To wish Miranda Hart had written a different book?

YANBU but like others I think the problem lies with your aquaintances rather than Miranda Hart (as you've said yourself anyway) but just wanted to add that I think she even warns against giving unsolicited advice to people with chronic conditions in the book.

Oh God yes, this.
I was increasingly unwell a few years back, to the point I was barely functioning, and it turned out to be stupidly low B12. My body can't absorb it so I need high strength supplementation. It boggles my mind how many <narrows eyes especially at my mother> insist all i need to do is eat meat and i will be cured. I've explained it, words of one syllable style, numerous times but it's like talking to a wall. I could eat half a cow every day and my levels would still drop through the floor. Do they believe me though? Nope.

It's incredibly tiresome OP and I feel your pain. But I think she's such a popular figure and many people will be interested in what's been going on for her the past couple of years, so i think it's fair enough she wrote about it. I think you just need to find a short, tart response for the idiots.

She said on the Graham Norton show that her diagnosis was "ME caused by Lyme disease"

I was 99% sure that's what she'd said so just checked on iPlayer to make sure.

I’ve just read an article about the Maeve Boothby O'Neill inquest after reading this post and I’m sad to say I also thought ME/CFS was caused by anxiety and depression. I’ve read a book by a (not famous) psychologist that mentions it and I have a friend who’s a hypnotherapist who has talked about how hypnotherapy can help. I’ve never thought it was “all in someone’s head” but that it was a physical illness caused by a mental one. The Maeve Boothby O'Neill story is heartbreaking and I had no idea it was an illness that could be terminal.
I have a long term misunderstood condition and I’ve been accused of making it up by family, experienced being discharged by doctors who just haven’t known what to do with me, and had suggestions from people who know nothing about the condition, so I know a little of what that feels like. But I guess the misinformation and outdated views about ME made me think that emotional therapies could help treat/“cure” it

"Unfortunately, it takes me months to read a book. That's why I'm asking questions of people who HAVE read it."

@WWLD it's really worth getting it on Audible.

YABU
It's a raw, honest and very interesting account of how she has been seriously affected by Lymes disease (and still is) since she was 14 years old.

I honestly don't see why she's getting so much flack for it.

I do not have ME or any related condition.
I have read the book and took it in the wider context of finding balance in life.
I really enjoyed it, it was very well researched, delivered with much love and compassion to the reader.
She speaks a lot about stress being a big contributory factor to illness, and how to alleviate it. But it is also more widely relevant to anyone who is carrying unresolved issues from the past.
I would certainly recommend it to anyone, the OP included, whether or not they have a chronic illness.

Nope she doesn't say she has ME / CFS caused by lymes disease but she does reference CFS, anxiety and a number of other chronic illnesses. And speaks in depth about all of the viruses and various ailments that she did suffer. Her book is very clearly a memoir of her own experiences and not a manual or guide. She lightly references research and says how it helped her. What I take from the book is a positive attitude and a reminder to accept and be mindful of your bodies needs, rather than how to fight / overcome a diagnosis or disease that you can't control.

Am I/are my acquaintances/the articles wrong? Does the book/do the interviews not say that?
I think you should read the book because then you will know what she actually did say.

I think there will always be a group of people who want to deny what ME/CFS is, what it is really like.

Huge sympathy op.

My dsis has long covid and the effect on her life is shocking. The one upside being that it has affected so many in the medical community that it cannot be dismissed and there’s a serious amount of research ongoing (which hopefully will impact other auto immune and chronic fatigue conditions).

And while there are many practices that help her live well with it, those things take energy and effort that often just aren’t available. And she’s bloody entitled to rage and grieve instead even if it’s not “helpful”. I think your “friends” are insensitive.

I cannot even imagine how devastating it must have been to live through that “me me me disease” phase of disbelief though I supported my bf through anorexia as a teen in the early 90s back when the medical profession believed that was just wilful refusal to eat sensibly and treated her with contempt. Even though she’s a healthy weight today, the distrust and fear of doctors has stayed with her.

I haven’t read Miranda’s book. So I really can’t comment on it one way or the other. Sounds like your friends haven’t actually read it either. 🙄

I would suggest that the fault lies with the "4 intelligent people" and not with the book. Full disclosure, I have not read the book either but when my husband was dying of cancer I had similar "intelligent people" saying similar stupid things.

In the interview I saw, she definitely said Lyme Disease.

YABU. She isn’t claiming a cure so that’s completely unfair. Maybe read the book before you start trashing it.

She was interviewed on, Women's hour I think, and she has Lymes disease, since she was young, which eventually resulted in chronic fatigue. I don't think she mentioned ME.

It seems to me that the OP is determined to drag Miranda into this despite the fact that so many people are pointing out the disconnect between what she is being told is written in the book, and the actual reality. Very sad but some people will never admit they are blaming the wrong person.

What has Miranda’s book about her experience of living with Lyme Disease got to do with your experience of ME though? I mean, it’s not her fault that you don’t have very intelligent acquaintances who don’t know the difference between the two 🤷🏻‍♀️

That just sounds like they don't understand what ME is. I don't think that's Hart's fault. She wasn't writing an educational volume.

But her book isn't about ME. Because she didn't have ME, she had Lyme disease. The reporting has been really clear she had Lyme disease.

The 4 people who made well intended albeit shitty comments to you can't be that intelligent if they managed to miss that. Don't give them so much headspace.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0jwjssm

Considering she has limes disease and hasn't written anything about ME or even that Lymes or ME is curable - YAB very U and should be mad yourself for posting a load of untrue crap claiming someone's else's book is untrue crap.

And yes it was Lyme disease not ME