The thing that has helped me most in coping with CFS over the last two years has been to successfully educate the people around me. Chronic Fatigue is a very unhelpful name for the condition because people hearing it tend to assume you are just really tired and wish you a good night's sleep, which does no good. If you can get them to understand, to have realistic expectations of you, and to do the things that take the stress away, it makes a huge difference.

The best way is to get someone who knows you well, your parent, best friend, carer etc, to chat with your boss, colleagues, friends, tutors etc. I survived university on the strength of the fantastic note that my doctor wrote to my director of studies.