I’ve been incredibly busy over the past few weeks with my first steps into a broader social realm. It’s a new stage of life for me, one that sees me emerging from a more isolated, withdrawn existence into a world with more variety, more stimulation, more possibilities, and yes, more danger. In a post that I wrote some months ago, I described it as dancing with the hurricane, and I’m really coming to experience this more fully now.

As such, I’m going through birthing pains. Every tiny victory brings great joy; every tiny setback feels catastrophic. It’s a wild roller-coaster ride. It’s like learning to stand on my own, to walk a few steps. It feels entirely new, it’s a breaking of many old habits and routines, and it’s both exhilarating and very frightening.

It’s taking a lot of discipline and integrity to stay the course on this unfamiliar route, and a lot of tolerance on my wife’s part, when I get overwhelmed with the stress and take it out on her. This is even more the case when particularly nasty things happen.

As I mentioned in my first post on “getting down to business,” the major hurdle for me, and a source of tremendous guilt and other negative feelings, is the need to sell myself. One of the deep contradictions in this society is that “self-promotion” is a dirty phrase, yet it’s almost necessary in order to succeed in business (and it’s certainly necessary in my situation). So I find myself doing something that I abhor and judge myself for: trumpeting my virtues (and that of my school) for my own gain.

A few days ago, in my ongoing attempts to drum up patients for myself, I posted an ad on a community message board whose membership skews largely toward college students. The comments I received in response were extremely negative. Not wanting that energy to be the impression readers walked away with, I decided to respond in what I hoped was a nonviolent way.

Still, in the end, it was very difficult to read these words:

There is only one “medicine” and then there are unproven untested treatments and folk remedies. Again, it is alternative because it is either unproven, untested or no better than placebo.

I have no doubt you have a mountain of anecdotal evidence, some paid for and some genuine. No one can argue that it works, as does sugar pill or a good backrub for some ailments. That doesn’t make it medical treatment.

I’m sure we could go back and forth on this all day. I’m not interested in a pissing contest though. In the end, you do what works for you.

I’m sure we could. I assume you are not interested in a contest. You are interested in a business. One which I have no problem with, so long as it is clear that what you do is not medical. The problem arises when people are duped by charismatic people who are out for a buck. Some people who believe in “alternative” medicine avoid real medicine that could help or save their life or at least are left with a little less money and a bunch of empty promises.

It makes me sad when I see someone like my Grandmother who has spent money on “herbal remedies” and similar faux medicine because it was being passed off as “real” medicine. Especially when her life-saving medications are so expensive. You sound like a fairly reasonable person, which leads me to conclude that you do know better, and know when a joke to earn a buck has gone too far and you would send them to a real doctor (hopefully not completely broke). But I would ask that you be careful, because there are many people who can’t tell the difference between the fake medicine “herbal” ads on TV and the medicines their doctor prescribes. I hope that your school has a good long ethics class just for this purpose.

Now, in general, I’m not afraid of confronting disagreement. But I do feel rather ill-prepared, at this particular moment, to make coherent arguments against skepticism, simply because I haven’t studied the scientific research, nor do I have my own professional experience to cite. I accept the veracity of this medicine because of the opinions and experiences of people I respect, because of my own improving health thanks to Oriental medicine, and because its philosophy and theories make so much sense to me. None of which counts for much in a debate on “the evidence” (i.e. double-blind randomized testing).

But, the more important thing happening was that ultimately this was one person who was completely unable to see practitioners of alternative medicine as anything other than frauds and hucksters, and who refused to budge an inch from that stance. It wasn’t about the logic; it was about a vendetta.

In the end I tried simply to point out the absurdity of that attitude, without being mean about it.

You seem to believe that I, my profession, and every single traditional Asian doctor is in no way concerned about the welfare of our patients, nor interested in what the evidence demonstrates to be effective treatment. All we are interested in is drawing on two thousand years of unsubstantiated claims, or simply fabricating evidence, in order to fleece the unsuspecting public and make a quick buck.

What can I say? I disagree.

I tried my best to be firm, yet nonviolent in my response. It took a lot of will to find that balance, but I felt proud of myself.

Shortly thereafter, though, my post and all of its comments were deleted. Then, a moderator announced that I (and someone else) had been banned from posting on that board.

The reasons behind these bans stem from the fact that they were both posting self-promotional advertisements (which in of itself isn’t a bannable offence, or even wrong in most circumstances). Compounding the former reason was the fact that both accounts are relatively new, have the default layout on their personal [profile] and no public (or detectable private) posts other than the same advertisement posted in this community.

Point #4 of our community rules clearly states that spamming is initially an offence that would normally be followed with deletion of the offending post, but in this specific case for both users the evidence is heavily stacked against them being actual live people.

If anyone knows these users in real life, and wants to defend their actions, the ban will be lifted on the condition that they act less like suspicious little spamtards.

Anguish. Pain.

I realize now that I had posted an ad on a board that looked down on ads. Yet I feel certain that, had I worded it a bit differently, it would have been perfectly acceptable. After all, lots of people posted little ads selling their furniture or their used stuff or announcing their apartments for rent. If I had been trying less hard to be so “official” and instead been more personal and honest — the way I really am, when I’m not trying to be some sort of professional-looking person — then they would have seen me more as one of their own.

Instead I was banned for being a spammer. Irony of ironies. And to top it off, I wasn’t even allowed the dignity of a genuine identity as an “actual live person.” This despite the heartache and effort I put in to respond compassionately to spiteful attacks (how can that be mistaken for a spambot?); this despite the fact that I used my real name and I did spend some time personalizing my profile.

This whole series of events essentially painted me as something terrible. Fraud. Exploiter. Self-promoter. Spammer. Not even a real person. All of which I try so hard not to be.

I feel thoroughly dirtied. Thrown into the mud.

Sure, this is nothing compared to, for example, the indignities a lot of black people go through regularly — in person, not just on some relatively anonymous message board. But it’s my first steps into a broader world — a world where people are mean, nasty, spiteful, cruel, and not necessarily for any good reason, but just because they assume things about you that aren’t true, and because they can.

This world hurts.