Telling the world

Hi,

I’m newly diagnosed but I’ve been having symptoms for four years, so it’s a relief to know I’m not going mad! The last couple of days have been relatively tough. I’ve been having speech problems and difficulty finding my words. I took a phone call from a nurse this morning (work related) and she asked after some long pauses and a few ‘uhms’ and ‘ers’ whether I was having a stroke. I embarrassingly replied ‘no, I’m fine, I just have MS’. I’m so worried about sounding like an idiot that it just keeps falling out my mouth.

I don’t remember ever being told by other people (who aren’t friends) about their conditions in casual conversation. My boyfriend said he wants to get me a badge - ‘Ask me about my MS?’ or ‘Ask me how my MS relates to your thing?’. He’s joking and we both have a good laugh about it, he’s been really supportive.

I guess it’s a personal decision, some people are more private than others and I’ve always been a ‘sharer’, wear my heart on my sleeve sort of person. And I don’t say it to get sympathetic looks. Just wondered about others feelings on this?

i completely get what you’re saying.

those first few weeks with ms i went from stiff upper lip and silent to unloading to the milk man.

thing is, whatever you say or don’t say, don’t feel bad about it.

i’m a normally “open” person.

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I talk to anyone about anything. It’s fairly obvious looking at me that I’m disabled - the wheelchair gives that away - and if people ask, I’ll tell them about MS. Quite often I get patronising ‘oh you poor thing, you’re so brave’ stupid comments back (how would they know I’m brave - they don’t know how much I whinge and whine at home!) But if they’re open and honest, I’m quite happy to compare my ‘thing’ with their ‘thing’.

But that’s women for you, I suspect men chat to anyone about sport, cars, general carp, but say nothing personal. Women on the other hand, don’t just talk about handbags and make-up, they share much more personal information about themselves. I know this is a massive generalisation, but I know my husband chats away to anyone, he’s got a big group of blokes at the gym. They talk about everything, and yet when I ask questions, he usually says ‘oh I didn’t ask that’!

You might find that as MS becomes a more ‘normal’ thing in your life, that you aren’t thinking about it so much, so you talk about it less. Or not.

If there’s anything you need to talk about, just come on here, we’ll talk about your MS as compared to our MS till the cows come home. So to speak. Oh, and welcome to the forum.

Sue

Thank you xx

Thank you so much Sue! It’s been really comforting to see this wonderfully supportive community xx

nice to hear Sue, however your reference to “general carp” breaches the Brain Fog IoD secrets act.

Mick

Oops. I got confused, thought I was in the other plaice.

Sue

are you codding us Sue?

Cod you? No, I’m very dory if you think so.

is getting like molly malone’s fan club here.

and we know how molly stunk of fish.

it’s a quandary and it’s fishy

spunaround

sorry we hijacked your thread with fishes.

it all stems from the Brain Fog thread which is quite mad.

come and join us there.

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No need to apologise. It’s lovely to see a friendly thread on the web! Thank you, I shall join you there soon.

Donna x