So let’s imagine, hypothetically, that one of the many people disabled with ME/CFS decided to try out mold avoidance after learning about it from me, and persuaded both Erik and me to help them. And let’s imagine that this person quickly experienced substantial improvements and then became close to recovered from the illness. Working, exercising vigorously, traveling, in a relationship with someone met post-avoidance, etc. etc. etc. And let’s imagine that though this person had once been a prominent professional reporter, there was never any discussion with either Erik or me of our being part of any story, and that this person specifically told Erik that interactions with him were in a private capacity to learn mold avoidance rather than as a reporter. And let’s imagine that subsequent to getting better, this person acknowledged to me that Erik had “discovered something important,” was “not wrong of anything of substance” and “had been right all along” -- but also characterized him as “exceedingly annoying,” “extremely self-absorbed,” “incredibly irritating,” “impossible,” “ridiculous and over the top,” “totally crazy,” “with less ability to put himself in the shoes of others than anyone that I’ve ever met” and “off-putting and strange.” And then let’s imagine that years after their one in-person meeting, this person revealed being in the process of writing a story that “wouldn’t be flattering” about Erik for a national publication. The anticipated reader takeaway, this person said, would be the following: “Wow, a total freak turned out to have figured out something really important!” And then let’s imagine that as part of their justification for writing the story, this person stated, “Erik isn’t a crank. But he looks and feels and sounds like one....Being associated with him is kind of dangerous frankly. I can’t afford to be perceived as a crank.” And lets imagine that the other justification by this person for framing Erik in this way was that it would make the story “super-interesting.” And let’s imagine that when I objected to the piece, the person countered with the following: “I strongly believe that it’s possible to write in an honest, compassionate, deep way that acknowledges the dark aspects of people’s personalities but ultimately makes them feel like full, real people. That’s what I’m aiming for. If you ask me to do something completely contrary to my role as a writer, then I don’t have the choice of cooperating.” And then let’s imagine that less than two hours after I stated that I found the story so inappropriate that I was declining to allow my name to be used in it at all, this person went to Erik and said that they had “no choice” but to use information about me in the story regardless of whether I said it was okay - and asked his permission to make him look crazy in the story. And finally, let’s imagine that Erik told me subsequent to this conversation that he had decided to allow this reporter to write whatever they chose about him -- and advised me to do the same since, in his opinion, all that would happen if I didn’t give in is that the reporter would make a big effort to make both Erik and me look even worse than we already were going to look. If someone is going to do these sorts of things, I would like to strongly suggest that -- if they must learn about mold avoidance -- they do it in some other way besides bothering me and wasting any of my time. Because I would like to state quite clearly that I consider someone who would act in these ways to be at least as much of an enemy to both the ME/CFS cause and the mold illness cause as Simon Wessely. At least as much of an enemy. Meaning, likely even more of an enemy. * Disclaimer: Of course, all of this is just a hypothetical. No one would actually do this, obviously. Obviously! I mean, isn’t it obvious that no one actually would do this? Clearly I’m just being overly paranoid about what could happen to me as a result of my efforts and making up a nightmare scenario, rather than sharing a true story. Because in a world where this kind of thing actually DID happen to me as a result of my efforts -- how could I possibly go on making any more efforts? Wouldn’t any person in their right mind be out of here?
Posted on: Sat, 07 Jun 2014 17:33:57 +0000
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