My whole family may have fallen for medical misinformation, but I’m not sure if it’s real or not?

Context on me: I am 20 years old and living with my parents (can elaborate in the comments if anyone wants to know). I start college next month, but still rely financially and in many other ways on my parents. I have had a job before but only part time, and I quit due to college starting soon. Also if it’s relevant I’m nonbinary and afab.

So to set the stage: I have a little brother, and when he was like 4 years old he had lots of health issues (misdiagnosed with autism (like actually misdiagnosed), extreme skin rashes, bouts of rage, vertigo, something similar to sleep paralysis, etc.) and my parents were looking for answers. Between my aunt and my brother’s school nurse they began looking into chronic Lyme disease as a possibility. They began throwing the kitchen sink of treatments at my brother, and it actually worked. Somewhere in all the stuff that they did, he got better, and they really got into chronic Lyme advocacy. More backstory is that before all this my aunt was really sick for basically the majority of her life, and no doctors could figure out why. She was legitimately suffering and had no answers, until she found the chronic Lyme community, and since pursuing treatment she’s been doing quite a bit better.

Fast forward and I’m just starting high school and I’m having terrible mental health struggles. My parents claim I also had physical health struggles but I don’t remember that very much, although it is possible since my memories of… well basically everything are just terrible, so it’s actually pretty plausible that I forgot having extreme nausea, pain, and extreme fatigue. (Actually I remember the fatigue but my sleep schedule was terrible at the time so that I’d say had another explanation). So basically I’m an entire mess of anxiety and depression (which I won’t elaborate on since I can’t tag both medical and mental health and I don’t want to cause any problems) and my parents decide to get me tested for Lyme and coinfections. It comes back positive and they start having me treated with antibiotics and supplements (as well as therapy for the mental health stuff). I don’t really remember it doing much of anything, as I still felt like garbage emotionally and fatigue-wise for another few years. Any pain or nausea I could have had would’ve been gone within a year. Now I’m doing much better with mental health, still struggle with independence but I’m trying to get there, and while I still have quite a lot of fatigue and probably brain fog too, I’m overall doing much better.

Here’s my problem though: the medical community can’t agree on whether chronic Lyme is real or not. All major medical organizations say it isn’t real, while advocates say it is. Obviously my entire family believes in it, but my family isn’t known to have the best of opinions at times. So I don’t entirely trust their judgement on this, but also I can’t fully discredit their lived experience. Then again, should I really be discrediting my own lived experience of just… not really noticing much of a difference with “chronic Lyme treatment”. It’s hard for me because my memory is genuinely terrible, like I can’t even tell if I have fatigue and brain fog since I don’t remember what life was like before it, I just also know that constantly feeling like “yeah I could go to sleep right now” no matter how much sleep I get isn’t normal. I would just continue the treatments, however I don’t really want to be taking any more antibiotics than I need to, and I don’t really trust that they’re doing anything for me. I’ve always struggled with going against my family with things like this, I just really really hate confrontation and arguing. Plus the brain fog and terrible memory make it so that I can barely form a coherent argument, even when I know I have good points and can think of them out of the heat of the moment. Plus, in a way this is another thing I’ll have to stay closeted about to the rest of my family. It could cause major upset if I step away from the whole chronic Lyme thing. This would be a problem since I still largely rely on my parents, and I’m just not independent enough to strike out on my own right now. Plus I just don’t have it in me to face the judgement of my entire family right now. I know I should take a step back from it all, it’s just so hard when everyone gets so angry and/or disappointed. I just also can’t keep leaving my health in the hands of everyone else. I feel like I’m truly at a crossroads and I don’t know what to do or even to believe. This wouldn’t be my family’s first conspiracy theory or crappy opinion, but it’s just so hard to actually have a backbone for once and stand up for myself and my beliefs. It doesn’t help that I genuinely don’t know how much of this is real and how much is fake, because I do believe that Lyme can have long term effects similar to long covid, just not the way everyone around me seems to think it does. I’ve only really talked about this in depth with one of my friends and she thinks the whole thing is a scam. Honestly I agree, I just haven’t had it in me to follow through. I’m going to try to say something at my next appointment though, although then again I’ve done that before and nothing has changed. I don’t know, I’m going to try though. Wish me luck.