it's wild to me, because ME/CFS can, in rare cases, be terminal. autopsy reveals various findings: inflammation of the dorsal root ganglion, degeneration of the frontal lobe, metabolic issues and tangles of proteins in neurons and glia.
RIP to the author of "The Sleepy Girl's Guide to SSDI", who died young to ME/CFS, attributed to neuroinflammation in her autopsy.
Nocebos, the opposite of placebos, are extremely interesting. [1] The thing most people don't appreciate about placebos (and nocebos) is that the effect isn't just 'in your head.' It actually physically manifests - people can e.g. recover from illnesses measurably more quickly with placebos.
And the opposite is true of nocebos. So for instance one of the most common examples of nocebos is somebody will be given a terminal cancer diagnosis but then die long before the cancer could have been the cause of their death. They're so convinced that they're dying imminently that it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. I expect a similar phenomena is why elderly couples tend to follow each other into the grave in short order. Dying of heart break or loneliness is not necessarily just rhetorical.
RIP to the author of "The Sleepy Girl's Guide to SSDI", who died young to ME/CFS, attributed to neuroinflammation in her autopsy.