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Affects one million people in the United States.

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Less than half the doctors in this country know the name of this illness.

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I don't know of another illness like that.

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This is probably the craziest story I have ever heard of in my life.

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It was what should have been the happiest moment of my life. I was engaged to the love of my life.

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I was a PhD student at Harvard. And then...WHAM! I had a hundred-and-five-degree-fever that lasted for 10 days.

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The doctor had said to me, "Everything you're feeling is in your head."

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I had a blackout. When I came to I couldn't read a word.

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I disappeared entirely and no one knew why.

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Among the people who hadn't a clue was me.

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Except for the doctors, nobody doubted I was really sick.

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It's a story that you need to see to believe.

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Are you tired all the time? Tired. Tired all the time. I just slept all the time.

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Why am I so darn tired all the time?

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Chronic Fatigue Sundrome.

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Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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La Fatigue Chronique. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome?

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No, that can't be right. You're too sick.

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Hi. I'm Jennifer Brea. I'm Kiran Chitanvis.

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And this is our Kickstarter Campaign for Canary In A Coal Mine,

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a film that takes a look into the lives of people living with one of the world's

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most misunderstood diseases - Myalgic Encephalomyelitis.

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It's a disease suffered by a subset of people diagnosed each year with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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Had I not become ill with M.E. three years ago, I would have never believed the story

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was possible. In order to make this film, we need your help. Take a look.

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I was at a Chinese restaurant with some friends and when the check came

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I couldn't sign my name. My brain was burning.

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He said maybe I was stressed or depressed or sad or

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most implausibly that I wanted to be sick.

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We doctors are the most arrogant of professionals.

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I've got the answer right here, ladies and gentlemen.

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To everything that ails you!

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We just don't have doctors going to guys and saying if you would change the color of your hair, you would feel better.

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If you could, you know, get a younger wife, you would feel better.

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Ones gotta insist that this is a physical disease, that this is not a psychiatric disease.

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It's an acquired form of an immunodeficiency disorder.

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If you go back historically, you can see illnesses very similar to this called

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many different things. Toxins can insidiously creep in to every aspect of our

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lives, flipping certain individuals who've might otherwise be resistant to an

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infection. The severity of the illness is equivalent to

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congestive heart failure. We think that there is very very likely to be some

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sort of infectious culprit. It was just a

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group of people, a committee that happened to be pulled together by the CDC that came up with this perfectly

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horrid name, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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I was frustrated and normally I would write

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in a journal to process my experience but I

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had lost the ability to write, and so that's why I started filming these video

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diaries, and it was really just a personal space to process what I was feeling

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and to sort of deal with some of that anger

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of no one knows what's wrong with me,

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no one has a treatment for me

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and everything that I love and care about

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is slipping away.

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You might saying to yourself, if I really couldn't

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stand up, why would I be filming it? Well, I kind of

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think that someone should see this.

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As I dug deeper, I realized that my symptoms

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followed a pattern and that there were millions

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of people around the world who had my disease

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As I shared my story on facebook, old friends

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from college and high school sort of coming

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out of the woodwork to share their stories.

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They didn't have M.E. but they had other

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chronic illnesses, auto immune diseases and

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I started to realize that, you know, this is actually

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a universal story. Our approach in making

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this film is to give the audience a really

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subjective view into the lives of people

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with this disease. What we really want to do

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is to bring the audience in and to make people

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feel for the first time what it's like to

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live with this devastating illness. It's just beyond any words.

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The participants in the film are doing a lot

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of self-filmed footage and it really gives

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you a visceral view into their lives in a

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way that you would never get by bringing a

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film crew into somebody else's house.

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Taking on a project like this is completely insane.

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It's difficult to travel everytime we go,

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you know, one hour from Princeton to New York, we

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have to pack all of my own food. It's like

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there's more gear for to take care of me than

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there is like camera gear we're packing in the car

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for the shoot. She conducts the interviews for most of the shoots

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from a different room and conducts them over skype

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through a teleprompter.

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I can interview people whether I'm in the next room or at home in bed and, you know,

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there's a crew halfway around the world shooting.

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In addition to a few, new technological things we're gonna be trying out.

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Some tricks up our sleeves. Got a few tricks.

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The diagnosis of M.E. is really in a place

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where something like epilepsy or multiple

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sclerosis was a hundred to even thirty years ago.

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And how many more diseases will this happen to unless our approach changes.

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There's $16 million dollars in male-pattern baldness

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and we got $3 million bucks going to Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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My husband has asked me, you know, "Jen, what do you care more about, your health or this film?"

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There's no way we're gonna go into the mall and show our numbers.

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We can't even walk to the mailbox." (laughing)

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Even though we often feel like, whatever it is that we are grappling with, no one

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else can understand the fact is that we will

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all have that experience of coming across an

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obstacle that feels insurmountable.

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There was a future you take for granted everyday

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and never articulate to yourself and yet

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it's always there and when you come down

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with an illness that has no end, it strips

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away that idea of a future.

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When we're in that moment that everything

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changes, how do we react?

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When I got sick, he took care of me.

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But I'd rather carry you around all my life than have anything happen to you.

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We kept saying, you know, don't get discouraged, you never know what's around

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the corner. Things can change.

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I have this belief that if I can read a lot of science

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and do a lot of self-experimentation that I can turn this

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thing around. We believe in this story and

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we're gonna do everything we can to see this

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film happen. Yes, we would hope to be taken as seriously as male-pattern baldness

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but I am not looking for any miracles here.

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No one can promise a cure but one very important step towards that goal is

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visibility. There are things that could be

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happening today that would improve the lives

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of patients with living with M.E. Visibility means more

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research. It means not having to wait 5

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years for a diagnosis. Visibility means not having doctors give you advice that

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can cause you harm. Visibility means that people with

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M.E. would no longer be forcibly institutionalized because

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their doctor that has never heard of their disease.

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Right now, to most of the world, we are invisible.

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Fifty Thousand dollars is what we need to

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make it through the completion of production and have a film that we're really proud of but to make the

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film that we dream of, that's just the beginning.

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And we're going to need a lot of help to get there.

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Kickstarter is an all-or-nothing campaign

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and if we don't reach our funding goal, then

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we don't get to keep any of what we have raised.

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Up to this point, we've shot about a week's

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worth of footage and just imagine what we

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could do with the funds to shoot four weeks, six weeks, and to do it not just

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in the New Jersey-New York area but around the world.

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We want this film to have such an impact that I could walk up to anyone on the street

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and say, "Hi! I'm Jen and I have Myalgic Encephalomyelitis"

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and they would actually know what the f@#$ that was.

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Go to our Kickstarter page, check out the link and make a donation to the film.

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You can also follow us on Twitter or Facebook

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or even just pass along either the Kickstarter link, the Facebook Page or the Twitter handle

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or preferably all of the above. Or all the above!!!

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The biggest way you can help us is by

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spreading the word and then scroll down

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and check out some of our other video

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as well as the awesome rewards by writers and

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artists who are also living with M.E.

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Join us on our mission to give a true face

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to this disease that's so misunderstood.

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Most of us look at what's around us and see

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very little and yet we have the capacity to

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see infinity in the smallest of things.

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This is our life and everyday we're just so grateful for it.

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Plus you learn from everything you survive.