Three years ago, Ainslie Campbell could not leave her bed, too ill to even lift food to her mouth.

This time last year, she was in hospital, hallucinating, biting, fighting, swearing, trying to self-harm after adverse reactions to new medication.

But today Miss Campbell, 32, is back home at Henty, so grateful her health is finally improving.

"You learn gratitude is probably the essence of happiness," she said.

"I've still got a fair way to go, but I'm moving forward.

"To see where I've come (from), it changes your opinions on the world, that's for sure.

"What's important in life, how important your family and your friends are, you realise you have a great support system out there when you get really sick."

Working as a vet in Corryong about five years ago, Miss Campbell had been a little rundown, stressed, and contracted glandular fever.

Time off work didn't help, nor did returning part-time; she became more and more unwell and six months later was diagnosed with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome.

"It's a hard diagnosis to get because it's a diagnosis of exclusion," she said.

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She moved back to her hometown of Henty and her farming parents Alison and Peter.

Miss Campbell remembers the neurological nausea, muscle pain, extreme sensitivity to light and noise and "absolute exhaustion".

"It feels like a combination of jet lag, the worst cold you've ever got and a really bad hangover, all in one," she said.

"Brain fog ... you just can't think properly. I couldn't get out of bed, I was bed bound then for two and a half years."

Mr and Mrs Campbell admitted it was a confronting time seeing their only daughter so stricken.

"She couldn't even lift the spoon up to feed herself, we had to feed her," Mr Campbell said.

"Even pulling up in the ute, I couldn't do that because it was too noisy outside for Ainslie inside.

"You couldn't speak normally in the house, you had to whisper."

Friends and neighbours helped out as they could and the whole community supported several fundraising and information events to raise awareness of ME/CFS.

But Miss Campbell's condition did not improve and full-time care was being considered for the future.

"There were times where I'd just wonder what's the point of my life, I'm going to spend it bed bound," the patient said.

August 2019 brought a change when Miss Campbell's medication was altered and a new drug trialled.

Her mother said within a day her daughter had started hallucinating and doing "crazy things" in an allergic reaction that landed her in intensive care.

"It took them two months to try and sort out what was going on because they just couldn't put a finger on what it was," Mrs Campbell said.

Eventually came a diagnosis of psychotic depression.

Miss Campbell had to be watched constantly and restrained as she refused to eat and tried to hurt herself, not that she remembers any of this now.

Mr Campbell praised the incredible service of the nurses caring for his daughter.

"She wouldn't stay in bed, she kept crawling out of the bed, on to the floor, crawling into the corridor all the time," he said.

In November, Miss Campbell had 12 sessions of electroconvulsive therapy, a treatment that involves passing a carefully controlled electric current through the brain, aiming to relieve severe depressive and psychotic symptoms.

"They considered it a life-threatening situation, this catatonic severe depression," Mrs Campbell said.

A positive effect could be detected from the second or third session.

"They were blown away by her response, they really were," Mrs Campbell said.

"It sorted out the catatonic severe depression ... and for some reason it diminished (other symptoms).

"This result for Ainslie's really weird. In her case, it changed her completely."

After the ECT came physical rehabilitation, treatment in mental health facility Nolan House and three months in residential mental health program Benambra before a return home in April.

Miss Campbell describes ECT as life-changing, as she felt more energetic, more alert in her mind and those earlier sensitivities had calmed down.

Simple pleasures most take for granted again became possible.

"Having a coffee, I thought that was amazing, because I hadn't had coffee in so long, it was just nice to have a cuppa with friends," she said.

"I couldn't really deal with visitors when I was bed bound, it was just too much for my sensitivities, it was awful, very lonely.

"Being able to cope with visitors was probably one of the first things that I noticed and was really starting to enjoy, that social contact again, which I hadn't had in a very long time."

ME/CFS advocacy group Emerge Australia, which has offered valuable support to the Campbells, welcomed this progress but chief executive Heidi Nicholl noted the unusual circumstances.

"We're genuinely pleased to hear every single case where a patient improves," Dr Nicholl said.

"Unfortunately, Ainslie's case is not typical of the vast majority of patients with ME/CFS as there are still no effective treatments.

"We are desperately in need of funding for research so that we can identify patients where a particular intervention might be helpful.

"We know that this treatment (ECT) has not been effective in the past for patients with ME/CFS so we are continuing to campaign for funding into biomedical research to identify treatments for the majority of patients for whom ME/CFS is permanently disabling."

These days Miss Campbell has been helping her father on the farm, doing exercises to regain strength, studying to get her veterinary registration back and working with London's Optimum Health Clinic, which specialises in ME/CFS.

In Henty's latest newsletter, she thanked the entire community for the kindness and generosity shown to her family during her illness.

"We are so blessed to live in this amazing town," she wrote.

After so many struggles and setbacks, Mr and Mrs Campbell now feel optimistic about their daughter's future.

"She's got her own life to lead, which is great, and she can make up her own mind the direction she wants to take, it's good to see," Mr Campbell said.

"She's got a lot to catch up on, three years gone missing, really."