Rage.

Salon Says Your Disabling Pain Is Imaginary. As the author of the post states, this article is less an attack on Big Pharma than an attack on fibro patients themselves. It's got all the old chestnuts, too:

- There are no objective findings that fibro is real! Never mind that yeah, somebody proved that a) substance P is higher in the spinal fluid of fibro folks, and b) that the pain receptors of fibro folks tend to be quantitatively higher.
- Oh, wait, this is a new one: the fMRI that proved the physiological signs of higher sensitivity to stimulus is in fact not good enough evidence. For, uh, reasons. Scientific and shiny ones. Like it's a new technology, and everybody knows there's a 24 year waiting period before anybody trusts a new technology to give objective results. (This is why we're still waiting to try bariatic surgery on actual patients. OH WAIT.)
- Even if it IS real, fibro isn't a serious disease. Like, say, erectile dysfunction. Now that's some serious shit.
- Having a drug to treat your imaginary illness will just create that imaginary illness! Never mind that it was in place for years before you started Lyrica. No, it's a Placebo effect in reverse, with the drugs making you feel worse, except for how they make you feel human.
- You're not in pain, you're just anxious! (About being in pain.) And everybody knows anxiety isn't debilitating at ALL.
- Lyrica is used to treat anxiety / Cymbalta is used to treat depression, and therefore fibro is obviously psychosomatic. Because dopamine and serotonin have no involvement in pain control whatsoever.
- The diagnosis is too subjective; I mean, asking patients to describe their own pain and LISTENING to them? That's crazy talk!
- "Never mind that these drugs just gave you your life back; we all need to WAIT to prescribe them until I (as a man) feel comfortable with handing them out. So you all need to wait a little longer, despite waiting years for some ray of hope, and you need to teach me and convince me and hold my hand until I decide that you aren't lying through your pretty little teeth, okay, honey?"

Thanks for mansplaining that to me, Robert. Now come here so I can cram my cane down your throat.

Seriously, fandom?

Chub!Jensen controversy and now a big-bang set in an obesity research center?

Trigger. Biiiiig trigger.

I am sore tired of catching this merry fat-hating bullshit every time I turn on the TV ("now on Dr. G, Medical Examiner: OBESITY CRISIS OBESITY FATTY FATTY FAT FAT DEAAAAATH!"), but fandom too, for serious?

Argh.

ETA: Also, okay. I understand that the underlying message is that Jensen has to come to love himself. HOWEVER. It comes with the understanding that Jensen is expressing his love for himself by losing the weight "for Jared", to go find Jared and love and enlightenment and that.

Here's the thing. Very rarely do fat people actually get that way by cramming fast food and abusing their bodies. They get there through genetics, or thyroid issues, or antidepressants (hi there!), or a history of yo-yo dieting that resets their resting point of ideal weight. A history of eating disorders. So forcing one's body into a thinner shape by exercising to exhaustion (thus making exercise an unpleasant chore that one HAS to do to BEAT OBESITY), or limiting calories to deprivation, is a shock to one's system. It's not necessarily self-love, though it may be motivated by the desire to be lovable or to live longer (because of fear of obesity killing them) or because they can't be happy until they're thin.

Self-love is unrelated to a number on a scale. It's recognizing one's worth, unconnected to one's weight. The beauty of your body as it is, flaws and all, not as it could be. Pursuing health is an awesome thing, and a great way to love yourself, but pursuing thinness is not the same thing.