What am I being asked to believe or accept? What reasons or evidence does the author supply to convince me? What’s my verdict on Morgellons disease; is it a “disease or delusion” (Jamison 223)?
I think overall what I am being asked to accept after reading “The Devils Bait” by Leslie Jamison is to accept the fact that everyone has their own issues whether it is brought upon by themselves or other instances. She has strong evidence to prove that Morgellons is a real disease that people experience and is not all in their imagination. One of the things she includes in this essay is “”Calling Morgellons “real” generally means acknowledging there is actual, inexplicable stuff coming up through human skin.” (Jamison). There’s evidence of unusual physical things happening to the body of people that claim to have this disease so how can it not be real? However, the source of this article coming from Jamison puts me in a different position to believe this is real. If I were to actually listen to someone who has the disease than it would be way more convincing to me. Jamison uses examples from her experience that fall no where close to what these people are experiencing. She was diagnosed with something that you can physically pick out of your skin. She gives no evidence from these people with Morgellons that a physically picking out real bugs that they believe are infesting their bodies. Jamison literally says “I only know what I learned from my botfly and its ghost: it was worse when I didn’t have the worm than when I did.”(Jamison) Almost wishing her worm back into her body so that she can tell people she has a bug in her too so that they know she is going through something too. The only thing I can think of when I read this is that she is trying to reflect her issues onto someone else so that they know she believes them. Almost as to relate through empathy of each other which makes me question if I should believe any articles written by her.
I do believe that is is a disease if there are physical indicators that prove there is something wrong with these people; However, when it comes from Jamison’s point of view I don’t know how much of it is real if she brings up the fact that she knows what these people are going through because she had a worm in her leg. Doesn’t seem valid to me at all. I can conclude that Jamison’s view on this disease is a delusion because she seems to want it to happen to her, but these people are experiencing a real disease.
