The debate around Long COVID / MECFS often misses one point: You can choose to ignore the brain 🧠, but ignoring it does not make it disappear. 🚨
Here is the neuroscience :
The brain and body are not separate systems; they are integrated.
The body generates signals, but the brain organises the response.
If YOU ignore the brain end of the problem in illness states, behaviour may be ultimately shaped not simply by what YOU WANT / WISH to do, but by what the brain predicts is safe, tolerable, possible, or worth the cost.
The brain is part of you, but it is not simply YOU. Many of its functions operate outside conscious control.
And in illness, when the system is overwhelmed by unpredictable signals, the brain may organise behaviour around protection avoidance, shutdown, vigilance, fatigue (energy conservation mode), even when the person consciously wants to recover, move, work or reconnect. (energy expenditure mode)
That is the conflict. This is not an either-or argument.
Its neuroscience.