"As if it's engaged in a long war against a foreign microbe, a war it couldn't completely win and therefore had to continue fighting."
A region of the brain that's involved in perceiving fatigue and generating effort was not as active in those with ME/CFS.
"Their brain is telling them, 'no, don't do it,'" says Nath. "It's not a voluntary phenomenon."
"It's the thing that makes people not want to give effort," she says. "We know if you do the [cardiopulmonary exercise] test again the next day, they cannot equal their performance on that test with the same amount of effort physiologically."
So how recently have we stopped just going to bed and resting when we have "minor" illnesses? Could it be that our immune systems really need us to stop doing fucking anything at all in order keep illnesses from turning into long-term problems, but we all won't just fucking stop trying to go to work when we're sick? Fuck the capitalist hellhole we're living in.