Afflicted

I can only imagine how these chronically ill individuals felt when they saw what their hard work and sacrifice had produced. The filmmakers draw back the curtain on their lives not with compassion, but more like a sideshow huckster asks the healthy audience to step right up and get a closer look at the freaks. Once you realize the framing, it's hideous. Worse, it's obviously taken its directorial inspiration from 'Unrest', a far more honest depiction of chronic, unexplained illness. The hard work the Unrest crew put in to carefully decide how to frame their narratives feels stolen, co-opted by a team that was lazier and carried ill intent, hoping to capitalize on Unrest's success. Healthy people looking down on sick people is nothing new, so the only question I have left is to wonder what possessed Netflix to pick it up? If this show were about any other marginalized group, would that be all right? Asking for several million friends.

Ok, I can see that this show has touched a nerve in many reviewers. I can imagine the frustration of folks suffering with undiagnosed illnesses. I myself have been dealing with depression and anxiety as well as chronic back pain. I have been trying to find good treatments for years and have found little. Any of these shows can tend towards being a freak show, but I didn't feel that the series is overtly trying to do this. These disorders are hard to wrap your head around, but I do believe that it gives a glimpse into this world. Are these folks suffering from physical conditions or are they psychological. Either way, they are suffering and while the series presents itself as a bit of a freak show, I think it is intriguing enough to engender some empathy from the ignorant, myself including. What is clear is that there is a world of hucksters praying on these folks, which makes me angry. Many of the rouge treatments seem to be completely made up or back themselves up with fake science. They likely make a lot of money off of these folks. To be honest, I am on my second episode, but am intrigued enough to continue. If you are interested in medical mysteries, check this out.

The ME community has been fighting for years to get the recognition, and funding, that this illness deserves. The programme makers have manipulated the evidence in a way that perpetrates the myths around ME. This is a serious neurological illness, unfortunately this is not shown. Shame on you Netflix, please don't watch.

They had an opportunity to do a great service to educate people about these illnesses but they add to the problem. They did not even follow what the National Institute of Health uses as criteria to dx, and treat. They are suggesting psycho-social disorders but if they had researched any truly scientific journals or contacted top dedicated researchers, not fly by night, just pocketing money from desperately sick people, quacks, this could have been an awesome awareness avenue.

Extremly disappointed. They should be embarrassed by the lack of real research on their part.

Just when myalgic encephalopathy is getting recognition as a real, horrible disease, this crud comes out, "reaffirming" that if we just tried harder, we wouldn't be sick. Sadly, that is anything but the truth. Please do not watch.