Rod Liddle - his fondness of the disabled

The name Rod Liddle meant nothing to me and most likely many more people until today.  If you're disabled or live with any kind of disability, just be sure to stay out of his way.  Or maybe from today's enormous reaction over the Twitter-sphere and beyond, he may want to duck his head down and steer clear of anyone.

Rod Liddle (not a doctor or anything qualified in the medical industry, nothing more than a journalist) today wrote an article for red top The Sun declaring that being disabled 'is now fashionable', and calling those of us who are tortured with invisible debilitating conditions such as Fibromyalgia and M.E 'pretend disabled'.  Not only is this is a disgusting rib against anyone disabled but I find it very defamatory against me personally.

"My new year's resolution for 2012 was to become disabled.  Nothing too serious, maybe just a bit of a bad back or one of those newly invented illnesses which make you a bit peaky for decades - fibromyalgia or M.E."

Nothing too serious, you say, Mr Liddle?  Okay, how would you feel if you physically couldn't lift yourself out of your bed in the morning because of horrendous pain in your limbs and a fatigue that feels like a huge sack of coal weighing you down.  Imagine it, please.  How do you get up, get dressed and get down the stairs?  Me, I need my fiance to get me up, help me dress and I literally shuffle down the stairs, that's if I'm having a good day.  On a worse day, forget even getting up at all.    So many people are confined to a wheelchair and driven to using sticks for the want of any mobility.  But apparently that isn't too serious.

A newly invented illness?  Say what?  Maybe someone as yourself Mr Liddle have never heard of it before because it's rarely spoken about in the media.  Ignorance has made you unaware of a condition that has existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  Fibromyalgia is musculoskeletal disease and has taken the form of many names, commonly fibrositis and muscular rheumatism.  The name 'fibromyalgia' ages back thirty to four years, but the illness itself has remained and consisted of the same.  Florence Nightingale is believed to have suffered with fibromyalgia as was Charles Darwin.  Fibromyalgia is certainly a misunderstood illness with the need for continued research to help us sufferers live with the condition, but it is definitely not something new.


A bit peaky?  That word is frankly an insult.  Fibromyalgia is a complicated spectrum of symptoms which together make the syndrome.  Chronic widespread muscle pain and chronic fatigue are the main complaints but there's numerous more including gut problems (IBS, reflux) , memory loss, insomnia and poor sleep, reduced cognition, depression, migraines, circulatory conditions (Raynaud's disease).  There are many many more, but each sufferer of fibromyalgia has an individual different experience.  To me, 'feeling peaky' isn't even a word I would consider to describe the pain and destruction this illness does to me.  To give anyone an idea of what fibromyalgia is like to live with, I'd say imagine having flu every day of your life with extra symptoms thrown in.  You don't need to walk do you?

I have no idea where Rod Liddle has drawn his immense medical knowledge of fibromyalgia from but he's seriously misguided.  His narrow minded article infuriates me beyond any words, because it is this very discriminatory, judging, condescending attitude that makes the suffering of those like myself as hard as it is.  It is difficult enough trying to find medication and support to get me through each day of pain without the need of ridiculous ill educated drivel like this.  I only hope one day he doesn't find himself in the same situation and need to eat his own words, battling to keep a roof over his head because he's in so much pain and agony, and trying to convince not only the world around him but the government that he is indeed in need.

I believe and expect an apology from Rod Liddle and The Sun for publishing this article.

Becky