Choosing life over chronic fatigue
The following testimony is a very relatable story, in which Canadian Raelan, who suffered from CFS for many years, shares her journey toward becoming pain free. The video is in English; you can find the translation below.
Raelan and CFS: Choosing Life
My grandmother emigrated from Ukraine to Canada, and it was extremely difficult for her to raise her children. She often felt guilty, and my grandfather was rather distant, both in the household and toward his daughters; he mainly focused on the sons. My grandmother developed CFS. My mother had a difficult childhood but found a small ray of light in her close bond with one of her siblings. Sadly, that sibling suddenly died at the age of eleven from an aneurysm. Around the age of thirty, my mother also developed CFS. I was five years old at the time.
At first, my mother worked full-time, visited countless doctors, and tried everything: exercising more, resting more, being told it was “all in her head.” The harder she tried, the worse it became. Eventually, she had to stop working. Her life grew smaller and smaller; she became house- and bedbound, moving only in a wheelchair. Depressive feelings grew stronger and after twenty-five years of CFS, she lost all hope. She took her own life.
My mother, when healthy, was a strong but also self-centered woman. Even after she became ill, she continued to have high expectations. She expected others to help her immediately. I was her only child, and I grew up in constant stress. She was extremely anxious about everything I went through. A simple flu would lead to panicked text messages: “this flu could be fatal.” Everything revolved around her. She became jealous if my father received attention, and family gatherings were always loaded with stress. My mother would threaten suicide if I didn’t do what she asked quickly enough, long enough, or well enough. Both my father and I lived in survival mode. My own needs and feelings weren’t allowed to exist. I learned at a young age to push them aside, and I kept doing that even after I moved out.
I firmly told myself: I will never get CFS. I am different from my mother. I kept going and going: multiple jobs at once, studying, a busy social life, traveling, completing a master’s degree. Self-care meant obsessively controlling food and weight, and extreme workouts. My sense of self-worth was tied to how my body looked/felt. I kept going and going, even while traveling in Europe, where I checked to-do lists just to see and do as much as possible. Even the things that should have been fun turned into stress.
And then my body gave out.
Eight months after my mother’s death, I myself was diagnosed with CFS. I came back sick from a trip and couldn’t get out of bed. At first, I thought, “it’s just the flu.” But the symptoms persisted and worsened. Eventually, I couldn’t finish my master’s degree in social work and couldn’t continue working, because my family doctor refused to write me off as sick. I felt lost. In Canada, if the GP says there’s nothing wrong with you, the social insurance system doesn’t activate. I had to turn to private care. Through expensive private doctors, I received multiple diagnoses: CFS, Lyme disease, adrenal fatigue... I followed a strict treatment plan and spent thousands of dollars each month on supplements and consultations, but nothing helped.
After a few years, my marriage ended. I moved back in with my depressed father, into the room that had once been my mother’s. I kept searching: specialists, alternative medicine, books on cancer, diabetes, chronic illnesses. I bought an infrared sauna, a mini-trampoline… Hope and despair alternated. Eventually, I reached rock bottom: I was 32, depressed, isolated, even suicidal.
With the money from the sale of my house, I thought: maybe I can travel, even if it’s just to lie in a different bed for a while. And somewhere, despite the pain and hopelessness, a small spark ignited: I am free, I owe nothing to anyone, I can choose. I want joy, adventure. I want to discover if that’s still possible.
That turned out to be a turning point. In Thailand, I rented a hotel room for six months. I was still cautious, sparing with my energy, but also free: what do I want to eat, where do I want to go? For the first time, I felt that my childhood had been taken from me because I had always been at my mother’s service. Now I could make my own choices. I felt like a child in a candy store! I didn’t tell anyone I had CFS. I didn’t need to; I could spend a few hours talking with people and then return to the hotel. I stood barefoot in the sea, that place from the movie The Beach, looked at Leonardo DiCaprio’s beach, and cried – from happiness. I still had CFS, but joy had entered my life. My symptoms became more bearable, precisely because I stopped fixating on getting better.
I learned that joy is a basic human need. If that is missing, you become sick. And sometimes, it’s your body forcing you to step off the treadmill.
In the following years, I backpacked, took temporary jobs, and made friends. Every day I still had symptoms, but I could manage them. It was no longer torture. My then-boyfriend, now husband, suggested we live together and take time to truly recover. I delved into the importance of sunlight, sleep cycles, nutrition, fasting, cold-water therapy, massages… but the real change didn’t come from my body—it came from my mind.
During my travels, I realized that if I truly enjoyed an activity, I could physically sustain it for longer.
I started small exercise programs—for example, moving my arms for 1 minute the first week, 2 minutes the next, then 3 minutes, and so on. After a year, I was training in a fitness center. At the time, I thought I was strengthening my body; now I know I was gradually reprogramming my brain, gathering proof that I could move and exercise. I often still felt “something” in my body after training, but I no longer panicked about symptoms. And then, suddenly, I could do all activities. I also started journaling, making lists of big-T and small-t traumas, and receiving psychological support. I realized that body-focused approaches were not the solution—it was mind-focused work that mattered.
I reflected on the thoughts that kept coming up in my head, for example, being bullied as a child, especially issues tied to shame. I wrote these things down. Why do I feel this way? What caused it? If I go back to that moment, what would I say to myself? This way, I processed every situation that occasionally resurfaced in my mind.
Today, I no longer have chronic symptoms. Sometimes lower back pain appears under stress—strange, because I didn’t have that before—but I recognize it and let it go. My symptoms are now signals through which my body communicates: look, here is stress. And I listen and calm my body: Yes, I understand, thanks for letting me know, that’s what this is about. And the pain disappears.
My message to others with a chronic illness:
I know that going through a process like this can feel like nothing will ever change, like it will last forever, like you are the only person who cannot apply mindset changes to pain. Or you may think you’ve had it for too long. Or your symptoms are too severe. Or maybe you’re holding onto the thought: but I really have something (which, by the way, is true for everyone). There is no one who is too sick, too far gone, or too deep to recover. You don’t have to constantly smile or pretend nothing is wrong. But keep searching for a solution; maybe it’s not this video, but another video, or a certain book or podcast that gives you exactly what you need.