My maddening battle with chronic fatigue syndrome: ‘On my worst days, it feels almost demonic’

April 6, 2026·34 min·3 clips

She describes chronic fatigue as feeling like her blood is old glue mixed with whatever you'd scrape off the bottom of a Swiffer.

Hermione Hobie recounts her lifelong struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, beginning when she fell ill at age 11 and never fully recovered from what seemed like a normal virus. Her school's deputy headmistress dismissed it as a 'mystery illness,' setting the tone for decades of medical skepticism. The condition manifested as crushing fatigue, pain, brain fog, and postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, creating what she describes as a thick, obscuring cloud that made basic functions nearly impossible. For twenty years, doctors dismissed her symptoms, telling her nothing was physically wrong despite her obvious suffering. This medical gaslighting, part of what's now recognized as medical misogyny, left her feeling unheard and invalidated. The psychological burden of not being believed sometimes felt worse than the illness itself. In her early thirties, her partner suggested she might have myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME), also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. A specialist finally confirmed the diagnosis, providing validation after two decades of uncertainty. The diagnosis brought psychological relief but no effective treatment, as ME/CFS remains poorly understood with no standard cure. Episodes continued to cycle between periods of relative health and months of debilitation. During a particularly severe episode in 2024, an energy healer suggested 'brain retraining,' a controversial approach based on the mind-body connection. Despite her skepticism about anything that sounded like 'it's all in your head,' she worked with coach Jason McTiernan on visualization exercises, affirmations, and nervous system retraining. The method initially seemed miraculous - she recovered and returned to running and writing with renewed energy. However, when another episode struck, the brain retraining techniques failed to work, leading to a crisis of faith in the approach. She grappled with whether the method was genuinely helpful or merely coincidental with her natural recovery cycle. The essay explores the tension between hope and acceptance, the individualistic nature of wellness culture, and the political implications of suggesting people can think themselves well in a broken healthcare system. Hobie ultimately rejects both triumphant recovery narratives and bitter exposés of alternative treatments. Instead, she arrives at a more modest conclusion: illness is random and meaningless, requiring not dramatic breakthroughs but ongoing management and mitigation. The piece ends with her acknowledgment that she will likely experience both future mountain hikes and future bedridden episodes, accepting the unpredictable nature of chronic illness without the need for deeper meaning or narrative resolution.

As heard by us

A blunt, humane account of recurring chronic fatigue.

An intimate chronic-fatigue account opens with a school letter that still has weight 30 years later. What sticks is the steady return to ordinary humiliations: the 10 feet or so to the bathroom, the memory of having climbed massive Colorado mountains, the green Gold Thread tonic…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want an illness story that stays close to the body, not above it.

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