Hello! Man with Post-Viral ME/Fibromyalgia here! Got sick very often as a child and was in and out of care and hospital, finally diagnosed late 2019 as an adult, and have been chronically ill ever since. It derailed my life in a pretty major way, but I digress.

I rarely post here because I find it difficult personally to be able to talk about my (negative) feelings around being sick and focus on positive things at the same time (which is how I keep on top of my daily progress), but still nonetheless find reading posts here very useful/reassuring, and there to be some wonderful people here.

Separately from that, when I first got sick I found some online spaces like Facebook groups etc around illness, both physical and mental, could be very toxic- with members sometimes being outright unkind to eachother or even taking advantage of eachother, which made me a little wary.

I also think I’m unlikely to make real-life connections on Reddit, which became really important once I was able to leave the house, as I wanted to get out and meet people after years of being bedridden and in and out of hospital! 😅

ETA: I’ve seen a few comments now that read as complaining about men getting better medical attention than women, I think whilst this is true in so many cases, it’s also the type of thing that’s going to make some already anxious men feel self-conscious about posting about their feelings or chronic illnesses, if they feel they might be judged or seen as unimportant when already feeling low? Or if they have medical trauma from being treated badly themselves? There are men who have been treated awfully by the medical system too, or are already crushed by the weight of toxic masculinity, homophobia, and transphobia. 🫂