This question (overtly or understated) seems to come up a LOT, for whatever reason. It seems perhaps like those of us with CFS/ME (a not-so-nice disease) have found the ‘spoon analogy’ pretty useful, yet that -still-doesn’t always work in terms of explanations. So then what, what then, indeed?

Yikes! What happens if you chug coffee? Do you feel anything? Maybe tired and wired?

Yeah, for me it’s much like you said, for caffeine and similar mild-to-medium stimulants. Tired-and-wired is indeed a pretty flippin’ weirdo feeling, and undoubtedly not great for one’s health, altho of course that’s not specific to just my/our disease.

Just curious about the condition.

I’d say that… for most of us, having CFS/ME is kinda like being… like feeling a bit like a walking zombie? 🙁

Now what does that actually mean for me? Well, uh… (bit morbid part coming up)… it’s like… a… state of being half-alive and half-dead, with some uniquely weird vibes, that at best, tend to push us away from ‘normals,’ and even other ‘properly-recognised’ disabled peoples.

(Note: I’m generally ‘moderate,’ have slipped in to ‘severe,’ and my dream of course is to one day get back to ‘mild’)

We experience this because our condition has barely been taken seriously across the years, decades, and perhaps even centuries. Or even more, across our ‘civilised, greatly-advanced age.’

I mean, just imagine hearing that across all your fading life-- “they’re just a lazy slacker, trying to trick us in to doing less work than they’re supposed to.” Even if those of us are literally fainting with exhaustion as we attempt to simply do our jobs. And yet, ‘all that’s still just an act for the doubters, seemingly.’

Why would we ever need that if we didn’t feel relentlessly poorly?

Assholes and idiots. (real-talk)

Altho yes, it’s perfectly TRUE that in the kingdom of life, those who compete less successfully tend to meet their end sooner rather than later. But consider THIS, my friend-- all evidence that I know of strongly suggests that our version of current humans (i.e. H.s.s., a genus that goes back 2mya via “Homo”) got as far as we did, primarily due to tribal/social/cooperative mechanisms.

Now me, I tend to interpret that to mean that the long-known evidence of human (and humanoid) history suggests that those with their own particular disabilities, given their respective talents, were probably accepted and valued by their tribes *IF* they could demonstrate such.

I.e., for someone with problematic issues who could nevertheless contribute usefully to a tribe / clan, regardless of the claptrap of belief, I believe it simply makes sense for them to be taken in as part of the tribe, altho certainly… what that would actually look like might be pretty grim. And there is that, sure.

Now, pure slavery, and using the ‘other people’ is certainly not new. Altho to me, could it yet be a sort of foundation upon ‘early globalism?’ The idea being to respect our various differences in respectful ways, one might learn & hope?

Still, I doubt we’ll ever know for sure. For example, when we look at Jane Goodall’s and Robert Sapolski’s lifelong work upon chimps and baboons, I believe there’s an incontrovertible, uncomfortable truth, which is that, despite the social order of whatever day across the many millions of years, there are likely going to be those who naturally seek to controvert their personal standing for personal ends.

Oof, but another way of saying it?
Er, maybe it’s that, despite our great, various, egalitarian heroes, we naked apes still consist of too many petty, narcissistic bitches, to the end.

That said, I LOVE that Sapolski story, about how the baboon tribe got devastated by eating tainted food, then realised that it would take a ‘team-effort’ to survive, and instantly / summarily kicked the narcissists out of the tribe, just like that!

(and the women were the stabilisers!)

Here’s the super-brief one, since we-all in a hurry these days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVKuiAxw98w