CFIDS Pen-Pals: My Best Friends

By Ann McErleane

Originally published in Youth Allied By CFIDS, Winter 1996

Soon after my diagnosis of CFIDS in December 1992, the emotional impact of having a chronic illness set in. I had to withdraw from my first year of college and come home. At home, I was housebound and bedridden the vast majority of the time. While my heart was filled with many emotions I had not felt before, the most prominent feeling was a sheer desperation for contact with other young people with CFIDS.

I still had my old friends, but they were all off at school and had no understanding of the life that had enveloped me. I started a frantic search for other young PWCs. I found a group of adult PWCs and, although they were suffering from the same disease, their attitude and problems greatly varied from those of young people. In time, I came across Sharon Walk's pen-pal group for youth with CFS, CFS Youth Outreach (CYO). I immediately wrote to the group and later received my list of pen-pals.

This opened several doors to a new world for me, enabling me to cope with and surmount CFIDS in various ways.

Through CYO, I found other young people who were just like me, also facing the same problems I was. I realized that there were other kids out there with the same feelings, desires and goals as I have who were also facing CFIDS. Without them I would have been lost.

My CYO pen-pals were my only link to the outside world, providing me with support, information and entertainment. Writing and receiving letters was the sole activity I could engage in for about a year. All the people I wrote to generally wrote to the same people as I did. We all got to know each other and became our own "clique" of friends.

I have continued to keep in touch with most of my pen-pals for almost three years now and they have been my support through many rough times. Their support, kindness and willingness to help never waver. They provide a different understanding and an ability to relate because of their own experiences with CFIDS.

My pen-pals are my best friends. Even now that I have greatly recovered and plan to return to school this spring, they are behind me 100 percent, giving me all the support I need for this major change. I feel that through my pen pals I have established a group of best friends who will provide a lifetime of friendship and support to one another.