Many people don’t understand what it feels like to have a chronic illness, or the constant pain and emotional exhaustion that comes with it.

The last few years of my life feel like they’ve been dominated by doctor appointments, new medication, and trying to differentiate between symptoms and side effects. I’ve suffered through days when i barely had enough energy to stay awake for four hours and I’ve spent days without thinking about my health at all; though, admittedly the later being more rare. On the bad days, I wake up in pain, on the good days I have to think carefully about how i use my limited energy. If i use too much energy one day, it will make the next days harder to get through.

As a teenager, its especially difficult to find doctors who will listen to me, instead of writing off my pain. Doctors have told me that my symptoms are caused by depression, that I need to lose weight, and given me arbitrary excuses to ignore me. After explaining to my doctors that this is not depression, I want to get out of bed, they continue to assume I don’t know my own body. The more doctors I ask for answers, the more it seems that they want answers from an adult, my grandmother or my dad, more than they want to hear what I am going through. Adults around me approach me in the same attitude, assuming that my symptoms are simply a result of adolescence, despite the growing evidence that shows this is something more.

It took a year and a half to find a doctor who would listen to me. It took blood tests, changing medicine regiments, evaluating every detail to find out what could explain my fatigue, soreness, and stomach pains. Finally, my doctor asked me about CFS. Chronic fatigue syndrome has many symptoms, and doesn’t yet have a true test. This illness though, its empowering to have a name for. To know that there are other people who have had the same issues, and gotten help, brings me joy. It’s hard to know that at a young age people are already trying to write off my illness, and it only serves to remind me that i will have to spend my whole life fighting for recognition.