Korin Griffin

September 17th, 2019

ENG110 Section F

Leslie Jamison’s “Devil’s Bait” is an interesting piece that explains what Morgellons disease is considered to be and digs deeper into the topic of empathy. What is empathy? How do we show empathy for others? What is Morgellons disease? What is it about Morgellons disease that coincides with empathy? These are the questions I had asked myself before reading this essay.

Morgellons disease is a condition that features a type of itching or “crawling” feeling coming from the skin and the extraction of strange “fibers’ from different areas of the skin all over the body. In the beginning of the piece on page 222, it explains a bit of what Morgellons is, “The sickness can start as blisters, or lesions, or itching, or simply a terrible fog settling over the mind, over the world… people said they had a strange disease, and no one –or hardly anyone– believed them.” There was said to be almost 12,000 that had self-diagnosed their Morgellons disease and still not many people believed that this was a real disease. People told them they were crazy, doctors would turn them away, nobody was willing to help find a cure for something they didn’t believe to be real. 

Jamison tells the stories of a couple of patients of Morgellons that she meets at a conference/support group. As she tells their stories, she also explains her reflections and feelings a bit. On page 238, she feels, “ I wanted to do nice things for everyone out of a sense of preemptive guilt that I couldn’t conceptualize this disease in the same way as those who suffered from it.” These emotions that she feels, the sympathetic acts that she longs to do for people, shows empathy. Empathy is when we try to understand how people are feeling. We put ourselves into their shoes and try to feel their emotions as best we can and share those feelings and emotions with others.