Victim Blaming and Lyme Disease (and long COVID, better stated vaccine injured-CR)
by Jennifer Crystal on February 1, 2023

Lyme patients need to learn about victim blaming so they can protect themselves when visiting with their doctor.
A friend with long COVID recently saw a physician about memory issues she’s experienced since being sick. The practitioner told my friend she had too much going on in her life right now and just needed to get more sleep. My friend felt hurt and invalidated. “I felt like I was being gaslighted,” she told me.

“Actually,” I replied, “It sounds like that practitioner was going one step further than gaslighting: they were victim-blaming.”

Having long dealt with illnesses that can be discounted, including Lyme disease, babesiosis, ehrlichiosis, chronic active Epstein-Barr virus, and long COVID, I’ve learned that there are subtle but important nuances between these two ways of making a patient feel dismissed. As explained in “Medical Gaslighting and Lyme Disease,” to gaslight someone is to manipulate them into questioning their own reality—essentially, to make them believe they’re crazy. In my friend’s case, if the physician were

More at the link:
www.globallymealliance.org/blog/victim-blaming-and-lyme-disease?utm_content=236635048&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&hss_channel=fbp-288689384556465
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Many Blessings,

CrystalRiver