We failed her. Big time. Boston Children’s was experimenting on Justina Pelletier,

[moriah]

442. You aren't telling me things I don't know, I promise you.

I have fibromyalgia, along with bipolar disorder. I know very well what it's like to be told your problems are all in your head, and with bipolar depression there's no doubt that yes, I hurt worse when I'm depressed. The mind does have affect over the body, even when there is something genuinely medically wrong.

What bothers me about the way they tried to treat Justina was that they disregarded a competent doctor's diagnosis which they claimed to be made overbroadly, but the diagnosis they have is already determined to be overbroad. However, there are teenagers and adults with the actual psychological disorder. Also, it can be helpful to have counseling even when you are dealing primarily with physical affects from a disorder -- medical illness can be the cause of another valid psychological condition, called Adjustment Disorder (when life sucks and you're having a harder time dealing with it than you should, to the point it's causing you problems -- as a teenager dealing with my drug-addicted father who was dying of HIV and taking it badly, I had that diagnosis). Of course, that's talk therapy, not strapping someone with a GI appliance to a toilet.