Personal Perspective: David

David (not his real name) is an English psychiatrist who has MS.

When we discover that we have MS it comes as a great shock. This is to be expected. It is normal to be emotionally disturbed on learning the diagnosis and it is likely that we will continue to be shaken for some considerable time.

How we react to MS is, in some ways, like the experience of bereavement. But, instead of losing a loved one, we have lost our good health. We have lost part of ourselves and must take on a different identity as an MS sufferer and a disabled person.

In bereavement it may take months or even years before we can accept our loss. This is also true of MS, but not as straightforward. We lose our good health through illness gradually and we can never be sure how final this loss may be. We might be restored to health again completely, sometimes partially, but perhaps not at all.

This insecurity is very hard to bear.

It is not surprising that everyone with MS must go through a long period of sadness. This is usually mixed with feelings of anger or of denial that we have the disease at all. It seems that we have to experience shock, anger and grief before we can become inwardly strong enough to be open and realistic about our limitations.

Other Personal Perspectives

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