I don't want your stupid medical adivce

Often people who think that expressing empathy is equivalent to solving problems will try to give me unsolicited medical advice - usually of the 'alternative' kind. I hate this. I'm chronically ill - which means I'm ill all the time and have been for years - and just about everyone has a (usually uninformed) opinion about the nature of my malaise and what I should be doing about it. They are often upset when I say I don't need or want medical advice. It's not helpful to try to fix my problems when you are not qualified or informed. What I need, what all chronically ill people need, is empathy - a human connection. I don't particularly want to relate to everyone on the basis of my illnesses.

Of course it feels unpleasant to empathise with someone who is suffering, especially when there's more or less nothing that you cannot do about it. So what tends to happen is that people act (unconsciously) to remove the source of their discomfort, which is my discomfort. They look for something to 'do' that will make me happy, so they can be happy. It's not helpful. In fact people often seem to be saying that I am somehow remiss in doing something about my illness. What is worse is that by not relating from their true feelings the interaction is just more isolating for me - all you care about is fixing me, you don't care about how it feels to be me. That's the message that 'fixing' sends. And after so many clumsy fixing attempts over the years it makes it far more difficult for me to be open about my experience - I don't want to be treated like a problem, so I don't say anything.

Basically if you start any sentence with "Have you tried..." I'm doing really well not to smack you in the mouth. I've had people do this time and again with absolutely no insight into my difficulties. People I hardly know send me emails starting with 'I heard you're sick. Have you tried..." I've taken the best professional advice I can get over three decades, thanks, and something you read about in some shitty little alternative health magazine is not likely to result in a miracle cure.

And you know what? I don't work so I don't have much income. I can't afford to go trotting off to the latest fad in alternative medicine because I don't live a middle class lifestyle with wads of uncommitted cash. I'm fucking broke! How the fuck am I supposed to afford those treatments at £30 and £40 or more a shot? Don't give me advice, give me money!

It's not that hard actually. If you feel uncomfortable - just fucking say so. That I can understand. Of course my being in constant pain (and in a bad mood today) is difficult, it sucks, it is a nightmare that I can't wake up from. If you aren't in pain, then you could pause to consider how lucky you are. You could express how you feel about that. Feel helpless? Well I do, so why shouldn't you?! So just say so, straight up. You don't have to try to fix the unfixable. I don't hold you personally responsible!

This isn't just me being a grumpy bastard by the way, other friends with long term problems know what I'm talking about. See this poem by Julia Darling: How to Behave with the Ill.