#brno chair | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

batsplat · 5 months ago

Note

i've noticed you refer to casey's 'mystery illness' and i was wondering, is that not his chronic fatigue? i wasn't following motogp back then but he's mentioned being previously misdiagnosed, so i assumed that the 'mystery illness' he suffered from in 2009 was the chronic fatigue he's since been diagnosed with.

ah, so there's a couple of reasons I use 'mystery illness' to denote it. the first is that it's not quite as straightforward as just labelling it 'chronic fatigue'. the second is that this was how the illness was referred to at the time, which I think is key for understanding how that year played out and how the entire episode was perceived. this is a sport that was horrendously ill-prepared to deal with an 'invisible' ailment that wasn't easy to diagnose, and the ambiguity and confusion are kinda central to the whole story. you've got ducati taking it upon themselves to spread inaccurate information about casey's health against his wishes, the muddled and irregular communication from his own camp, frenzied speculation in the press and from various pundits... if casey could have just clearly pointed to something, it would've made things a lot easier. but he couldn't - that's why it's a mystery illness

just to provide a basic timeline of how this went... casey started struggling around the time of mugello, but it became obvious to everyone else during catalunya. he was exhausted after the warm-up, slept for a couple of hours - and ended up fading badly in the race itself, struggling in the brutal heat that day and barely hanging onto third place. you can see it when you watch the race back (as we should all do regularly imo)... he's almost collapsing in parc fermé, gets a chair and medical attention before even making it to the podium, and he's barely upright during the podium celebrations. he just about makes it to the presser. he thought afterwards he'd recovered, maybe it was just a regular illness... but then he was struggling again during assen, depleted by the end of the race. in laguna, same story

it is at this point that ducati decide to issue a press release 'diagnosing' the problem:

except, you know. that wasn't actually casey's illness. and casey wasn't exactly thrilled with ducati's press release

so he's going through a lot of tests at this point, week after week, consulting a bunch of different experts, and they're coming up with all kinds of explanations - like, for instance, the idea that he'd been trying too hard to recover from a viral infection. but of course, this wasn't just an innocent mistake from ducati. it was part of a pattern of behaviour in them suggesting he just wasn't fit enough

now, obviously, even if this were true, it would still be blatantly unethical to spread around medical information about your rider a) without their consent, and b) that is also inaccurate

another thing to note about the donington race - this was a mixed conditions race where the ducati team were the only ones to take a gamble on wet tyres, basically... hoping it would rain enough to make it worth it. unsurprisingly, this did not go well and they were horrendously slow, they were heavily criticised for this choice, but casey explained it like this:

wishful thinking or calculated risk, this kind of thing helped make it obvious that this situation was unsustainable. in the run up to brno, reports started circulating that casey wasn't going to race. let's just check out the language that was used to describe this:

now, this may shock you to hear, but the sport of motogp in the year 2009 was not exactly at the height of sensitivity when discussing mental health issues. so a lot of the stuff you read from the time period, you kinda go 'well first of all, that wasn't actually the issue, but even if it had been the issue this would be a fucked up thing to say or even speculate about'. once this theory really started gaining traction, around the time when casey just kinda... up and disappeared from the world of motogp (without much in the way of open communication to the public)... well, that's when the discourse got increasingly ugly

there's a lot of stuff you could rattle through here, but let's just stick to a few key flashpoints. first off, this is what the beloved kevin schwantz, 1993 motogp champ and one of casey's favourite riders growing up, had to say:

as well as this:

obviously, he's entitled to his personal experiences in struggling with motivation when rainey retired - except he's using it to speculate about casey's situation, which is considerably less justifiable. and the other bits give you a feel for the common tone of the discourse at the time. the uncertainty over what casey's illness actually was, how little information anyone had to work with, the feeling that casey should just be competing - and the speculation that his problems were primarily or even solely 'in his head'. bringing up how casey wasn't fulfilling his contract, how it was a disappointment, how this might just be about resentment towards ducati...

when casey returned from the illness, he brought up schwantz pretty much unprompted in an interview:

in his autobiography, he adds the following:

Those comments really upset me and I lost a lot of respect for Kevin because of them. For him to say something like that was another example showing me that experience counts for nothing. The media often turn to former riders for an opinion, which would be a good thing if they stuck to what they know. Sadly, often their opinions are outdated and they don't know the half of it but talk endlessly as if they do. In this case, Kevin Schwantz knew nothing about my medical condition and shouldn't have commented on something he knew nothing about. For somebody who had been through a lot of tough times himself with injuries and such, you would think he might understand. It was disappointing but he wasn't the only one who had something to say. Everybody had their own opinions. A rider doesn't go from being ultra-competitive for two years and then just drop off the face of the earth because it's 'in his head'. It is absurd for anybody to even think that. If it was depression, lack of motivation or fear I would have said. People like Chaz and Leon believed in me because they'd known me for so many years and knew I wouldn't just switch off like that. But not many people stood by me through the uncertainty. Adri, Mum and Dad, Filippo, Livio, Chris Hillard, I could practically count them all on two hands. Even within my Ducati racing team, which only a year before had felt like family, there were doubters. I think a few of the guys believed me when I said something was physically wrong but others didn't. Some of the friendships I had grew stronger through all this, and some of the friendships disappeared. In a way that was a good thing. It gave me a better perspective of what racing meant to me and what people really thought of me, who I could trust.

(of course, casey did also separately have an undiagnosed anxiety disorder that even at time of writing his autobiography he didn't really understand, so some of this should be read with that context in mind. the key bit is the frustration he experienced as a result of knowing there was something physically amiss but having no answers at hand) (very much a topic for another time, but a lot of the discourse also ended up suggesting it had been valentino who had 'broken' casey and was responsible for this alleged psychological malaise. valentino didn't personally contribute to this narrative and stuck to wishing casey a swift recovery, but you also can't really leave this out when discussing either the illness or the rivalry as it was a big talking point at the time)

speaking of ducati... well, the main thing they were doing in casey's absence was attempting to hire jorge. which isn't an issue in and of itself, except they were willing to pay him a lot more than they were to casey and allegedly offering him number one status:

(the article also reports that dani was being touted as a possibility by ducati if they couldn't get jorge, or to have a direct switch between yamaha's jorge and ducati's nicky hayden, a plan which amusingly was said to have valentino's full support)

in casey's absence, the ducati/jorge thing progressed far enough that at one point it was being reported as basically a done deal. obviously, in the end it wasn't a done deal, and jorge ended up signing a one year extension with yamaha for 2010 (still hedging his bets, depending on how the situation with valentino played out) - but the damage was already done. here's how casey talks about it in his autobiography:

They'd told me when we signed a contract for 2009 and 2010 that they didn't have any more money for me, didn't have money for development but now suddenly they could afford to shell out like that for another rider? Considering what we had achieved together, I couldn't believe it. I felt I had been stabbed in the back by the people I trusted and who were supposed to trust me. I was blown away, and not in a good way.

also this charming comment from marlboro:

this all prompted retirement rumours, yamaha rumours, all kinds of rumours, and obviously in the end casey moved to honda a year later anyway. you have to say one side ended up rather better than the other from that divorce. when casey returned, he was immediately competitive, with a podium in estoril following two home races at phillip island and sepang. while the ducati's decline continued apace in 2010 and rumours continued to circulate that casey just wasn't the rider he once was, he was able to dispel them definitively with the aforementioned move to honda

one more thing though: what was the mystery illness? the problem if you just say it was misdiagnosed but was actually 'chronic fatigue' all along is in how it erases some important context. this was seen as a possibility at the time, and he had been diagnosed with chronic fatigue before, but was actually dismissed as the primary explanation for whatever reason. from casey's autobiography (published in 2013):

I had seen doctors about some tiredness back in Australia in 2006. They said I had chronic fatigue syndrome, which they put down to a combination of my diet and my busy schedule. But this time it was far more serious and it seemed that no matter what I tried to do to make myself better I only got worse. I started having more recovery drinks made up of milk and whey powder and my condition continued to deteriorate even more rapidly. I didn't suspect that what I was doing to help was causing even more problems.

and from an article from the time:

you know that last bit of the autobiography excerpt? where he mentions the recovery drinks were part of the problem? so, at the time casey believed the main problem was lactose intolerance

the thing is, a lot of more recent articles have said he was 'misdiagnosed' with lactose intolerance and I'm sure I may have used the phrase myself as a way of denoting 'there was clearly something else going on too'. but... I'm not sure that's entirely accurate? read this from his autobiography, and decide how you're convinced that it was a misdiagnosis:

Before going back to Australia for the next race at Phillip Island we decided to try lactose again, just to confirm that it definitely was the source of the problem. Within the next day or two I started losing my usual energy. In a way, this made us happy because I could finally confirm what the problem was. After that it was like a whole new world. For ten years it had seemed to me that a lot of food tasted the same and I could go a whole day without eating and not be hungry. Once I knew what the problem was and knew what to do everything started to smell and taste good. Even the amount I ate doubled! Adriana could see a huge difference almost straight away. And not just physically: 'I love cooking but any time I'd ever put anything on the table for Casey in the past, even though he was always polite, I could tell he wasn't enthusiastic about it. I was like, "I just cooked that for you!" Now he actually started to enjoy my cooking and that was one of the happiest days of my life.' For a while I didn't go near lactose at all but then we discovered Lacteeze tablets and with them I can pretty much eat anything I want. Adri makes tacos, creamy pasta sauce with vegies and traditional Slovakian dishes like svieckova, which is beef in a carrot sauce, and knedle bread. I could finally eat my favourite dessert - sticky date pudding with custard - without getting sick afterwards. I was always pretty skinny and even though I trained my backside off I never put any weight on. But now my body suddenly started filling out and I started to actually put weight on and gain some body fat, which I'd never had before.

I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure that's not how the placebo effect works

and then in 2019 it's framed like this:

and also:

plus when he's talking about it in that four hour long podcast interview thing, he kinda frames it as saying he'd continuously struggled with these physical issues but they didn't cause his actual retirement. to my reading, it seems that he's had some form of chronic fatigue for a long time, plus some of his issues may have been triggered by epstein-barr virus which he got during his career - but the specific severe problems he's describing in-depth in more recent interviews concern what he's been going through after his retirement

this is obviously quite a complicated medical history, and I wouldn't say it's 100% clear what exactly he was struggling with at what point of time. how do you accurately describe that? I'm not sure just calling it 'chronic fatigue' would be accurate, right? personally, I think 'mystery illness' works as a descriptor because a) this exact phrase was widely used in reporting at the time, and generally I'm trying to accurately describe events from the pov of that time, and b) because it gives you the key bit of information - that nobody knew what it was, including casey. it's just useful shorthand, really, not much more to it

#THAT BEING SAID it's not a stylistic choice I'm massively attached to. mainly you just mirror the things you read right #unless they're like. actively offensive. but I feel like 'mystery illness' is a reasonably respectful way of referring to it #//#brr brr #batsplat responds #his wife saying one of the happiest days of her life is casey enjoying her cooking... girl......#heretic tag

14 notes · View notes

ranposbabe · 2 years ago

Text

Infidel | Johan Liebert x Reader Chapter 1

It felt as if for the first time the deep stream was calm. Typically the water raced down the line and yet here it was steady. Why couldn��t you be steady ?

You can’t help but to desperately crave an answer as to why. Just the weighing thought has you clenching your fist and digging your nails deep into the skin of your palm.

Despite wearing shoes, you slightly hover over on the grass and splash a bit of water using the tip of your shoe.

Can’t be steady forever.

“y/n !” You snapped around to see the sight of your father sticking his out of his bygone car. Shoving your hands into your pockets you grudgingly make your way back to the car. “I’ll never understand why you like visiting this field so damn much !” He groans, pinching the radix of his nose.“It calms me.” You mutter. Lie.

“The amount of animal piss and shit round here is god awful !” He complains without hesitating to start the car.

“We’ll atleast we know your one with nature, father.” You mutter, slamming shut the car door.

11 months earlier…

“You really need to start thinking about university y/n, I’m getting concerned.”

You sink further into your chair hoping it would just swallow you whole.

As your poker face remains the more agitated your father became.

Maybe this was your purpose in life.. pissing off your father. Nothing too difficult. You can’t help but to raise a brow. You don’t even feel the need or want to exist yet this man has been wanting you to occupy yourself with university ?

“You know what ?” He calmly states, patting his knees. “Join the agency with me. Try out the detective life for a change hm ?” He rambles, leaning closer.

“Alright.” You simply state, practically jumping out of your chair.

Anything to get the conversation over with. “Doesn’t take much to convince you huh, y/n ?” He says with a smirk present on his face.

Present…

“And then I said to the asshole, the bitch is dead get over it !” The drunk man howled, practically spilling his beer while trying to down it. Every Friday night (realistically midday) your father and his coworkers go down to the pub as an excuse to slack off and yet here you were practically handcuffed to the table being forced to spend your own time with the slobbering drunken men who spat out profanity while their shirts were covered in vile stains from their drinks.

You couldn’t help but watch in disgust as they all just rambled on complaining about their hard life. Hard life ? If only they even had an ounce of knowledge of what a hard life meant. You couldn’t help but feel disgusted by the entitlement of them all.

“Damn it.” One of the men cries, staring down at his watch. “I’m supposed to be having a meeting with a professor down at Brno University.” He says, unsteadily raising from his seat. You raise a brow at the man. “I’ll go !” You state, already clutching your coat.

“You sure, little lady ?” The man inquires, despite already willingly handing you the files needed for the case. “Better then being here.” You mutter while putting your coat on.

“Great ! Head to the University ! Maybe then you can make some friends! Shame you never applied to university you’d be out there buzzing with the crowd !”

Buzzing. That’s all you could hear from their rotten loud mouths as you hurriedly gathered your things to head out.

These past year when everyone had started to head off to university leaving you behind to decay and leaving your father forced to hand out a job pulling you out to face the cruel world on your own as if time was ticking for you to have a life.

Ticking, no buzzing. Screeching.

Time Skip…

As you finally made your way to the premises grounds you can’t help but find yourself somehow lost. Of course it being a university there were expected for students to be on the premises yet it felt like you were stuck to ground as bait and everyone else were predators itching for a taste.

As you sluggishly make your way through groups of buzzing it suddenly dawned on you that..the buzzing was getting louder.

“Shit.” You wince, attempting to soothe yourself by rubbing your temple.

Suddenly, your shoulder bangs into someone and your files fly out of your arms and settle onto the ground.

“Ah !” A voice screeches from behind.

You turn to come face a young girl whose knees now look red and rather scratched.

“Apologies !” You sigh, lending out your hand to the girl. “Oh ! Thank you.” The girl smiles, taking your hand to help raise herself. But then it happened.

Something never happened before.

The buzzing. It had stopped.

Then two girls came rushing over to aid the girl you tripped into.

“Nina ! Are you okay ?” One girl panted.

Your widen eyes were stuck in a trance onto the girl. “I’m fine.” She laughed.

“But are you alright ? That was particularly my fault too.” She said, turning her attention to you. “Oh I-

You suddenly noticed the slight cut on your hand and watched as the blood rolled down to your wrist.

“I’m okay.” You state, pulling your hand behind your back. You turn to walk away completely confused as to why the buzzing was now gone when…

“Hey ! You almost forgot this !” Nina yells, handing you the now crumpled files.

“Oh um thanks…Nina.” You nod.

As soon as the girl walked away..

the buzzing returned.

#johan liebert x reader #johan liebert #monster #anime and manga #reader instert #x reader #dark aesthetic #manga #johan #yandere #yandere x reader

172 notes · View notes