If you ask someone who has been dealing with a chronic illness for at least a year or so, they'll probably tell you that they've had at least one person in their life try to sell them on a miracle cure. Though it could come off as something helpful and caring from an able-bodied person, it comes off as something insulting and offensive. It might be hard for those without chronic illnesses to understand, but I'm going to try my best to give my side of the situation in the hopes that others are able to gain a bit more understanding.
This morning, I woke up to a twitter message from someone I didn't even know, telling me that one simple thing – taking out gluten in my diet – would magically cure me from all of my ailments and illnesses. I've had this happen to me multiple times before, especially through twitter, but it doesn't make it any easier to handle with repetition. At first I was angry and I actually had to fight back a couple of tears, but it didn't take long for anger to turn into a depression I'm now having a hard time coming out of – hence my desire to write about it, like always.
When you tell a chronically ill person of a magical cure, a few things happen. In my case, I became quite upset of this person believing their an expert on the illnesses I've been fighting for more than five years without even knowing what they were and what I've gone through because of them. It's a huge kick in the face, yet another reminder thrown at you that no, that isn't going to work as quickly and perfectly as people think it will, and that there is nothing that's going to suddenly take away all of the ailments that drive you insane every day. Chronic is long term with unfortunately little hope of an actual cure for most of us, and being reminded by takes a major toll on an already weak and struggling person.
Considering how this is unfortunately something that happens quite often, anger and annoyance come with comments of this nature. Even more so when you become tangled up in an argument with the person trying to politely give you some "advice", even though it just really doesn’t feel like that to the person receiving it. This could easily turn into anger when the person you're speaking to is unable to take the hint and drop the subject, or when they continuously insist on these miracle cures that we all know is complete bullsh*t.
Whatever the reaction is, I can almost guarantee that the chronically ill person receiving the advice from someone other than a doctor whom they genuinely trust will feel worse rather than better after receiving your said "advice". If you want my advice on the subject, keep those miracle cures and crap to yourself rather than sharing them with your chronically ill loved ones and peers.
