[Article] No one is radicalized by pain
[Article] No one is radicalized by pain
I’ve been deeply upset about an article going around about the UHC shooter, which suggests Luigi Mangioni was radicalized by pain. The article gives no evidence, and makes no convincing argument. It expects you to look at the negative space: because Luigi “had options”, and “could have been almost a...
Well first off, the title is rage bait. If you read the title first then the article, it comes off as trama dumping, and an excuse giving why the author is too tired to fight the system that he believes is killing him. But the REAL point of the article is not about that. It’s actually about the disillusion with the medical system on all fronts. And the complaints would put him on the side of radicle change of the system… where he to advocate for anything at all. But i believe his anger is misplaced. He is upset that the doctors don’t know what is wrong, he is upset that he has to do constant tests, he is upset that results are not 100%. He’s upset that his specific problems are not understood more, he’s upset that doctors are not at constant consensus, he’s upset that his medical coverage is hard to deal with, he’s upset that he has to do things to live, that he feels he should not have to do. I am sorry it sucks, i suffer similar problems though not to the degree he is currently at…yet. He lists these and just trails off from a point, leaving the title to do the lifting. But his expectations and who he blames are wrong. Your body is a collection of billions of things, and wile medical advancement is a miracle… diagnosing problems, and matching cures will never be 100%. Sometimes 50% is all that can be done.
I am deeply lucky to be married to a unionized government worker with one of the best health insurance plans you can get. I am not sure where this story would have gone, were it not the case. Certainly nowhere good. I say this because I need you to understand that chronic pain is not solved by having money, or having great insurance, or having access to the best doctors. Do they help? Yes. Can they fix you? For too many of us, the answer is no.
This is the most telling part of the article. If they had to navigate the system without top notch health care, they would feel differently.
Right? He has it better then most, ‘see? I had it better then you and MY situation is still hard’ well fuck, I’m sorry that with all the benefit in the world, life still sucks. And yet he argues that there is no point in fighting. Completely blind to how the for profit system still harmed him because ‘money was not an issue for him’. He completely ignores the whole problem the system causes, justifies his own inaction, and attempts to de~legitimize the shooters actions.
To argue that the shooter is not motivated by pain, because the author is not motivated to do anything at all, is worse than the people who say the motivation was pain. Both are making assumptions… unnecessarily so, since the man wrote a friken manifesto. This comes off as pain~splaining. And ultimately the healthcare companies are chiefly to blame for all his points. And the law makers who perpetuate health for profit. So why say anything at all?
No, chronic pain doesn’t radicalize. Chronic pain gives you clarity. Chronic pain shows the world for what it truly is: a society that doesn’t care about you if you can’t hold a job, and paradoxically, believes that you are just fine if you can.
Bruh.
Chronic pain shows you that medicine, as a field, is based on statistics and bell curves. If you don’t land in the center of one of those bell curves, it doesn’t matter how much access you have to doctors and treatment, eventually everyone discharges you with a shrug and a sorry, if you are lucky.
I have, unfortunately, had experience with heart disease and cancer. On heart disease I lucked out and got a crazy surgeon who installed four stents. Every other (5) cardiologist I have spoken to (all supposedly top tier) has been surprised by that because they would have cracked me open and gone with a bypass.
On the cancer side, my first doctor's plan would have left me broken for however long I had afterwards. So my wife researched and found the best money could buy and I came out the other side relatively normal.
The problem with medicine goes back to an old joke. What do you call the person who graduated medical school last on their class? Doctor. The worst, most careless, doctors will still cost an arm and a leg (sometimes literally), so money is not a fix. Ultimately you have to do exhaustive research and find your own care. Most people will have to rely on luck.
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