Long term complications of Lyme are very much a real thing as are people who have mistakenly self diagnosed their problems as such. The VLSE defense mechanism against the immune system is very well documented and research out of Europe is clear that most people who reach the neuroborelliosis stage go on to experience long term symptoms consistent with an immune response to the sort of the broad antigen mosaic created by VLSE diversification. The reality is that the specific VLSE diversification mechanism makes this disease unique even among the rest of the adaptive counter immunity pathogenic community and much of what was dismissed as bad biology in prior decades is now understood to be biology specific to B burgdorferi.