multiple sclerosis dating, dating multiple sclerosis
Can
those of us that have been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis ever date
or develop a meaningful relationship again?
Multiple Sclerosis dating: is it even a possibility to maintain a dating
relationship after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis?
I think so, because you never
know when out of the blue you will meet someone that you connect with
on a very different level that just seems to understand you, in spite
of what you are physically going through because of Multiple Sclerosis. This is what happened to me.
About 2 years after I was
diagnosed with a severe case of Multiple Sclerosis, I was doing what I could to
try to do to be around people as often as I could. After
all, I reasoned that I still needed social connections after I was
given the diagnoswitis of Multiple Sclerosis. I also felt
that if I did not find a way for me to
be around other people, where I enjoyed their company, I thought that I
would not survive what I was going through at the time because of
Multiple Sclerosis entering my life.
But, I was starting to become
discourage, because even though I was around other people, I did not
feel like they really understood me for me.
Have you ever felt like you did not
really connect with those that were around you, like some how you just
did not “fit in” or belong where you were? I have felt like this off and on
through out most of my life. Most people have.
But after you are given the
diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis, the importance of finding people that
you feel like you can connect with – that seem to understand you as a
person – becomes so much more important.
Dating was something that
crossed my mind off and on, after I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, but who would want to date
me? After all, I could not physically
do what I did before Multiple Sclerosis attacked my body and caused a
myriad of often intense physical problems to where I was not
functioning that for much too many days of the week.
But then it happened.
I met someone new that was just a
chance meeting and some how we connected in a totally different way. I will call the man that I met
David, just so that it is easier for me to tell you about him. I am not
really sure as to what brought us together in the way that it happened,
but I do know that at the time that I met him, David worked second
shift. Working second shift just kills socializing
with other people. Those who work first shift are at
work before you are even awake for the day and when you get home from
work, those who work first shift are already in bed for the night. This
leaves you with no one to talk to at night after you get home from work
and this makes it very difficult for you to find anyone that you can
enjoy anything with socially.
I had extreme ms
insomnia
most nights at that point when David and I first met and I was up most
of the night just about every night. I told David that he could call me
after he returned home from work, if he wanted someone to talk to at
night. I guess that was how it all started.
My mother told my “friend”
that I was so sick with severe Multiple Sclerosis that I could not do anything
at that point. That was true, to a certain degree,
but that did not mean that I was incapable of developing a relationship
with someone.
My MS
disability did not matter to David.
David really enjoyed talking to me and we
just got along with each other very well.
David saw past my multiple
sclerosis disability, that occurred because of the damage that Multiple
Sclerrosis had caused to
the much of my nervous system. David cared enough to talk to me when
other people treated me like it wasn’t worth their time to try to talk
to me at all. Other people acted like if I couldn't do what they could
do that I wasn't worth talking to.
I
felt like I was a waste of time to everyone else, but not to David. He
made me feel like I belonged. I did not feel so out of place when David
and I talked. I felt like I was a person again. I
had not
really felt like a person for much of the first 2 years after I was
diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, because the doctors and
other people around me acted
like I was a constant "sick patient" that they were just visiting out
of pity more than because they really were concerned about me as a
person.
David and I are still dating after
8 years. I know I want things to move to a
different level for David and I. At times this can be more difficult
because of my ms disability
because of Multiple Sclerosis, but I no longer think that anything is
totally
impossible. David has helped me to realize that
I have a life, no matter whether it is the one that I chose for me or
not. None of what has happened to me, because of Multiple Sclerrosis
means that my life
doesn’t have meaning. My life matters, in spite of
the Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis
and so does yours.
Don’t let Multiple Sclerosis steal your life away from
you. Find ways to connect socially and don’t give up that you can date
someone and have a meaningful relationship after being diagnosed with MS. We all need other people in our
lives and we all need each other in some way or another.
Your life does matter and whether
you realize it or not your life does impact those that are around you,
even after Multiple Sclerosis has changed your life in someway or the
other.
Find ways to be around people.
Go to where people are to develop social connections.Other ways to connect on line are
subscribing to a MS
Blog, MS forum or an MS chat room.
In
my opinion, both a Multiple
Sclerosis Blog and a Multiple
Sclerosis forum or even an MS chat room provide valuable outlets for
reducing our feelings of being disconnected from the world around us.
Finding other people that understand more of what we are going through
and talking through all of what we are dealing with on a daily basis
really can help us not to feel so alone in our struggles with Multiple
Sclerosis. MS Blogs, MS forums , and MS chat rooms can also be a good
way for us to find
out more
about Multiple Sclerosis and about what treatments in
complimentary medicine (both drug treatments along with alternative and
natural ways) are possible ways for helping us with reducing the
symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis.
Off-line social
connections
Those
of us with the Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis also have other off-line
options for finding ways to develop social connections with other
people.
This
includes:
*
Join
a Multiple
Sclerosis support group or a MS support group
- support groups can help us be able to cope better with the changes
that Multiple Sclerrosis has brought into our lives by allowing us an
outlet of the emotions that can often accompany the mild to severe
symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis. Talking about how you feel can help to
relieve the internal stress that you can be feeling, that can
contribute to making you feel depressed, lonely, anxious, angry, sad or
however else youmay be feeling after Multitple Sclerosis changed your
life.
Attending MS
support groups
or Multiple
Sclerosis support groups may require us to be able
to find
ways for us to be able to get a ride or have someone else attend the
groups with us for us to be able to attend a support group on a more
regular basis (this also assumes that our health is doing well enough
for us to be able to attend a group.) Attending the support
groups is often more beneficial and well worth the effort for us to
physically be around people as much as we can.
*
Join
Local social groups
(near where you live) -- this can also be an option to help
reduce
how depressed or anxious that MS can contribute to making us feel
sometimes.
*
If you are physically able to handle it, you could also volunteer
to help out in different community groups or to visit
people in the hospital or nursing homes or volunteer to be
involved in whatever you would enjoy helping others with.
ms relationship,
relationship
ms
What
do you need to do for you to have a better chance of meeting someone to
develop a relationship with us, who can work with you, as far as your
good days and bad days in dealing with your Multiple Sclerosis Symptoms?
First
you need to find a way to meet people. Develop some different kinds of
social connects (both on-line and off-line). It is better if you can
meet together face to face. Pay attention to body language of the other
person. The reactions of our body language to everything that we
encounter when we last
Then decide what you would
like to have for the person to have for character, personality, likes
or dislikes, etc.
Don't be completely rigid in
what you are looking for in someone that you would like to develop a
relationship with.
Be open minded about those who
my be interested in you for a relationship.
Don't take things too quickly
if you do meet a potential person to develop a relationship with.
Decide if you really trust this potential person because the more
disabled you are because of MS, the easier it may for someone to try to
take advantage of you. This just means that you probably need to tread
a little more cautiously at first until you get to know them a little
better in a public situation.
Don't start
out being alone with people, when you are just starting to get to know
them!
There is safety in numbers. If
need be, ask a friend or 2 to go with you the first few times that you
are around the person that you are interested in knowing a little
better and don't be shy about asking your friend what they honestly
think of the other person. Friends can be more object than we can, once
our emotions become more unstable.
Whatever
you decide to do for developing new relationships or for finding
someone to date, after being diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, keep
positive, keep an open mind and be more cautious to begin with to
prevent setting yourself up for problems that you could have otherwise
avoided.
Whatever
you do, just go for it and enjoy yourself. MS
dating or Multiple
Sclerosis dating and developing a
ms relationship
or a Multiple Sclerosis relationship
can be more challenging when dealing with all of the MS
symptoms that you may be battling with, but it isn't impossible.
After all, you never know when
you could meet that some one special, just around the next corner!
