I recently met up with a new MS’er, who was initially unaware that I too had the condition. The look of both shock and relief on her face when she discovered that I had MS was overwhelming. She was clearly terrified of what ‘MS’ might look like and I was taken back to the moment I was put in touch with someone with MS just 5 months after my own diagnosis. I don’t know what I was expecting, but I definitely wasn’t expecting the young lady to look as ‘normal’ and as full of life as she did. I’m sure I had all sorts of visions in my head of what I might find and was scared that actually meeting someone with MS would make everything too real and confirm my fear that MS = extreme disability. People with MS surely all look depressed and depressing and old and frail and disabled and ugly and scary and monstrous and totally alien. Don’t they?!
What were YOUR expectations before you met your first MSer? And, what was the reality?
First published 20 September 2017
The Wibbly Dinosaur 
My first thoughts were how old will I live too and how can I expect my husband to cope with this it’s not the future we planned?.My first meeting was awful I arrived at a ms support group first a lady came in pushing a wheelchair followed by another lady pushing a wheelchair both their husbands had ms,both roughly my age we had a chat about everything apart from ms and then I made an excuse to leave as I had to go to work and they said we can’t believe you still work.I cried all the way home wondering if that’s what ms will be like for me.I never went back.
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Oh, that sounds horrific! I’m always a bit wary of these MS centres and support groups, I had a similar experience in the early days too. But I’ve since met a lot of awesome, positive and like-minded people with MS, you’ve just to know where to look!
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