Who gets stressed easy?

I know I do… I notice while sitting here tonight that I am slowly becoming stressed and angry at my b/f who has a cold at the moment and keeps on sniffing and snorting, it is stressing me out loads but is unfair to say anything because he is unwell…

Maybe if I could control my stress levels my MS relapses wouldn’t be over 3 times a year, but it is easier said than done…

mmmmmmm…

people say that i should be stressed cos of all thats going on but i have worked very hard to try and understand my emotions and rarely let it get to me. eg my son is full of cold and is lying here sniffing constantly as i type. does it annoy me? of course not-hes not doing it deliberately! i try to look at the positive-i am aware this is a buzz word and annoys some! but i really do… as i can hear him i know that hes ok! this is similar to my friend-she is a very loud snorer. it could annoy me but i think that if i can hear her then shes alive! change your attitude to the problem and u will find its not one… i have woken because of the noise but its shortlived and sleep soon comes again when i know she ok.

this may or not help-it helps me so thought i would share…

take care,ellie x

i know what you mean. my husband had man flu in october and he does these really dramatic sneezes (and without a tissue - yuck). there am i with a compromised immune system and i caught his" man flu".

he was well 2 days later and i’ve not been right since.

i tell myself that the reason i get these challenges is because i am a coper.

but i have threatened all sorts of unspeakable things if he ever sneezes without a tissue again!

carole x

I am undoubtedly more easily stressed than I used to be. Before MS if I were any more laid back I would have been asleep at all times but not any more. I used to be able to ignore stupid people but now I will tell them exactly what I think without a second thought. The slightest thing can send me off the deep end. I walked out of work because my boss was giving me a hard time for something that I knew was not true and wasn’t my fault any way (he is a bully). The only reason I walked out is because I was going to stick a nut on him. This is not me or wasn’t me as the case may be and I don’t really like the person I have become. It dose worry me that at some point I will seriously hurt some one. I’m not a small person and because of training I received in my last job I have the potential to cause serious harm with the other person regardless of size and strength not being able to stop me. James

I get less stressed since I started practicing mindfulness meditation. I took part in a study last year funded by the MS Society into the effects of mindfulness meditation on MS, & I found it really helpful - it’s helped with things like pain, depression & stress.

If you’ve never heard of it, all it is is just noticing & being aware of what you’re experiencing - what the different parts of your body are feeling, what you’re feeling emotionally, what thoughts you’re having, what you can hear etc. But the aim is to try & let go of the desire to change any of those things, and to not label any of it as good or bad. It sounds a bit daft and not like it would help at all, but for some reason it does.

So with stress, I would normally get caught up in the experience, getting wound up by whatever was causng the stress. But now I simply notice that I’m getting stressed, and observe the kinds of thoughts I’m having. And by doing that, it’s like taking a step back from the situation. The analogy I used to describe it when I was on the study was that a stressful experience would be like being on a ship during a storm, and I’d be getting tossed about by the waves, & feeling seasick. But when I’m being mindful, I just notice the experience - the thoughts & feelings I’m having, and how my body is feeling. It’s like I observe the boat being tossed about by the storm, but somehow my consciousness is removed from the boat, so I’m no longer being tossed about by the storm in the same way, and I feel much calmer as a result.

I’ve no idea if that makes any sense, but i recommend seeing what you can find on google (the Getsomeheadspace website may be a good place to start.)

Dan

Yes, meditation helps. However, I started to suffer from very bad stress attacks, but this was a reaction to 10 years of unkind and unfair treatment from my husband and my parents.

He hates what happened to him and to me and feels great shame, but it doesn’t stop him from losing control over what is real and what is imagined.

It took a year for me to work out that he was delusional. He gets paranoid and angry with me because he knows that I’m the one, truly safe thing in his life. I paid a price for this. It makes life difficult, so I’ve had to start Citalopram. It has changed my life for the better.

We did have a ‘trigger word’ that I could say when he was irrational ‘blue biscuit’ but, I find that kindness works better, I say ‘I think you are having an attack’.

After a very bad attack of stress and delusions, he was diagnosed with a rare form of migraine. This gives him stroke-like symptoms, slurred speech and foot drop.

I ask myself, what if things were the other way around and what if my MS was to make me angry and delusional? Would he cope? Would he leave me?

I don’t know for sure. I’d probably develop a system like that in ‘The Hunger Games’ where Peeter has false memories and asks ‘real or not real’?

I laugh at the funniest misunderstandings now - Citalopram has given me the courage to stop acting like a victim and I no longer feel so sorry for myself. I’ve come out of the shadows.

Yes, I meditate, but there are situations that meditation can’t fix everything. It’s difficult to turn irritations into positives when your MS won’t let you.

If you are stressed and your legs have gone wobbly and you have a face that’s twitching and you can’t control your hands, then it’s no sin to ask for help.

I defiantly get stressed easily, and panic. I’ve always been like this , so I’m not sure if it’s ms or not. I also worry about everything too. Sometimes it helps to write worries done to empty my head. I try hard to be calm but I know I take to much on especially at work . I need to think about myself more , instead of coping with everything . Hope x