one of the major difficulties in learning to live with this specific illness, is that it gives you (and many times also your physicians, and others around you) the illussion that you can keep on leading a normal or near-normal life, if you just try hard enough.

This is unfortunately not true, and the sooner you understand that and realize that you need to adapt, learn to recognize your abilities at each given moment, stop on time etc. the better.

this is an illness in which there is very little fixed weakness, but weakness can become very severe with quite minimal exertion. the kind of exertion that healthy people would not even notice they do.

even those with a relatively mild illness can't do what they did before.
and adjustement may paradoxically be harder for them, because their illness is so elusive that it is not even clear that it is there.

learning to accept the help of technical tools and aids, as well as friends and family, is required for achieving a better functional level. the amount of help that you need is dependent on the serverity of the illness, and also on how much you want to achieve. you obviously need more help if you choose to lead a productive life, than if you choose a couch-potato life style.

paradoxically, accepting some degree of dependence, makes you more independent. this is hard to see in the early days of this illness.