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wow. for being honest, having questions, and questioning things period i have gall, it's all a cop out, and i'm smoking something. and i'm making accusations? you have that whole pot-kettle thing going on it seems.

Brian, Pete, James, and Dave, Thank you for your responses. You each said something that I completely "get". Lisa, I assure you people with AS CAN BE hypochondriacs. I know it seems bad to questions people for fear they may be insulted but nowadays you can't be too cautious. Most people don't mind being questioned I've found.

Most of the responses have been thoughtful and intelligent, lest I judge..lol. I see there is a lot of compassion here and you people have big hearts.



Sorry Thomas, but you don't get to have it both ways here. You don't get to defend your post as "just being honest" and then criticize Sherri for the tone of her post. She was simply being honest with you about how your post made her feel, and as I'm sure you've read, she's not the only one who felt this way. She was simply the one who posted those feelings more bluntly than others; well, at least until I made my post, that is. If you didn't like her response, I can assure you that you won't care much for the first half (or so) of my lengthy response.

It always amazes me when people make offensive statements and then trot out the "hey, I was just being honest with you" defense, as if that excuses what they said or wrote. You know what? It doesn't. There is ALWAYS a way to be completely honest without being offensive, and if you can't understand why some of us are upset about the wording you chose for your post, then I'm sorry, I think you're not being honest with youself. Some of the other wording you chose indicates that you knew you would probably touch a nerve with what you wrote, so I think it's a bit disingenous now to act a bit surprised when some of us tell you that the wording and tone of your post (which, as others have pointed out, can be so easily miscontrued without vocal cues, etc.) proved to be upsetting.

You thank Pete and a few others for the posts they left here, saying you "get" something from their posts, and also that you appreciate those posts that were "thoughtful and intelligent." Because I sincerely hope that you DO stay here at AS and become part of our community, I also hope you end up "getting" something from Lisa's post and from my post, and from any other post that expresses anger with your original post. For instance, maybe you'll realize that being honest does not excuse a poor choise of words or, in other cases, pure rudeness. Or that if you are going to raise subjects that you are pretty sure will touch a nerve, that you show some of appreciation for the "honesty" of the replies you receive that you are asking people to show for your original post. Or, and I really hope this is the one that sticks,

One thing I know I didn't make clear in my first response to your post. I completely agree with you that it is possible for people with AS to be hypochondriacs--it's possible for anyone to be a hypochondriac, because at it's core, something like hypochandria has very little to do with actual medical conditions than it does with a person's mental state and worldview (formed by both "nature and nurture", of course). I'd even go further and say that it is possible for someone to have full-blown AS and still be a hypochondriac about other things--that person always thinks they are getting the flu, for example, or that because they have an autoimmune disease, they are sure to be hit with many other autoimmune disorders too). In fact, I don't think anyone here would dispute that it is possible for someone with AS to experience hypochondria--I don't even think Sherri was trying to deny that in her post.

No, what bothered me and some others so much was your characterization that, after sorting through the posts here for a short period of time, you felt that, and I quote,

"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."

What you are saying there is a far cry from what you say in your response to Sherri. There, you simply say that yes, it IS possible for people with AS to be hypochondriacs. In your statement above, you plainly make it quite clear that you think MANY of the people here who have AS (or claim to have AS) ARE in fact hypochondriacs. Those two statements are very, very different, wouldn't you agree? You even go so far as to tack on your belief that it seems to you "like hypochondria and Munchausen runs rampid [sic] in these halls." I'd have to say that pretty much says you feel that lots of people who post here are either hypochondriacs or are experiencing Munchausen's syndrome; in fact, I don't see how anyone could interpret those statements any other way, as the meaning there is quite clear.

If this meaning is NOT what you were really trying to convey, that's great, but we can't/couldn't know that until you clarified your reponses. Knowing that, I feel it is VERY understandable that your post was quite upsetting to many people here. The fact that only Sherri and I really expressed that anger means that the other good people here were more willing to give you a mulligan for your word choice and instead chose to focus on the larger issues you raised in your post, which no doubt were important and valid issues. That is a good thing, I know, and I'm not surprised at the list of people who responded to you in such a way. And, if you ask around, you'll find that those same people are not at all surprised that I responded the way I did, as I'm certainly know for shooting from the hip and that I'm less likely to let things go than they are--I recognize that this is usually a bad thing, and that I often charge ahead when discrettion would be the better choice, but it's not ALWAYS a bad thing. Not surprisingly, I think that this thread is one of those instances where it was good fo me to respond the way i did. This is because I think it is important for you to see that while everyone here respects your right to voice your own views, and to question what you read here, if you make a controversial post, you can expect to receive some unpleasant responses mixed in with all the "intelligent and thoughtful" responses And hey, while we're on that topic, my posts were plenty "intelligent and thoughtful"! Just because they expressed a point of view you likely don't care for all that much doesn't mean they weren't chock full of brainpower (and yes, I am being a bit tongue in cheek here and laughing at myself and my staggering hubris ; ; ; er, I mean display of ego.)

In closing, if you do read my entire first post you'll see that I did move beyond the anger in my initial response and did say that I sincerely hope you'll see the value in KA and decide to become a part of the community. No matter how upsetting someone's words might seem to me, if that person has AS, that ultimately overides everything. AS is such a terrible and misunderstood disease that anyone who has it needs the kind of information that is found here at KA, period. Now that I've read your responses to some of the other posts, I have a better sense of where you were coming from in your original post--although that ultimately does not excuse the incredibly poor way you chose to express your concerns with KA--and understand how you are sorting out how KA will best work for you. I think that you do want to be here, and I think you have a lot to offer the site, so I hope that, in the end, this post will be a stepping-off point that will offer you some real insight into how folks here think and act and, hopefully, change your misperception that many folks here are simply hypochondriacs. who get off on saying "I have that too!" whenever someone makes a post that brings up a new symptom or autoimmune disease.

Ciao,

Brad