Ryan developed ME around 2014 and had to leave work by 2015. He feels he has learned more from his chronic pain than from any job or school. Many of the therapies, that he learned about to help manage his pain, matched what he learned about marketing. Although marketing is often developed to manipulate, when he learned them again as therapies, he saw how helpful they could be.

Things Ryan has found helpful:
- Support Groups
- Pacing or Time Management
- Learning Circles or CBT
- Acceptance Therapy
- Volunteering- Helping Others

Bev developed ME/CFS in 1996 at age 40 after an untreated strep throat. In her thirties, she developed fibromyalgia. With pacing, she could still work part-time, parent, manage our home and do rewarding volunteer work in the years of fibromyalgia.

Attending the 2011 IACFE/ME Conference in Ottawa was transformative. Listening to Dr. Klimas, Dr. Bested, and Dr. Stein while surrounded by hundreds of patients was life-changing.

Bev misses dancing, hiking and camping of my old life, especially now with two grandsons whom I'd love to do more.

Getting to know others in the ME/CFS community has been extremely rewarding, and Bev enjoys giving back.

Bev’s most helpful coping strategies are pacing, meditation and radical acceptance, diet including vitamin D and B12, and 91/2 hours of restorative sleep.

Maria developed the disease in 2007, but it took doctors around seven years to formally diagnose her. There were years when medical professionals told her it was all in her head, and only her family believed her when she said something was wrong. Maria joined the Manitoba support group in 2014. Today, she volunteers — often from bed — as a board member, advocate, grant writer, support group facilitator and social media co-ordinator.