Published on – 2nd March 2025
Zara
I had heard a lot of ‘chronic illness origin stories’, most were unremarkable and caused by viral diseases, especially post COVID. Though one story I always remember is Zara’s.
Zara was in her mid-twenties, and in 2015, she had just started university. Like a lot of teenagers moving away from home for the first time, she was nervous but incredibly excited to meet new friends and be a new version of herself.
She promised herself to be open to new experiences and become immersed in everything university had to offer. And in Freshers week, she was true to her word.
She crocheted with strangers for the inaugural ‘stitch and bitch’ afternoon, she rock-climbed for the very first time, and she drank Echo Falls with the Cheap Wine Society.
Zara was loving life, and the person she was becoming.
Then came the final night of Freshers week. She was on a night out with one of her new societies, trying hard to remember everyone’s names and play it cool. Zara was on a sticky dance floor and did what millions of university students have done before and will do again. She kissed a random guy.
But what she didn’t know was that the guy had mono, which he passed on to Zara, and later developed into ME/CFS.
She would be housebound for the next few years, when she should have been snogging more random people.
The story really drove home just how unfair the illness can be. An 18-year-old, doing 18-year-old things, and now she’s battling a chronic illness for the rest of her life.
Milton
ME/CFS seemed to be an illness which predominately impacts females, and I was used to being the only man in meetings.
Although, there was one other man who attended—an older chap named Milton.
I only heard Milton speak twice. The first of which was when we were discussing tips for saving energy.
Some of the suggestions were about setting realistic goals for the day, taking regular rests and making sure to limit high-energy activities.
Milton decided to interject, recommending to a group full of women, that sitting down to wee was a great way to save energy.
But the funniest thing to come out of Milton’s mouth came when a bride-to-be was talking about her upcoming nuptials. She didn’t care about the crash that would follow her big day; she just wanted a way of having false energy to get through it.
Some ladies recommended binging on energy drinks; one recommended wearing a nicotine patch, though she admitted it might make her jittery. There were a few different and useful tips.
Then Milton raised his hand.
Someone prompted him, and he responded very matter-of-factly with, ‘You could Masturbate?’
The room was in shock, I could be misremembering but I think one woman genuinely clutched at her pearls.
Milton went on to elaborate, ‘Basically, if you masturbate but stop at the point of climax, it will give your body a shot of energy. I don’t know the science of it all but trust me it works’.
The room was silent, I was trying my best not to laugh. Then we carried on with other topics.
Funnily enough, I never saw Milton again after that. I wasn’t sure if he was uninvited from the meetings or if he had just found the antidote. He was living his life normally, just perennially on the cusp of having an orgasm.
And that’s the story of Milton and his Magical masturbating tactics.
Polly
Polly, was one of the biggest characters I met. She had spiky purple hair and never suffered fools gladly.
On the days I was too fed up to attend the meetings, I would go anyway, just to hear from Polly.
One of the things I loved hearing her talk about was her husband, Samir. They met at a ballroom, at which point Polly was six years undiagnosed.
They instantly connected and planned to see each other again. But Polly’s condition kept flaring up; she kept fighting crashes and needing to cancel. She worried that Samir would get disinterested and move on to someone else.
Then one evening, again after cancelling, Samir showed up at Polly’s house holding some flowers. She opened the door, sobbing, and explained everything to him.
She explained how she was always exhausted, how sometimes her mind would be so foggy that she’d forget what month it was.
As she unloaded all these feelings, as she did to her doctors who cast her aside, Samir said the one thing she’d been hoping to hear all this time:
“Well, we better work this out together then.”
All these years later, her face would still light up every time she spoke of Samir.
Polly would often go on long monologues in the middle of our meeting, and there was one that I always remembered.
Now this isn’t word for word, but you’ll get the gist:
“Have I told anyone about Phillip. No? Well, Phillip was my big brother, but unfortunately, I didn’t get to meet him. He was my father’s best friend for nine months, and then he was gone. He died of an illness called Diphtheria. The younger lot might not have heard about it because it’s not around anymore. And when I was born, a few years later, I was instantly vaccinated against Diphtheria.
I used to think about Phillip all the time, wondering what he would say about it all.
Would he resent the fact that he wasn’t born just a few years later? If he had been, they could have treated Diphtheria. Who knows, he might be here today.
I always wondered if he would resent me for being a few years younger and a lot luckier?
Then I relate it to our illness. Who knows, maybe someday some clever boffs, might find a cure. And all those millions of people who had to suffer were just a casualty of timing. Because that’s all it is—bad timing.
And I think about the day when I’m where Phillip is. Whether I’ll look down on people cured from ME/CFS with bitterness.
But no, I’d take that resentment, that anger, the self-pity, to know some poor 20-year-old isn’t going to have to go through what we did.”
Following 2020, I wouldn’t see Polly again but I’d often consider what she said, her idea that it’s just bad timing.
I didn’t know whether I agreed with it or not. But I knew that if I ever saw her again, what I would say:
“That bad timing also led you to Samir.”
LIFE IN A CRASH 