The question of how patients live with chronic illnesses has been thoroughly investigated, as have clinical encounters between patients and the healthcare system. However, the mediation between everyday life and clinical encounters remains relatively unexplored. This paper adopts a decentered perspective on clinical encounters, asking how these are influenced by—and in turn influence—the conduct of everyday life. Drawing on the critical-psychological concept of conduct of everyday life, the paper offers an understanding of chronic living as always both embodied and mediated by societal meaning structures. The medically contested illness Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (ME) serves as a case for exploring how political and bodily conditions for care are negotiated by patients. Methodologically, the study combines narrative interviews with interpretive analysis of patient accounts, focusing on how participants negotiate illness meaning within their families, friendships, and encounters with healthcare professionals. Based on interviews with seven patients, the analysis shows that the cultivation of care in everyday life is challenged by the contested status of the disease. Furthermore, it demonstrates how the lack of care in everyday life can lead to both deterioration of the illness and limited social relations for the patient. Theoretically, the case of ME highlights that the political entanglements of the body are always deeply involved in care for ourselves and others. In theorizing these dynamics, the paper argues that theory itself functions as a form of political resistance: by making visible the social production of (in)visibility and recognition, theoretical psychology can act as an emancipatory practice—offering new conceptual tools for care, understanding, and solidarity in dark times.