"My experience of chronic fatigue syndrome" anonymous 16 year old

[Invisible Woman]

It's basic pedagogy . Children use the language they are given until their experience otherwise forces constructs to move. The extracts show is the common language of taught experience a la NHS paediatrics.

I think a lot of adult patients do too.

Especially when many of us have had doctor's words put in our mouths - sometimes by docs with the very best of intentions.

My cognitive problems were put down as difficulties with memory and concentration, presumably secondary to "fatigue" for years until one day my stars aligned and I was with it enough to explain it was primarily a processing problem. Concentration, memory and eventually even fatigue were all secondary to that. Now I know better I'd use fatiguability rather than fatigue.

It's so easy to manipulate with language, medical records can become sets of Chinese whispers. (Chinese whispers is a game we played as kids where one child would whisper something to another who would whisper it to the next and so on. Eventually, you compared the starting whisper to the last one and see how much it had changed).

Edit - spelling

 

[rvallee]

I guess medical journals are now in the business of marketing alternative medicine. This is as credible as customer testimonials that quote the corporate pamphlet.