NO vicodin yesterday.  I was only awake for ten hours and for most of it I was inactive, but I didn't take anything.  For me vicodin cures fatigue but I save it only for pain or must do events.  I'm proud of my self discipline and my journal is the only place where anyone (me) cares. I'm calling my friend on his brushing me off - he is a doctor so I probably over communicate my symptoms.  But still I wonder what it takes to successfully convince someone who is healthy what it is like to be chronically ill.  It's sort of like trying to get rich Americans to see poverty (really SEE) poverty in other countries.  There is a strong incentive to look away. Here is my email: I’ve been withholding important information that could damage our relationship. I apologize for that.   I’m writing it in an email because I am confident we will deal with it and come out the other side 100% okay.   I also know you can’t talk for any length of time so calling and dumping it in your lap would be wrong.  However, if I don’t write it now.  I’m in danger of withholding again…and storing up resentment.   Your email reads as if you think my problem is “age.”  When things slow down for you let’s set aside enough time for us to dialogue about this.  I remember you calling me (accidentally)  hypochondriacal a long time ago.  I secretly wonder if you think I overstate symptoms.   I was already getting sick when we met so you have never known me as a well person.  It is my fault because I pepper you with details thinking you might find a magical insight.  You tend to change the subject.  I feel ignored and try to not bother you …until the next time.  I shouldn’t treat you like my doctor, I know.  But I’m desperate.  And desperation doesn’t make for good decisions. When you say you are “pissed of that you can’t do it all,” it feels like you equate our two situations.  As if when you were first in a wheelchair, I had said…”yeah, my knee is really giving me problems I know how you feel.”  I’ve lost about 50% capacity to live.  The randomness of the pain and fatigue fuck with any chance of making a plan and sticking with it.   I’m not a hypochondriac – I’ve examined that possibility since you said it.    I am obsessed with my health – definitely.  My obsession probably looks like hypochondria.  But persistence is my only hope in finding out what the FUCK is wrong with me.  I’ve been active on www.dailystrength.org where people write of losing friends, divorce, etc as a result of fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue or what I call NFC Syndrome (No Fucking Clue).  My suspicion that you may secretly think I overstate my condition makes me want to pull away from you.  I need to hear your “left column” and we need to do some reality testing of hidden assumptions.  I want to hear what is unspoken between us. I guess I want you to SEE me.  It is a lot to ask.  It feels like a “look at my wounds” need.  Like when Betsy had her mastectomy and the first thing she wanted from me was for me to see her scar.   A.