This disease has left Kendell stigmatized, ashamed and often ridden with guilt. It is guilt for not being strong enough to fight the “disease” and shame for spending so much money on a disease that doesn’t exist. There is also stigmatization by the medical community and friends alike—who deny any real existence of the disease and its long-term effects. Kendell remembers being in the hospital on one of her many visits and meeting with a doctor who was extremely dismissive. As she sat there shaking and barely able to function—trying to explain to him that she had “Chronic” Lyme disease—he looked at her and said: “Lyme is a Red Herring, and Chronic Lyme does not exist, so do you and your family a favor and get on some antipsychotics.”
As he finished saying this, Kendell looked over at the nurse’s station and the 3 or 4 nurses standing there were snickering at her. The humiliation she felt at that moment was crushing! She started to think about her family, her two- year-old son, and how she was unable to take care of them. Her mother-in-law had flown up to help because Kendell could barely function. As the doctor threw this insult in her face, the guilt that Kendell felt for not digging in deeper and taking care of her son was unbearable. She thought, “How could I be such a horrible mother? Maybe the doctor was right? What if I really am just crazy or as he had insinuated, histrionic? Was I doing this to myself and my family?” Even though her symptoms had come out of nowhere and she knew herself, it was interactions like this that placed seeds of doubt in Kendell’s head and made her even start to hate herself. Kendell remembers leaving the hospital that day with a feeling of utter hopeless and humiliation.
