In addition to the supportive comments on this and other blogs, I have received quite a few private emails since writing about ME/CFS, especially after my post was picked up by the ABA Journal. I heard from two academics who are not “out,” and who asked me to keep their illnesses confidential. I received an email from a lawyer for whom “the isolation and dealing with something people diminish and don't understand have been almost as bad as the symptoms at times.”
Most affecting was a series of emails from a law student who described in detail the ordeal of attending school while coping with ME/CFS. In addition to problems of concentration and stamina – especially at exam time – the student has to cope with a social situation in which s/he does not feel free to confide in others the nature of his/her difficulties. [I am using the awkward split pronouns because the student quite reasonably requested absolute anonymity.] In addition to apprehension about the reaction among peers, the student expressed concern that the bar examiners would interpret ME/CFS as a psychiatric problem, which might then delay admission to practice. Consequently, the student has told no one about ME/CFS, including the Disability Office, for fear that accommodations would lead to gossip, and then to broader disclosure, and then to stigma.
My experience has been the opposite. Disclosure of ME/CFS has brought me nothing but thoughtful support. But I am tenured and well-established (although, of course, I have no idea about the reaction of people who have not contacted me). Nonetheless, I think that a student’s anxiety about going public with ME/CFS is entirely rational, even if the worst of his/her fears would never come about.
So, to law professors reading this blog: Please be alert to jokes or casual remarks – among faculty or students – about ME/CFS. The disease is invisible, and I guarantee you that a student with ME/CFS would be profoundly discouraged to hear the illness dismissed or minimized by a professor or classmate.
Finally, I think it is necessary to say something about productivity and expectations. A number of commenters, here and on other blogs, have commended me for being able to keep up my publishing and teaching during my illness. Well yes, I have done that, and it has been a daily struggle. But it is important not to over-emphasize success or “triumph” stories, which can sometimes be taken to suggest that others simply haven’t tried hard enough. As I trust Faculty Lounge readers will understand, it takes much more than an iron will and settled determination to overcome the challenges of ME/CFS and similar conditions. If other people have had less success, it is only because they have not had my privilege and advantages (not to mention my uniquely flexible job).
[Note: I have omitted or changed identifying characteristics for the people whom I have described in this post; they are not associated with Northwestern.]