For Friends and Family

One of the hardest parts of this illness is the social isolation, and subsequent withdrawal and detachment that many patients experience.

Part of this stems from an asymmetry of information - your friends, your boss/coworkers, your relatives, and sometimes even your doctors don't know exactly what your day-to-day struggles may look like.

This page will compile a list of helpful links you can forward to folks you care about - and who genuinely care about you - to better help explain what you're going through. Understanding breeds compassion, so communicating the reality of what you go through is an important step towards getting recognition for your illness - and most important, for you yourself as a human being.

Links:
Buzzfeed - 19 Facts About The Disease That Makes You Tired All The Time

Letters from Patients to Loved Ones:
This is a collection of letters patients have composed to their friends and family, "coming out" with the truth of their health conditions. These brave authors have generously given us permission to anonymize and post these letters here. Our hope is that other patients may use these as templates to communicate with their own loved ones - and also, that their friends and families may get an incredibly vulnerable and intimate look into the mind and life of a ME/CFS patient.

Letter #1

Letter #2