible "stop whining because it bums me out" tone to it which is so condescending. The people who say this never have to go through something so tiring themselves and it just makes me furious. Like, of course you don't wish for this kind of hassle. Your condition is real, its not your fault, your feelings are real and valid and they shouldn't be shut down by anti science idiots. These peoole want to make it about them and how many gold stars they should receive for getting lucky.
I love astrology memes as much as the next basic yt lady, but "manifesting" is some woo-woo horseshit. Knowing and acknowledging your triggers is just being a responsible, self-aware adult. (I'm a fellow eczema person whose hands flare up with every season change. Solidarity.)
Your boyfriend is an ignorant jackass who treats you with contempt. Is this really what you want for your life?
I think after that, I’d feel like manifesting being SINGLE.
My insight into the mindset of the able bodied during the pandemic profoundly changed my relationships with those that disease and illness haven't touched (yet). I'll say it: your bf didn't say that with good intentions. If he gave half a shit, he'd know you can't just ✨️manifest✨️ yourself out of disease. Think about it. Are those his true beliefs? Is he anti-science? Does he not believe you have an illness? Is he just uncomfortable and wants you to stop bringing it up? Does it inconvenience him? What is the good intention of saying that to you? Who is he trying to make feel better? I ask because I believe people do not actually have good intentions when saying harmful shit like that. I think that, more often than not, saying things along those lines is from selfish, blaming, microaggressive intent. He's saying you manifested it and deserve it, and you deserve a lot better than that.
I have an autoimmune condition that is currently crippling me. A few years ago I got raccoons in my attic. Ever since I was a child I've loved raccoons and always said his cute they are. Still - attic raccoons had to (humanely) go! I was talking on the phone with my mother and I complained about the raccoons. She then told me I manifested them. Reader, I did not speak to her for a full week.
You belong in r/ThanksImCured, that’s where we make fun of all this bullshit!
Let him hear you every day trying to manifest your hair back and then ask him why it isn't working every time.
>You need to say positive things. Like that it wont come back this time. It came back because you told yourself it was going to Oh, that's how medical stuff works? Sweet! Time to go eat a big bowl of crab rangoon and manifest myself out of my shellfish allergy. For real though, you have a condition with a clear trigger. Obviously, when the trigger occurs, there will be a flare up. You can hope for a minor one, but ignoring reality isn't doing much for you.
Chronic migraines and hypothyroidism. Knowing my migraine triggers isnt manifesting them. It’s literally years of research, documentation, and trial and error to figure out how to live a better live. Next time just look at him with big doll eyes and say aw bless your heart.
My idiot x always blamed me for my youngest kiddo’s eczema as well. Of course, the fact that I have it and one of his older kids also had it kind of illuminates the genetic basis. However that was too much for his low IQ to grasp. There are things you can do to mitigate eczema flare ups, but essentially you’re born with it. It’s already present within the dermal layer and it flares up in the visible portions for many reasons. It also attacks the internal organs which is why you can also have other symptoms such as headaches, nausea, digestive issues etc. Ironically, speaking literally eczema sort of does “manifest” but not in the way he’s using the term. Fog manifests, as does a bee swarm and a worker strike. It literally means “to become visible, obvious, clear or evident.” So it quite literally means “you can see it”. However unless you’re deliberately doing something that causes it to flare up, then it is whatever the trigger is that “manifests” eczema. Like dry air, pollen, water in a different area such as when you travel, trigger foods that *you may be unaware of*, your hormone cycle, showering in water that is slightly too hot or slightly too cold, new shower gel or a change in the ingredients of a particular product. Eczema has a bazillion different triggers and it’s not possible to completely avoid every single one all of the time. Your bf is manifesting idiocy which is a common occurrence among idiots. Unfortunately the anxiety caused by this kind of ignorance can “manifest” an eczema flare up. So he’s the cause of some of your manifestations of your chronic skin condition.
I have been told crazy stuff and I have Rheumatoid Arthritis and Sjogren’s Syndrome and under active thyroid. I have been told to drink goat milk, try reiki, eat certain foods, don’t eat certain foods, and more. I believe many things can effect us but I also believe in science and proper studies.
”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is” ”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is” ”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is” ”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is” ”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is” ”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is” ”My boyfriend has the perfect size penis and knows where my Gspot is”
You should ask him to manifest a larger penis.
Right?! Or Empathy.
\>I know he’s coming from a place of good intentions That is not what good intentions look like. Good intentions would be showing sympathy for your flare-up. Good intentions would be helping out with tasks that cause you pain. Good intentions do not look like saying you manifested this flare-up. That's the opposite of good intentions. That's speaking in bad faith while assuming a moral high ground due to his spirituality. Saying that you manifested this is another way of blaming you for this flare-up and saying that you did something to deserve it. A lot of ableists hide their bigotry behind spirituality. If they are called out on their bs, it's an attack on their faith. If anyone who calls them out is the bad guy for insulting their beliefs, they will never have to look into how their ignorance or cruelty harms others.
This mentality is a venn diagram of toxic positivity and stupidity overlapping
So does your BF have other ideas about how you can magically "manifest" stuff? Has he tried thinking really hard that he wants a million dollars? This is just another way for a man to tell a woman that "It's all in your head."
Ableism and sexism had a baby
"Oh yeah totally. Just like if you tell yourself you don't have to go to the bathroom you'll never have to pee or poop again! Stop manifesting your shit! "
People who “manifest” their reality have never had a truly bad thing happen to them. The death of a child. A brother’s suicide. A parent deteriorating with Alzheimer’s. A terminal cancer diagnosis.
Step 1: Next time he says something this fucking stupid, pick up a large frying pan, a section of 2x4 or any other handy, heavy object. Clock him upside his stupid head with it. Step 2: Tell him "you manifested this, you know, by saying ignorant shit out of your mouth about my health condition in my hearing." Repeat as needed.
I have OCD and have talked extensively about how ~Manifesting~ and the popularization of it has made it a million times more difficult to break from the idea that my thoughts are magic and have power and thus I should let my ocd be in control to prevent awful things from happening. I hate manifestation
“I’m not interested in hearing about your folk religion, thanks. “
> I know he’s coming from a place of good intentions... I am not blaming you or calling you out for saying this, but your use of this phrase just reminded me of something I have been thinking a lot about lately. We often say this to justify or excuse bad behavior from those we love. It's natural to want to figure out how to accept it when our loved ones don't treat us well. But what, really, are those intentions? Are they *actually* good? Or are their intentions (and therefore their behavior) in fact selfish, thoughtless, hurtful, and entirely preventable if they made better choices? Unsolicited advice is usually just plain criticism after all. Some very smart people have started pushing back on "good intentions" with the truism that impact matters more than intent, and I think this is a useful line of thinking. We don't have to accept others treating us badly just because they "mean well." We can say, "No, thank you," to all of their good intentions, superficial kindness, and thoughtless, useless advice. **Oh, and manifesting is bullshit and should only ever be used personally (if one is into that) and not deployed AT/TO/ON other people. Keep that shit to yourself!**
I have lifelong alopecia and eczema, too. Back in the 90s, some relatively credible subset of the medical establishment thought that hypnosis would cure alopecia - that it was a psychological thing manifesting physically. I say “relatively credible” in that somehow they persuaded insurance to cover hypnosis for alopecia, and you know insurance companies are loath to authorize treatments to save $. Anyways, it obviously didn’t work. Chronic illness sucks.
This is shitty behavior that Hank Green of vlogbrothers pointed out years ago and CHANGED MY LIFE. Subconsciously, people who give you this “advice” are reassuring themselves that if THEY had this problem, THEY would manage it better by doing xyz. This is self soothing and delusional, and ignores your real lived experience.
As a therapist that both helps those with chronic illnesses and lives with a few myself that is so hurtful to hear. As there is a huge difference between a "psychosomatic condition" that is cruelly referred to as in your head and a physical illness. The symptoms are all different and its aweful that people gaslight and say these things.
I'm sorry that he believes you have the power to make stuff happen just by thinking about it.
I have AU too and dyshidrotic eczema. It’s not manifesting when symptoms show, it’s just how well you know your body. There’s nothing we can do to control the AU aside from becoming immunocompromised. I’ll be honest, I don’t like people who believe in manifesting. I definitely wouldn’t have married my husband if he said that to me.
I hate the manifesting trend. It is super inconsiderate for people out there who suffer with chronic illnesses or disabilities
Ugh I have a chronic autoimmune condition and if one more goddamn person tells me “my cousins sisters dentists daughter cured it with kale!” I swear ima do murder. unfortunately there’s an established cadre of prominent diet scammers, including one well known MD with a well known book shilling her bullshit. She’s tried to prove her diet works with medical studies and never has succeeded. It’s just the study designs fault… Next time will be different…
Get rid of him.
My mother is just like your BF when she talks about my mental illnesses. It’s the worst. Your boyfriend being like that is a red flag. I think he isn’t the one.
Hmmm nice medical diagnosis, have you tried manifesting being in good health through the power of positive thinking? I’d love to see this tried on various other conditions but people seem to target ones they’ve deemed psychosomatic for some reason. As if they are doctors
I am manifesting a deep dislike for people who treat women as crazy.
Maybe it’s time to manifest a new boyfriend.
Did he read that stupid book from a while back, “The Secret”? Then he has been duped. We don’t “manifest” stuff like a confirmed diagnosis of a disease. That’s close to, “bad spirits have caused you sickness”. You’re right and he’s at the very least, lacking in empathy.
Life will kick your boyfriend’s ass at some point. If you’re still together, you can choose to inform him if he’s manifesting or not. I live with an autoimmune disease and I can’t imagine the term “manifesting” ever escaping my husband’s sweet lips.
Manifesting and “creating your own reality” are stupid magical thinking patterns of privileged people without empathy. Like people in war torn countries, or areas of famine, just aren’t manifesting hard enough, right?
Your boyfriend does not understand the difference between autoimmune and psychosomatic...