Just learned on Sirius XM that Joni Mitchell suffers from Morgellon's Syndrome.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgellons
I've heard of this but actually wasn't sure it really occurred (it figured in the play "Bug," which was made into a movie). Very weird, and difficult to understand how someone can have this.
That is a strange one. She did have polio as a child and I've hoped she doesn't end up with a smoking related illness.
Sorry to hear this. It sounds like a great deal of suffering.
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
I meant to say she suffers from "delusional psychosis," which Morgellons is a form of, as I understand it.
That is too bad.
She is a long time favorite of mine.
From the info out there she has suffered with this since at least 2010.
Hope she can pull out of that dive.
From what I gather, trust in others is a casualty of this condition.
mark
"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."
-- Aristotle
Nostalgia, you know, ain't what it used to be. Furthermore, they tells me, it never was.
“A Man Who Does Not Read Has No Appreciable Advantage Over the Man Who Cannot Read” - Mark Twain
Sorry to hear about this. I'm not a fan but sje wrote "Woodstock." Great song.
One of my favorites, a genius, pure and simple. The first concert I saw, in 68, was Joni, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Tim Hardin.
I hope she is doing all right health wise.
I love JM and always have. This is sad. I hope she can somehow overcome this.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
Those comments aren't very encouraging at the end of the advertisement, which is what it really is. I wonder if she gave permission for the promotion of what appears to be a controversial product.Originally Posted by Sean
Wow. What a strange condition. Based on the Wikipedia article, it definitely sounds psychotic, but it's interesting that so many people identify with it.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
This comment from wikipedia really says it all about this nonexistant condition:
"Role of the Internet
Morgellons patients usually self-diagnose based on information from the Internet and find support and confirmation in on-line communities of people with similar illness beliefs.[49][56][57] In 2006, Waddell and Burke reported the influence of the Internet on their self-diagnosed Morgellons patients: "physicians are becoming more and more challenged by the many persons who attempt self-diagnosis on-line. In many cases, these attempts are well-intentioned, yet wrong, and a patient's belief in some of these oftentimes unscientific sites online may preclude their trust in the evidence-based approaches and treatment recommendations of their physician."[58] Dermatologist Caroline Koblenzer specifically faults the MRF website for misleading patients: "Clearly, as more and more of our patients discover this site (MRF), there will be an ever greater waste of valuable time and resources on fruitless research into fibers, fluffs, irrelevant bacteria, and innocuous worms and insects."[52] Vila-Rodriguez and MacEwan said in the American Journal of Psychiatry that the Internet is important in spreading and supporting "bizarre" disease beliefs, because "a belief is not considered delusional if it is accepted by other members of an individual’s culture or subculture."[56]
The LA Times, in an article on Morgellons, notes that "(t)he recent upsurge in symptoms can be traced directly to the Internet, following the naming of the disease by Mary Leitao, a Pennsylvania mother."[57] Robert Bartholomew, a sociologist who has studied the Morgellons phenomenon, states that the "World Wide Web has become the incubator for mass delusion and it (Morgellons) seems to be a socially transmitted disease over the Internet." According to this hypothesis, patients with delusions of parasitosis and other psychological disorders become convinced they have "Morgellons" after reading internet accounts of others with similar symptoms.[59][60] A 2005 Popular Mechanics article stated that Morgellons symptoms are well-known and characterized in the context of other disorders, and that "widespread reports of the strange fibers date back" only a few years to when the MRF first described them on the Internet.[55]
The Dallas Observer writes that Morgellons may be spread via the Internet and mass media, and "(i)f this is the case, then Morgellons is one in a long line of weird diseases that have swept through populations, only to disappear without a trace once public concern subsides."[17] The article draws parallels to several mass media-spread mass delusions. An article in the journal Psychosomatics in 2009 similarly asserts that Morgellons is an Internet meme.[61]
In 2008 the Washington Post Magazine reported that Internet discussions about Morgellons include many conspiracy theories about the cause, including biological warfare, nanotechnology, chemtrails and extraterrestrial life.[62]"
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
Well not always so strange. I'm no Joni Mitchell, but for several years I had a condition on my forearms -- usually one at a time -- which caused constant itching and red welts. Several dematologists could not diagnose ("ideosymptomatic," i.e. it's all in my head.) Nothing relieved the incessant itching -- and of course constrant scratching (even in my sleep, enough to wake me) left my arms red and ragged -- and itchy.
Eventually the condition ceased, as mysteriously as it started. The only lasting sign is that my arms no longer tan evenly. There are hundreds of white splotches while the rest of my arm tans normally.
Still no clue what it was. It never spread beyond my forearms.
Last edited by rcarlberg; 04-22-2013 at 11:17 AM.
The OP on this thread is questionable, which is why I didn't post it myself. I think the jury is out on this whole
disease. All I know is I love Joni and wish her to be in perfect health.
Too much dope back in the day has led to a lot of mental illnesses in a lot of people often decades later.
Love Joni, always have, my fav female singer after Kate Bush.
That's unkind. As Joni mentions, medicine is slow to recognize new diseases. I think it's entirely possible there's something environmental that just hasn't been identified yet.
In my case it certainly felt biological, rather than chemical or neurological. Heat would set it off, ice would slow it down (but not stop it). It gradually migrated, an inch or so per day, within a narrowly-defined region. It rarely stayed in the same spot more than a couple days, but it could return as soon as the skin healed.
The reverse is much more likely - mental illness to drugs as a coping mechanism. Drugs don't really "cause" mental illness unless there is an underlying condition.
Joni is a legend. Blue is sublime.
What can this strange device be? When I touch it, it brings forth a sound (2112)
Wasn't meant to be unkind. Just an observation based on what I've seen in some friends over the years.
On the other hand this website is just nuts -- up there with alien butt probes and 9/11 deniers.
http://www.morgellonsexposed.com/
Honestly, and I mean no offense, but the idea that this is an actual disease is more akin to "alien butt probes," etc.
Sorry, it just sounds completely psychological.
Music isn't about chops, or even about talent - it's about sound and the way that sound communicates to people. Mike Keneally
An ailment being psychological does not make it any less real or serious or irritating to the sufferer than if the ailment is biological.
We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
It won't be visible through the air
And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973
I would probably agree with you if it -- or something very much like it -- hadn't awakened me hundreds of times over the span of 4 years. I'm not sure something "completely psychological" can affect you when you're unconscious.
Plus, I'd never heard of this disease until this thread so it wasn't "internet meme frenzy."
Exactly.
I'm with you guys, Joni is a brilliant, DEEP artist and I love her work.
Regardless of whether the disease is real or delusional, it saddens me to hear that she's suffering and I hope she finds some sort of way to put it behind her.
rcarlberg: You seem to have an undiagnosed skin condition, which may or may not be due to a systemic problem. You do not have Morgellon's disease since it does not exist. This is not to dispute the problems you face, which are real. But similar to how we may have, say, diarrhea and stomach cramps, which remains undiagnosed because we never sought care for it, and we call it "stomach flu" without knowing really why we had it, I think your sitch is similar.
Diagnosis is powerful. Naming is powerful; by naming a condition, we think we explain it. (It is also why men often refuse to seek medical care when they have health care problems- without a specific diagnosis, they think they do not have any problem at all).
I am not in position to say why such a great singer as Joni Mitchell believes as she does. Perhaps it helps her explain the unexplainable. But since there is no evidence that Morgellon's exists- and no plausible biological reason why it should- all we can say is something is clearly bothering her or she simply has it wrong.
I'm not lazy. I just work so fast I'm always done.
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