M.E. (myalgic encephalomyelitis), otherwise known as CFS (chronic fatigue syndrome) is a condition that causes debilitating fatigue, along with a host of other symptoms including muscle or joint pain; hypersensitivity to sound, light, smells, food or medicine; unrefreshing sleep; and cognitive impairment.  The severity varies from a manageable disruption to an impairment so severe that a person cannot swallow, speak or get out of bed. There is no cure.

I have had M.E., and a related condition, fibromyalgia, for eight years. 

I am a fat old white cisgender queer lawyer with disabilities, raised working class and christian on the Canadian prairies.

The images that follow are my attempt to capture, from bed and with my phone, what the experience of this condition is like.  

— barbara findlay