I think it is time for an MS post.
I was thinking back when I first told my friends about my diagnosis and trying to explain symptoms. One of the responses I would get back was, "oh everybody feels/gets that."
Me: Sometimes I just get so fatigued.
Well meaning but idiotic friend: Everybody gets tired. I am tired all the time. Maybe I have MS.
Me: There are times I am off balance and feel like falling.
Well meaning but totally clueless friend: Oh you are just like me...I am a total klutz.
Me: Sometimes I just can't funtion mentally, I am forgetting things I usually can remember.
Well meaning and quick to becoming extremely annoying friend: Everybody does that. Why just the other day I forgot my car keys.
Me: I get pain and spasms in my muscles.
Well meaning friend in need of a bonk on the head: Everybody gets those. You are just getting old...we all are. You are just more prone to aches and pains now.
Me: Sometimes I drop things when my one hand goes weak.
Well meaning friend: Oh yeah...that's me too...I think it is my hormones.
Me: There are times when I am not able to coordinate my movements to walk.
Well meaning and never gonna get it friend: How can you forget how to walk? You just put one foot in front of the other. It is just mind over matter. And everybody is a klutz at times.
*sigh*
Everybody is? No...not really.
Come sit a spell and shoot the breeze. Sweeten the day with a little synchronicity...
7 comments:
yes, everybody gets something... what latched onto you is unbelievably sad
i would 'lose' those 'friends' grrr
most folk i know are totally wrapped up in themselves and rarely listen to what's being said... and unless it involves THEM, don't really give a rat's ass... then are totally 'shocked' when it finally sinks in!
I hope your well-meaning "friend" has either figured it out or is now a well-meaning ex-friend. MS is a medical condition with no known cause and no known cure. It starts for for no reason and in some cases goes away for no reason. People living with MS need support not ignorant friends. Too bad he/she can't be forced to walk in your shoes for a day; I bet that would change their perspective.
Boy do I ever know what you're talking about! I HATE it when I'll tell someone something like that and they'll say "me too". I know they dont't mean anything by it but they have no idea what it feels like.
We (with MS) are so misunderstood. This happens because many of us just "Look So Good". So what your friends/family see, is not someone who looks like something is wrong and then because they simply don't want to recognize or accept that you have an illness, are quicker to say soemthing stupid, like any of the items that you already mentioned....
IS this understood?
I have learned to not speak of my problems unless in the company of another MS Peer, who will understand when I say I have a specific Pain, or vertigo, or visual disruptions or cognitive setbacks...
A similar thing happens with depression -- especially since it's a word that covers everyday blues as well as profound and possibly fatal illness. ME: "I have depression." FRIEND: "Oh, I get depression too, you just need to X Y or Z." FRIEND2: "Just count your blessings and quit moping; I get depressed too and just pull myself up by my bootstraps."
Maybe people find their world view so threatened, their own sense of safety suddenly less secure, and they need to do this. Or maybe they're just insensitive. Both, I'm sure.
I was involved in a Parkinson's Disease community several years ago and was appalled to hear that people would come up to them at the store, or the mall, and yell at them for being drunk in public. Some even wear shirts that say "I'm not drunk, I have Parkinson's."
Amazing. As if what you deal with isn't enough already.
I didn't even read other people's comments this time yet because I was in such a rush to tell you THERE IS NO WAY FOR ME TO EXPRESS THE DEGREE TO WHICH I EMPATHIZE. You would not believe how many people(sometimes in places where there were no buses) in the early ninties, when I told them "I have AIDS," said EXACLY: Well you know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow."
Yep, MS, AIDs, you name it, somebody will tell you either they have "that" too or "It could be worse." 1.If you have a DX for ____then and only then do you HAE it. 2.Tell me something I don't know.
Even when I had OVARIAN CANCER people were telling me, "I think I had that." HUH? Have to shrug off stupid comments.
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