"Blending vivid auto-ethnography with historical and cultural analysis, this book examines three themes common to the experience of chronic fatigue patients. The first is the denigration of subjective knowledge in the medical community. Since there are no tools with which to diagnose fatigue, there can be no medical confirmation, making it difficult to convince doctors, and often by extension the patients themselves, that these problems are real. Without a diagnosis, there are no prescribed guidelines and as a result, patients often create alternative cultural spaces in the form of support groups that give primacy importance to the role of subjective experience. Chronic fatigue syndrome advocates have repeatedly called attention to the paltry amount of research funds directed to that condition. Because everyone gets tired and endures aches and pain at some point, the public also dismisses persistent pain and fatigue. The second is an analysis of the cultural emphasis on |