The hour-long film Voices from the Shadows is now available to watch for free until the end of the year – on Vimeo – by entering a promo code of VOICES after clicking the “rent for $3” button.
Vimeo requires viewers to register with a name, email address and password.
But the film-maker Natalie Boulton warns that the film is not considered suitable viewing for children and young people with ME. It is intended for adults who are not familiar with the illness.
The film shows how harmful ignorance and misunderstanding about the illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis or ME can be.
Patients with mild or moderately severe ME have become very severely ill when their illness is mismanaged: largely due to the way many different conditions have been muddled together by inadequate definitions and vague criteria.
Lack of recognition of the delayed exacerbation of ME symptoms following overactivity and over exposure to stimuli has caused many patients to deteriorate and become chronically and severely ill.
There is very little recognition of the clinical picture of very severe ME and these patients then become vulnerable to being misdiagnosed with functional illness. Alongside this, many patients are misdiagnosed as having CFS/ME, and their other illnesses remain undiscovered and untreated.
Natalie writes: “Please share this post but do not omit the warning that it could be very distressing for young people with ME to view it. Please try to prevent it being inappropriately accessed.”
Thanks for this. Was the medical staff who treated this young person ever brought to justice. How on earth she managed going into hospital I don’t know. I know from my own experience that a admission into hospital would wipe me out, I am sure it would be the end of me. Why oh why are the medical professions still ‘unsure’, I would never see any psychiatrist, counsellor or ‘mind’ therapist, I am not depressed, or have any psychiatric problems, I really feel for this family. The damage has been done over the years, sufferer’s don’t know who to trust, that makes it harder for the sufferer’s and those medical people who are genuine and understanding. More and more sufferer’s are becoming isolated because they don’t have any trust, know who to turn to. The people who made this person do such acts while in their care should be made accountable. Every single health care professional should be made to watch this. Even if they don’t work with M.E sufferer’s because people who have this debilitating illness still have to get health care and visit health clinics, dentist, opticians, hospitals.
I really don’t know what to say, guttered for this family, I understand being a sufferer myself.
Love and Blessings to this family