I became ill after an infection during the spring of 2003. I don’t remember exactly when, but in 2008 or 2009 I took an LP course in Oslo. I quickly left the course behind me, a bit embarrassed to have spent so much of the family’s money on something I didn’t even want to try.

The people around me had greater faith than me. I was already in improvement when I attended the LP course. One got captivated by the optimism at the course. I had a thoughtful two-hour drive home after three days on the course.

The methods I had learned were strange and contradictory to me. I had signed on not to talk about the course to others or to talk to other course participants afterwards (I could ruin it for them with negative thoughts). I had spent a lot of money on something I knew little about beforehand. I was captured by the success stories.

By the time I was back home, I’d got a strong feeling of having been cheated, and that this was comparable to alternative treatment – and that I had been silenced with a signature. I will never know if it would have worked (as in something that could have been used against me) because I never tried it.

I recovered with pacing and had a few years where I completed my degree in social work, had a full-time job and was free of the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration. But unfortunately I became ill again a few years later. Perhaps I was a little too optimistic and didn’t take enough care of myself.

In 2015 I was on a full sick leave, but I had felt symptoms for about a year before that. In my case, the symptoms of ME came gradually, until they had completely taken over my life. Now I’m worse than in the first period, and have realised that I need longer time to get well… I still believe in that even though my body can do less and less.

I am occasionally housebound, but not bed bound. I get PEM easily in the form of headaches, muscle pain and brain fog. I was diagnosed with ME for the first time in 2003, was medically assessed once more and got the same diagnosis in 2017.

I’ve never thought of myself as sick as I maybe am. I was probably a perfect candidate for LP back then. Unfortunately I won’t accept anything due to thinking critically.

These people offering LP-courses have covered themselves legally, and will get you if you reveal the scheme. That these people, with such a non-serious scheme, where you are held responsible for you own illness, are allowed to ravage an entire group of sick people, is incredible.

Just take a look at the vocabulary and characteristics of those who oppose them.

As an ME sufferer, I don’t recognise any of it, and believe this is a group of unscrupulous people who have found a gold mine in sick people.