Real Illnesses


Having one of these "New" illnesses, I was pleased at the beginning of the film that they were actually dealing with one of the unpredictable never before seen illnesses. Unfortunately, the film took the track that this type of illness belongs in a psychological thriller. This film perverted the actual pain and reality of a very real portion of our society that deal with a variety of similar syndromes. How sad that the film writes off the health of a women as merely psychosymatic. The "New Age" way of making females we don't understand crazy. Just another stick the woman in the attic story, they are as old as "man".

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[deleted]

Exactly, kashka2. It was never outright or implied that we were supposed to believe it was psychosymatic. That leader at Renwood who just pumped money into his huge mansion on the hill spouted that they were all responsible for anything horrible that happened in their lives. Someone's son committed suicide? Their fault! (He says that.) THe scene where they're all sitting around relating something about their pain, and he puts a guilt trip on them. And also the scene that always gets me emotionally, when Julianne is walking back toward her place alone, and she just starts sobbing, and the woman comes up and starts "soothing" her with her own backstory, it was like she totally missed the point, and did not understand why Carol was crying. Carol's lost. In body and soul. And this woman and everyone else running Renwood believed it was just her physical frustrations, etc. They missed the point. I believe Carol was simply a soul who was not meant to live during the time she did. The allergies to the chemicals was just a smaller representation of a bigger picture. Her soul was allergic in general. Very very sad. I also thought the music was haunting and added alot to the mood and emotion. A brilliant, brilliant film the likes of which I have never seen before or since.

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[deleted]

Are you still trying to recover?

It's pure hell having MCS/EI. I don't even talk about it anymore. Unless you have it, you don't get what it's like. I don't know many people who have recovered. I stopped looking for them because it seemed pointless. The last doctor I think I sought treatment from ended up in federal prison.

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I support 1-800-SUICIDE / WWW.IMALIVE.ORG / WWW.HOPELINE.COM - and you can too!

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To be fair, this is how these new sensitivities were viewed and treated at the time this film was made. 1995.

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