Malware: Analogy explaining M.E. (Myalgic encephalomyelitis)

Over the years, more people than I care to count have asked me to explain how my M.E. (Myalgic encephalomyelitis) affects me, what’s it like, what is it, this illness that has a poor press and bad reputation.

The thing is, they all expect me to have an easily relatable answer, when the medical community can’t even agree on it.

So here’s my analogy:

M.E. is like the next generation malware. It sneaks into your operating system through weaknesses in your firewall you don’t even know you have and it infects your hard drive.

Your firewall launches your anti spyware, your malware detectors, your anti-virus, tasks clogging up the RAM until the whole thing grinds to a halt and stops working like it should.

You run diagnostics, but this malware is sneaky, and you can’t remove what you can’t find.

So, you take your computer to be repaired, but this IT person says they can’t find anything wrong with your computer, tells you to run a scan and it’ll work again.

It doesn’t.

You go back to the repair shop, but this time the technician says the system is fine, you’re just not looking after your programs properly.

Eventually, you go to a different repair man, because whether or not it’s a user error and there’s nothing really wrong, you still can’t get your computer to function like everyone else’s computer.

This new technician might take a look at the computer and refer you to a specialist, because they think that there might be something wrong after all.

And when you get to this specialist, who might agree that yes, there is something wrong with your computer, and that no, you weren’t imagining it and no, it isn’t your fault.

But the specialist tells you, they don’t know how to fix it.



Written by CM @ChucktheGremlyn

Published here with her permission