It's one of the worst possible ways to describe the illness!
It leads to so much stigma and confusion. I felt ill when I was mild. Like I always had a cold or was getting over one. And even when I was so exhausted I would have to rest in bed I primarily felt really f-king ill! So it took me much longer to understand I probably had 'cfs'. You could plausibly call dozens of other serious conditions chronic fatigue syndrome by their logic.
It's pathetic they still won't get the basics right.
it's that thing where I watch him trying to use his body-language to express 'oh I haev so much sympathy for those with it, it really is terrible' whilst we sit here and don't know whether he's either completely been misled on the wording or actually believes it's 'just tiredness' but yet he is just some wonderfully caring person who is even so sympathetic to people who get really exhausted
people thinking as long as everyone seems to do the right body language all around it for a few minutes it negates the work in getting the words right. But that's paternalism. 'Good intentions' [with callous indifference] BS publicly emphasised as if that should deter someone from criticising 'because they mean well'.
We don't want the people on the sofa's 'sympathy', but to not be misrepresented in order that we can keep our/get some respect and be understood regarding what we have and live with, so have more space/room to live (without always having to explain ourselves then be ignored cos someone heard something different somewhere else).
That wrong description blocks good research and one day getting care and contributes to the next day and all the days after each pwme getting 'micro-aggressions' they have to just live with the harm to their illness from (because yes, PEM is a week of harm or maybe more or less from the impact of that person saying 'I'm tired too so do it yourself' or whatever the need being ignored is - each time it happens, so it cumulates very fast to big deterioration in illness - not just 'upset'). So it is a choice to avoid responsibility. And avoid hearing you have it, so you can carry on 'pretend oblivious' to the consequences to others.
That's the hell that we are trying to get out of. It's difficult to describe what a dystopia it is to live in that and not even know what someone in front of you is and if they are going to turn on you
I would however love to see someone, perhaps from a charity or as a group, managing to nail the best group and way to 'approach the conversation' that needs to be had with these people to finally nudge them into doing a professional job for us just as you'd hope is happenning/has probably happened for other things (I imagine there are lots of illnesses that also have this crap, but some who tackled it and got somewhere - and it does take a heck of a lot more work than those outside of the profession/work realise - just like a really good essay or paper ironically makes it seem like what it is saying is 'so obvious' because of how well-written its final draft ends up being)