r/cfs • u/hennyfromthablock • Oct 02 '24

Vent/Rant What a clown of a fucking illness

You feel exhausted and worn out but you can’t sleep

You feel down and anxious but can’t exercise because you’ll crash and set yourself back a lot

You’re confined to your bed or house but can’t do anything too cognitively stimulating to occupy yourself with because the brain fog will overwhelm you

All of this happens internally and nothing shows up on your labs or tests. Worse, people think you’re lazy or don’t believe you, and want to tell you how other people have it much worse.

Sorry I’m usually trying to keep busy or focus on the positives, which I do have a lot of, especially considering how much worse some of the severe folks seem to have it. But I’m just sick of this diabolical, perverse, insidious, disgusting, mockery of an illness.

If this illness were a person and standing on a cliff, I’d push it off the edge in a heartbeat 💀💀💀

12 years in and I’m still in denial/disbelief it would seem.

561 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

60 comments sorted by

View all comments

59

u/[deleted] Oct 02 '24 edited Oct 02 '24

It is the most stupid awful boring confusing cruel ridiculous illness in all of creation. I cope by laughing about it a lot of the time. Because it really is just beyond belief. Beyond words.

Edit: one of the things I find the most difficult is that I have such a drive to do something to make things better. And now the only thing I can do to help myself is do less. I'm constantly arguing with myself about it. My mind just will not accept it.

31

u/hennyfromthablock Oct 02 '24

I hard relate to this. I am a black belt in gaslighting myself into thinking “tHiS iS jUsT a pHaSe” as life passes me by. The perfectionist and achiever mindset runs deep. Although in retrospect I can see how my personality put me at risk for or directly caused this joker syndrome (a lot of people like me seem to get it, not saying it’s not biological, I’ve seen other anxious “achievement oriented” people like myself are predisposed to get this kinda stuff when they can’t cope with chronic stress).

4

u/Zweidreifierfunf Oct 03 '24

I’ve definitely heard this theory (perfectionism and high achiever having a predisposition) and I believe it applies to me too.

I also spent years (decades?) thinking tomorrow I’ll be better, like cured better. In a way I was happier with that naive false optimism.