u/InternationalName626

I suffer from a condition known as ME/CFS. Even in its mildest form, it’s an incredibly debilitating disease to live with. I’m still seeing doctors regularly, but I’ve already been told by several that there isn’t really much that can be done for me. There is no cure for ME/CFS, there is no real treatment, and the only way to manage it is by pacing—essentially reducing your activity levels, which I don’t really have the luxury of doing.

There are rare cases of people with this condition miraculously recovering or going into remission. I’m curious to know if a demon could potentially make that a reality for me.

I hate having CFS. I know it isn’t fatal the way that having cancer or organ failure or something is, but I’ve had this condition since I was in fucking middle school. I never even had a chance to establish myself in the world before developing it.

My parents are both hardcore maga conservative types who believe that you should be able to just power through anything and everything. They don’t believe there’s any such thing as “can’t” only “won’t” and they raised me with that motto. Everything had a price and everything had to be earned.

When I got mono and didn’t recover, I was told I was “milking it out” then I was told that I was depressed, then I was told I was just a lazy piece of shit. I barely finished high school and probably wouldn’t have had I not left to go to an alternative school instead, as they had no take home work or attendance requirements which allowed me to do well still. And even that was incredibly difficult—I was barely able to make it to class toward the end.

To add to it, my mom has chronic pain which she has used to dismiss my own symptoms and play the whole “I’m older so my health is automatically worse and if I can do it, so can you” tune despite the fact that I remember her having the energy to work out for hours at a time when I was growing up and a trip to the store wiped me out completely.

Most healthy people I know only had to work part time in college. The most common story I hear from people is that they worked 15-20 hours per week and that their parents paid for the living expenses while loans and fasfa covered tuition. I was expected to work full time and provide for myself. I was allowed to live with them (while they terrorized me any time I tried to rest), and they considered that to be an immense level of help that I should be eternally grateful for.

I couldn’t keep up and was just in a constant crash. I was sick all of the time and getting weird ass illnesses every other week because my immune system was non-existent. I ended up flunking out. I couldn’t even go in to drop my classes because I had nothing left in my body to get up and do anything more. I just couldn’t. This happened two more times as I was told I could go to school or get out of their house, but had nowhere to go. Nothing changed and therefore the outcome was the same.

Now my GPA is destroyed to the point that I can’t get any financial aid to go back, can’t get any grants, can’t get any scholarships, and even if I could go back, I have to work full time in order for my partner and I to make ends meet and keep a roof over our head and my kid’s head.

I’ve had trouble holding a job my entire life because eventually my attendance or performance tanks due to these crashes, and sadly, when you don’t have a degree, the jobs that you can get are physically demanding and not good for someone with CFS. I have a retail job that’s actually super accommodating and I still don’t know how long I’m going to be able to make it. It’s been nearly a year and I just came off a week’s vacation hoping to recover but didn’t have enough time to do so still.

I’m sick and tired of being poor, I’m sick and tired of people who think it’s just a matter of willpower and motivation, I’m tired of the never ending grind, and I’m tired of my body feeling like shit every day.

And yall want to know the real kicker? I’ve been living like this since middle school and just finally received a diagnosis on TUESDAY. For reference, I am 35 years old. I’ve been being gaslit all of these years and told that it’s all my fault, and even though I’ve always known it isn’t, it doesn’t make me any less angry and bitter towards the world.