Dear Mr Liddle

Dear Mr Liddle,

Despite the fact I am about to vehemently oppose your views, I’m still going to be polite and call you Mister. I could use some other choice phrases but I won’t, maybe it was the way I was brought up?

I’ve been feeling “a little peaky” myself for about 18 months now. Unfortunately for me it hasn’t had a chance to last for “decades” yet but you never know what the future will bring. I’ve never in my life been accused of being in any way cool but it’s good to know that now for once I will be, because “being disabled is incredibly fashionable”.

It’s apparently easy to get money from the government for being disabled and you “might get one of those badges which let you park wherever you want………And you can use those enormous toilets……..without feeling too guilty about it.” Good God if only I knew, I wouldn’t have forced myself to continue working until I became a danger to everyone.

 Thank you for letting me know my fibromyalgia “is one of those new invented illnesses.”  If it was up to you I’d have to work until I collapsed behind the counter or maybe until I fell asleep on the drive home. My fibromyalgia is so invisible and invented it even managed to ‘fake’ two serious seizures last year which both required me to be hospitalised. I was also so wiped out physically and mentally at Christmas time, that I stayed in bed for nearly 4 days and can remember virtually nothing of that period, due to fibro fog. But hey if fibromyalgia is just a new illness then those things must just be a fig roll of my imagination!

I’ve been on sickness benefit now for some time. All my experience and qualifications are in physical and demanding jobs. I’m learning how to cope with my fibromyalgia day by day and I will get on top of this. I shouldn’t let the fact I can’t get out of bed some days or if I walk to the shop for the paper (no, not The Sun) that that could be all I can do on that day. I might not even be able to read the paper that I walked to the shop to get.   

Yes I’m aware that sarcasm is the lowest form of wit but it’s the only way to respond to such an awful piece. Just because you have a vehicle for your views, thankfully, doesn’t mean that anyone must take it seriously. Thank you Mr Liddle, no more than a football manager can write an opponent’s team talk by taking the piss out of them, you’ve made the writing of my blog for this week a doddle!

You take care now and I pray for your family’s sake that you never have to suffer through a debilitating, chronic and painful illness. You see, as hard as it is on us who have a chronic illness, it’s just as hard if not harder on our families who must try to understand and support us,

Yours etc,

Fibrofella