I’m sitting here, glass of red wine in hand, and I’m thinking about how I love to people-watch. I’ve always been one to observe human behavior and what motivates people to act as they do. I can’t help it: I’m pretty intuitive by nature and I just naturally wonder what makes other people tick. Especially when people have MS.
Are you an MSer? Are you reading this because someone you know has multiple sclerosis? Do you work with someone who has it? Well, there are many factors that can positively or negatively impact a person who has this illness. I’m talking about stuff above and beyond the usual symptoms, frustrations, and limitations that the disease imposes. Outside things come in and shape an MSer’s reality, view point, and overall experience with MS. We as a population have such varying degrees of the disease that sometimes it’s hard to completely relate to one another, let alone with non-MSers. Throw in outside and unseen stressors and sometimes it is as though we are all from different planets (which of course we aren’t, but sometimes it seems this way.)
As someone within the MS community, I try to analyze a situation with another MSer as something that is incomplete: I don’t have the entire picture of that person and I don’t want to make hasty judgments because I have not walked in that person’s shoes. If you are also an MSer, you can probably relate to the following negative and positive impacts. And if you love someone with MS, this may shed some light on what a person with multiple sclerosis deals with above and beyond their condition and how it impacts them, for better or for worse. Helping to foster positive situations can be a gift to yourself or your loved one.
Of course these lists are not exhaustive….
Negative Impacts
- Being overworked: Having MS and needing to work because of financial needs can sap the stamina of someone who already has a limited energy supply. The same holds true for an MSer who has too many daily demands. Both situations cause a great deal of stress, fatigue, and worry.
- Not being in the workforce: On the contrary, being out of work can feel demeaning, depressing, and confusing. Msers face the challenge of making meaning out of a very unstructured, slow existence.
- Financial problems: MS can be the source of this, but it isn’t always. The loss of a spouse’s job or a new or ongoing financial burden can be weighing heavily on a person with multiple sclerosis.
- Relationship problems: Not having a partner to help with the stress and decisions of MS can be very taxing. So can having the wrong partner, having family animosity, or having problems with friends.
- Other health issues: So many MSers have problems on top of their disease. MS isn’t the only illness and dealing with other problems such as depression, migraines, arthritis, other autoimmune disorders, cancer, a heart condition and so on can try a person’s emotional stability.
- Family health issues: The families of MSers get sick too. Aging parents who need extra care and medical attention, spouses or partners who have their own health issues, and children who have health and/or learning problems can challenge MSers to stay focused and calm.
Positive Impacts
- Steady, nonjudgmental love: Having family and friends who love and care for a person with a chronic illness can bolster them and help them to stay positive and less stressed. It motivates them to help themselves and take care of their MS.
- A safe, quiet place to oneself: Everyone wants to feel calm and sane throughout the day. Having a “room of one’s own” can make someone with MS feel calm, rational, and able to cope with life’s difficulties.
- Enough money to live on: Having enough income to live modestly but happily can make all the difference between being a stressed and upset multiple sclerosis patient and a calm, grateful one.
- An occupation or outlet: Everyone needs to feel useful, wanted, and vital. Sometimes with MS this becomes a big problem, as abilities change. MSers need to have something important and worthwhile (yet not overwhelming) to do with their time.
- Help from others: This includes forms of support from other MSers, counselors, and help from family and friends. An MSer can thrive, even in the face of adversity, with a little help and encouragement. And the reduction of stress can certainly bring about positive change.
