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The original was posted on /r/cfs by /u/Riccavd0 on 2024-11-08 16:24:52+00:00.

I’ve been sick for seven years, but severely so for only the last six months. I used to complain about how much the illness limited my life, but there’s absolutely no comparison to now. In the moderate stage, you can still do something. I realize now that, however minimal and occasional that something was, it was incredibly important to keep up a semblance of normalcy, a taste of real life. Now, that something has become nothing. No more sporadic outings with friends, no more short walks, no work, even just a few hours a week, no little trips with my girlfriend.

The difference between rarely going out and never going out is immense, monstrous. Losing all contact with the world, not even having that occasional day where you feel well enough to go out or invite a friend over, reconnect socially, or visit a relative you haven’t seen in a long time. Now I am limited in every aspect of life. I’m even struggling to write and give coherence to this short text.

This is also a warning to people who aren’t yet in this state: do everything to avoid reaching it. Rest, pace yourself, do whatever you can. This stage of the illness damages dignity, mental health, physical health, social connections, and relationships in ways I could never have imagined.

Now to the crucial part: those few days of relative (very relative) well-being between one crash and the next were the “boosts” I needed to keep going—days when I created memories. I’ve realized, after passing all these identical days in a row, shut inside, unable to even have a simple experience, that I have no truly meaningful memories from the last six months.

Some people fear the idea of not being remembered by others. I got over that fear after coming to terms with my situation.

But the fear of not having memories of yourself—that is true horror.

PS: I started wanting to reason out the differences between the stages of CFS, and I ended up completely digressing (a sign of how clear-headed I am, lol), but I decided to post it anyway. I hope the only thing you take away from these thoughts isn’t just sadness. Of course, I don’t want to downplay the earlier stages of the ilness.

PPS, to make you laugh: I’m not a native english speaker, so I put this text in chatGPT to check the eventual mistakes. This is what it told me:

“At points, adding brief introspective questions or single-word sentences could enhance the dramatic effect. For instance, after describing how every day feels the same, you could add a standalone line: “Why go on?””

Thanks for the su1cide suggestion lmao.