Why CFS is thoroughly frustrating

One aspect of CFS I find the most frustrating is not people who don't understand what CFS is, but people who almost resist trying to understand what CFS is.

I don't expect anyone to spend hours reading about CFS on the Internet. What I can't stand is when people ask: "What's wrong with you, exactly?" over and over again. And when I say "I have chronic fatigue syndrome" and explain it to them, they dismiss what I have to say, and ask me the same question again in a few months' time! It's thoroughly frustrating. At least five people I know are regular culprits of this.

One that I'll call "H" is the most exasperating to deal with. She cares about me, but she doesn't seem to realise just now debilitating CFS is. She seems to think that I'm just depressed. And that is the most annoying attitude anyone can deal with.

Not only do I have a mysterious, invisible, debilitating disease; I have to battle with people who think I'm just depressed as well.

Let's start over

I've been inspired to give this blog a proper go. I'm going to try writing in it daily. I hope it'll help both you and me understand the illness better.

A lot has happened since my last post in November. I got a cat.

This might sound like trivial news, but I can't express just how un-trivial it is. My cat helped me when no-one else could. Animals don't judge, and they're always around when you need them.

I got upset when some people told me to stop talking about my cat. No-one -- apart from my boyfriend and carer whom we will call "A" -- knew how depressed I got. I cried all day, every day; about nothing, and everything. I felt completely out of control, I couldn't see myself ever recovering from CFS, and nobody was helping me. My cat pulled me out of a hole that was getting very deep and very dark. And I don't think anyone else could have done it. And yet, people were telling me to stop being so happy about my cat. How could I, when I had nothing else to be happy about?

I don't believe antidepressants have improved my situation. Mainly because I wasn't depressed when I got chronic fatigue. To me, that means depression wasn't the cause of my chronic fatigue. And how can you treat something without targetting the cause? It's all a bit hit and miss to me. In any case, I only started to improve when my cat, "M", got here.