Many patients I communicated with seemed to suspect that autoimmunity demanded that you take a closer look at who you really were. An autoimmune disease, various women in my online support groups counseled, compelled you to face the ways you were living an inauthentic life. I encountered exhausted mothers and wives who felt they did everything for those around them and nothing for themselves; women who were trapped in abusive situations; men who, longing for premodern days, had grown suspicious of microwaves or desk jobs. Poor personal choices, they all believed, had led them to this forcing
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