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Tom Anderson

@macanders.bsky.social
279 followers 271 following 132 posts

#pwme |Mild-mannered author Henry Anderson| chronically hopeful | Sign up for my FREE course on writing linktr.ee/henry.anderson

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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 9h
A Lighthouse on Fire at Night, Joseph Wright of Derby, 1796. Fitzwilliam Museum.
A Lighthouse on Fire at Night
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
"We need to ask why so many patients have been abandoned, why discredited and dangerous treatments continue to be prescribed and why ignorance and neglect still dominate... In other words, there has seldom been a stronger case for a public inquiry." #pwme #me www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Abandoned, dismissed and gaslighted: there is no excuse for the way ME sufferers have been betrayed | George Monbiot
Changes in guidance and science seem to have little impact on millions of devastated lives. It’s a social crisis playing out behind closed doors, says Guardian columnist George Monbiot
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
www.theguardian.com/society/2026... I had cancer after prolonged periods of poor MH (due to M.E.) No family history and relatively young (41)
theguardian.com
Adults with severe mental illness die 15 to 20 years earlier from diseases such as cancer
Exclusive: Stark health inequalities in terms of deaths before age of 75, NHS data reveals
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Alem Matthees @alemmatthees.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I was forced to do absolutely nothing because of very severe #MECFS for 9 years, but at least now I can read and write a little. People with ME/CFS have their boundaries tested constantly just trying to live and we naturally do more when we are able to. Activity phobia in ME/CFS is BPS folklore.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
“I may not have amazing victories, but I can amaze you with defeats that I came out of alive.” -Anton Chekhov.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Looking up.
The sun appears out of the clouds.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
The Battlefield at Marathon, 1849, Carl Rottmann. Oil on canvas.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
He was very weary; the day had been long, and full of dragons.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
"Dusk", Carl Moll, 1900, Oil on canvas.
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Dr Jo Greer @drjogreer.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
As a full time carer for someone with very severe ME, I am starting to feel that indifference is the real killer.
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Frances Ryan @francesryan.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
As Rod Liddle has died, I notice this column I wrote in 2019 about his attacks on people with M.E. is on the most read again. Rebekah Brooks, of News UK, described Liddle today as “provocative”. In reality, he spread lies about very sick people for cash. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
Rod Liddle vilifies disabled people. I’m tired of the hate. We all should be | Frances Ryan
Whether it is ME patients or another target, huge swathes of the media have normalised hatred of minorities for years, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
In garden. I think the light is going a sort of slightly grey colour #eclipse
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Charles Turner @kafkaboots.bsky.social · 02/08/2026
The deepest wound of severe M.E is not simply the loss of bodily capacity, but the loss of a shared world in which that loss can be intelligently spoken.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
“I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party; and I attended with my real face.” -Franz Kafka.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 09/07/2026
Frederick Judd Waugh, Looking West, St. Ives, Cornwall, 1896, Watercolour
Frederick Judd Waugh, Looking West, Sunset over a beach in Cornwall, 1896, Watercolour.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
Lubber Fiend - a beneficent goblin supposed to perform chores etc. round the house or farm at night.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Along the way to the Coldrum Long Barrow built six thousand summers ago.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 25/05/2026
“I am my own secretary; I dictate, I compose, I copy all myself.” Venerable Bede, whose day this is.
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MEAction UK @meactionuk.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
The most severely ill people with ME have nowhere to go, no treatment, no ward, no NHS service. They are dying and they need help. They need a specialised service to be commissioned now!
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 28/04/2026
Remembering Terry Pratchett and his gifted storytelling - satirical, humorous and profound, born on this day 1948 and gone too soon. - “Never trust any complicated cocktail that remains perfectly clear until the last ingredient goes in, and then immediately clouds.”
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 22/04/2026
Along the way.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 03/04/2026
There is a certain bleakness in finding hope where one expected certainty.
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CelticStoic(Dan) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @celticstoic.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
In spring more mortal singers than belong To any one place cover us with song... Some to go further north to Hudson's Bay, Some that have come too far north back away... - Robert Frost
• Blackbirds and Rushes by Frank Weston Benson (American, 1862 - 1951)
Date: 1920
Medium: Drypoint
Source: Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Missouri
•Excerpt from OUR SINGING STRENGTH by Robert Frost (1874-1963)
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 30/03/2026
substack.com/@macanders/n...
substack.com
“If in doubt, leave it out.”
Have the courage to cut.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 08/03/2026
open.substack.com/pub/macander...
open.substack.com
How we might be speaking a different language: The English Academy That Never Was
"The Academy That Never Was" - England’s attempt to control its language - and how its failure allowed English to flower freely into the global language it is today.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 01/03/2026
“With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair also increases: the more consciousness, the more intense the despair.” -Søren Kierkegaard
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
“Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.” — Oscar Wilde
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 14/02/2026
The eye of God ends up inside, so that, in the end, you take care of judgment and punishment yourself. -Karl Ove Knausgard
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
Writing True Stories open.substack.com/pub/macander...
open.substack.com
Writing Colour Pieces
Scenes from Real Life
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 03/02/2026
Night and Sleep, oil on canvas, Evelyn De Morgan, 1878.
In the painting dark-haired Night guides her son Sleep. His relaxed pose is set against the "more energetic line of his mother's body." Poppies, symbolic of sleep, peace, death and the artist's pacifism, are listlessly strewn by the somnolent Sleep as he passes.
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Bruce Springsteen @brucespringsteen.net · 28/01/2026
I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Stay free
youtu.be
Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)
YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world and exiles me from it.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Local trees minding their own business.
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John Peters @johnthejack.bsky.social · 09/01/2026
Medical Gaslighting: A New Colloquialism Isaac KS Ng, MBBS, MRCP (UK)a,b ∙ Sarah ZL Tham, MBBSc ∙ Gaurav Deep Singh, MBBS, MRCP (UK)a,b ∙ Christopher Thong, MBBS, MRCP (UK)b,d ∙ Desmond B. Teo, MBBS, MRCP (UK)b,e,f desmond_teo@nuhs.edu.sg www.amjmed.com/article/S000...
Text:

Medical Gaslighting is Fundamentally Driven by Systemic Constructs and Biases
In fast-paced clinical practice, decisions are often made with the aid of clinical heuristics or diagnostic algorithms, which carry the risk of cognitive bias. For example, “5 F's” (fat, fertile, forty, female, and fair) is a popular clinical mnemonic often used by trainees to recall risk factors for gallstone disease16—however, over-reliance on such simplistic rules of thumb may contribute to bias and premature diagnostic closure. Moreover, many established clinical algorithms have also been found to contain racial and sex biases contributed by the training data or model developer.17 For instance, Obermeyer et al (2019)17 showed that a widely used health care algorithm in the United States led to Black patients needing to be “sicker” than White patients to be afforded the same level of care. Finally, medicine's “hidden curriculum” contributes to development of unconscious implicit bias when students observe discriminatory or stereotyped behaviors from clinical interactions during their rotations.18 When systemic biases become deeply entrenched, gaslighting unfortunately becomes a learned, subconscious, intuitive behavior demonstrated by both attending physicians and their trainees.
Conclusion
In summary, we conclude that medical gaslighting is a real problem within the health care system. As a medical fraternity, we should engage in honest introspection, and actively call out and correct gaslighting behavior. Our training culture should also emphasize developing a proper understanding of our patients and eliciting of underlying concerns, learning how to navigate nonspecific clinical presentations or lesser-known disease entities with professionalism and empathy, as well as identifying and eradicating implicit biases from clinical care.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
The Federalist Papers, especially Federalist No. 10 by James Madison, address factions—groups with interests adverse to others or the public good—as a core challenge to republican government, 1/3
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 31/12/2025
Working on Procrastination macanders.substack.com/p/procrastin...
macanders.substack.com
Procrastination - I'll Finish this Later.
Procrastination is generally defined as the delay of an important task, despite knowing the negative consequences. Often hard tasks are swapped for less important, easier activities. A procrastinator ...
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 29/12/2025
For loneliness, worries, difficulties, the unsatisfied need for kindness and sympathy – that is what is hard to bear.” — Letter from Vincent van Gogh to Theo van Gogh, May 1888
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 14/12/2025
The art of the interview. Lean in and listen, your story may depend on it! macanders.substack.com/p/how-to-int...
macanders.substack.com
The Art of the Interview.
Lean in and listen, your story may depend on it.
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Claude Monet @monet.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Water Lilies - 1916/1919 botfrens.com/collections/41/content…
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
"Your best men die in alleys under a sheet of paper while your worst men get statues in parks for pigeons to shit upon for centuries."- Charles Bukowski
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 07/12/2025
The right's callous "overdiagnosis" bandwagon is rolling. Wes Streeting should not be on it. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
theguardian.com
The right’s callous overdiagnosis bandwagon is rolling. Wes Streeting should not be on it | John Harris
Thankfully, we now know more about conditions such as autism and ADHD. The health secretary must not be part of this attempt to turn back the clock, says Guardian columnist John Harris
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
Josef Mánes, The Drowned. Oil on canvas, 1867.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 26/11/2025
open.substack.com/pub/macander...
open.substack.com
A Stick Defying the Sea.
Or maybe just accepting it.
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Ursula K. Le Guin Bot @leguinbot.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
For in this love he now felt there was compassion: without which love is untempered, and is not whole, and does not last.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 24/11/2025
Egon Schiele, Harbour of Trieste, 1907. Oil on board.
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CelticStoic(Dan) 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 @celticstoic.bsky.social · 22/11/2025
#JosephConrad "I don't like work—no man does—but I like what is in the work,— the chance to find yourself." - Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness was first published, in book form, in the collection "Youth: A Narrative, and Two Other Stories" (1902); however, it was published previously as a three-part serial in Blackwood's Magazine (1899), when Conrad was 41 years old.• Joseph Conrad, born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski, 1857, Berdychiv, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire (modern-day Ukraine).
• Photo of Joseph Conrad, 1904 (age 46) by George Charles Beresford.
Source: National Portrait Gallery.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 15/11/2025
‘Shinrin Yoku’ is a Japanese noun which means, ‘A visit to a forest for relaxation’. It emerged in the 80’s as a reaction to urbanization and disconnection. I vote we add it to English and make it a thing.
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 13/11/2025
“Everyday courage has few witnesses. But yours is no less noble because no drum beats for you and no crowds shout your name.” Happy 175th birthday Robert Louis Stevenson
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 11/11/2025
New short story. A gripping tale of the far future - Leviathan. A flying ship ventures on a secret voyage beyond the mapped edges of New Berlin. Gentleman adventurer Hanna and helmsman Krebb fight for their lives in a quest that could save-or doom—humanity. mybook.to/NewBerlin1Le...
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Tom Anderson @macanders.bsky.social · 09/11/2025
Earlier. 6000 years ago old, the Coldrum Stones lie near the Pilgrims’ Way. In his ‘Antiquities of Cornwall’, published in 1754, William Borlas stated that the name ‘Coldrum’ came from the Cornish word ‘Galdrum’ meaning ‘a place of enchantment.’ Someone (not me) left a small satsuma as an offering.
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