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There's something I need to get over here. I was brought up in a not very compassionate environment. I think this has caused me to second guess people that I hear complain a lot or that talks about having so many issues.
You have found a very compassionate environment here. Give it a chance even though it may be alien to you.
My first feelings were that this wasn't just a group of people with a common illness but a bunch of people feeding off each other. It seems like there's a lot of posts where someone asks about a symptom and the same people all the time are able to relate to everything and have or had suffered from the same thing or say they expect to someday from their family history.
There are those who have the ability to post on a daily basis and those who don't. It's not uncommon to see a subject disappear from the front page and have it return a few days later. Each of us is also at different stages with our AS. I hope to help others with my experiences as I have learned from them. And I'll tell ya I have learned ALOT from the folks here. I have had AS for 20 years and figured whatelse could they possibly tell that I don't already know and it's amazing the amount of information I have gathered.
I understand auto-immune diseases and its "ugly sisters" but it seems to me like hypochondria and Munchausen runs rampid in these halls. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in the middle but I have a hard time sorting it all out. Don't get me wrong, I need a community of people to help me through this and my cancer treatments. I can't do it alone nor do I want to try. If you remain here with an open mind and an open heart, I believe you have found the supportive community you seek.
Has anyone else had these thoughts as they first started to open up about what's going on with them?


I don't want to get all Florence Nightengale on your butt, but seriously, this is a great group. I haven't been here that long myself, and to be totally honest, I wasn't sure I wanted to join a group of people who sit around whinning about their illness. But that's not what I found here. I found the opposite of that. I found help, compassion, knowledge and friendship. I found people who know EXCATELY what I'm feeling. The pain, the anger, the frustration. I don't generally talk to anybody about my illness, but I can do it here. Confident in the knowledge that they, OUR new friends, don't think that I'm whinning..