Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS) is characterized by profound fatigue, sleep abnormalities, difficulty in thinking, pain, and other symptoms that are made worse by exertion. Symptoms persist for at least six months and are not explained by an underlying medical condition. CFS is also known as Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disorder (SEID) and Myalgic Encephalitis (ME).

The symptoms of CFS are real but the cause has not been determined. Because of this, it is worth considering whether the brain, which is fully capable of causing symptoms in the body, could be contributing (even slightly) to the CFS.

Why would the brain do this? Nearly always, one or more types of stress is involved even if this is not fully recognized at first.  These include:

1. Adverse Childhood Experiences and their long-term impact including:

   a. Stressful personality traits such as focusing too much on the needs of others, excessive self-criticism, perfectionism, lack of assertiveness and many others.

   b. Unrecognized negative emotions such as anger, fear, shame, grief, or guilt.

   c. Triggers including people, situations or events that remind you of stressful situations.

2. Current life stresses

3. Depression, Anxiety or Post-Traumatic Stress

The good news is that all these sources of stress can be successfully diagnosed and treated.

To learn more about whether you might have these issues, try taking the self-diagnostic quiz below. It has 12 ‘Yes or No’ questions. The more questions to which you answer ‘Yes’, the more likely it is that the resources on this website will help you.