Tag Archives: friends

Feb 20 2014
20 Comments
Emotions

Don’t Call Me, I’ll Call You…

Best FriendsI really have messed up.

I called a couple of friends over the last few days and without fail, they’ve said to me, ‘must dash!’.

I don’t blame them. I’m a terrible, awful friend.

I have been selfish, self-occupied and…..boring. I bore myself. So what hope do my friends have?

I love my friends but possibly I have called upon one too many favours. And what do they have in return? Nothing but a whingeing, boring peep, with MS her only conversation.

It wasn’t meant to be like this. I was supposed to be the living embodiment of ‘living well despite MS.’ So what happened?

Who knows. I think I am still the engaged, interested person I always was, but recent experience has shown me I really am not. Am I so used to MS now, it has become second nature? Is it me? Am I MS?

A depressing thought. But I guess not entirely surprising. I try to imagine myself if the roles were reversed. Could I be that patient, that understanding? For almost two years?

I love my friends. The thought of losing them is too terrible to bear. I have already lost so many since The Diagnosis.

I realised recently that I’m never invited out for lunch or coffee. Or, heaven forbid, a night out. I must have turned down so many invitations I’ve lost count. Friends have given up. ‘Nah, don’t bother asking Stumbling, she’ll only say no……’

I find myself in the position of calling friends and (begging just a little), ‘um. yeah, hi! Fancy getting together? Yeah, me! Um, ok, no worries……catch up soon, yeah (please)?’

Hmmm. My friends have been superstars. It’s me who is at fault. I. Am. Boring.

This is why I plan to take up the saxaphone this year. And why I have joined a friend’s book club (forget the first planned meeting, a disaster thanks to The Teenager).

To all the friends who have stuck by me, thank you.

x

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Nov 09 2013
4 Comments
Daily Life

We’re Bang On Trend

socialising liteI’m chuffed to share with you that something most of us with MS have been doing, like forever,  has now been designated a zetigeisty trend – socialising lite.

Driven by impossibly busy New Yorkers/Londoners, this involves combining two or three activities to fit more into your life.

Or in our case, to ensure that we can still keep up with our friends/hobbies/interests despite fatigue and other pesky physical symptoms getting in our way.

The secret of socialising lite is to make your free time work for you. For people with MS, this translates as making those rare pockets of energy work harder for us. Even before I knew this was an actual trend (ooh, get me, chuck me a copy of Elle), I’d already started to do this – like combining catching up with a good friend and a shopping trip to town or asking my mum to help me in the garden, having a natter and putting the world to rights over a glass of wine afterwards. Killing two birds with one stone, but in a good way.

I miss doing what I used to do spontaneously, so this is a great compromise. Plus there’s an added bonus of still feeling that I’m part of life, of society. Spending so much time at home has made me more aware that I need to get out, even just for a short while.

A more extreme form of socialising-lite is time-capping friends, which at first glance might seem rude, but with all of us juggling busier lives it’s much more acceptable. Long gone are the days I’d go out for whole evenings, so rather than become a hermit (tempting), I say to my friends that I’d really love to see them, so how about we try that new wine bar/cafe/restaurant/exhibition and catch up for an hour? I get to see a good friend and try a new experience.

Time-capping doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy spending time with my friends, it just means that I don’t want to wait for both of us to be free for a couple of hours/when I’ve got energy/when I’m not pinned to the sofa with fatigue.

My next plan is to combine exercise and friends. So if anyone would like to pop over and join me in staring at my kettlebell (aka the doorstop), willing it to move by telekinesis, you’re more than welcome. You bring the biscuits, I’ll put the kettle on…

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May 12 2013
16 Comments
Emotions

How To Lose Friends And Alienate People

IMG-20130511-00150Having something as serious as MS enter your life changes it forever. Family, work, future plans, and of course, health.

Sadly, it also lets you find out who your true friends are.

Right from the start, cherished friends deserted my sinking ship just when I needed them most. Some left abruptly without a backwards glance, others backed away slowly, step by step.

Why? I guess there are many reasons. Were they worried they’d be roped into looking after me? Would I rely on them more than usual? Were we now too different, too alienated from each other to have much in common any more?

Conversely, other friends rose to the challenge – they stuck by me through everything. They listened to me rant and rave, they wiped my tears, poured my wine and probably ended up knowing more about MS than they could ever have imagined.

Two years on, I thought nothing else could surprise me. I have a fantastic circle of friends and I hope I’m a good friend to them too, and as the MS crisis has receded, our relationship has re-balanced itself.

A couple of weeks ago, my world was rocked once more. An old friend got back in touch. We met years ago in work and although we only kept in touch sporadically, we always picked up where we left off.

We chatted by text and I suggested he look at my blog to catch up with everything that had happened since we last spoke. And that was the last I heard from him.

I feel hurt. Actually, I feel extremely hurt. And angry. The ripples and repercussions from MS are still going on, two years down the line. Now I’m semi-housebound once more after falling last week, I have too much time on my hands to reflect on this. And do you know what? It’s all good.

Those ‘friends’ who’ve left have made way for even better friends. They took their hang-ups and made space for new friends to fill the void.

If any of my friends ever face a situation like I have and I’m not sure how to handle it, the least I can say is, ‘I don’t know what to do or say, but I am here for you, you know that.’ And that is the mark of a real friend.

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Feb 16 2013
8 Comments
Emotions

Blogging Is The Best Therapy….

Blogging is weird. I started my blog last September. At the beginning it was a much-needed outlet to download my buzzing mind and create some sense out of the whirling thoughts, fears and expectations tied up in a life with MS.

I read a blogging instruction manual from cover to cover. I’m no techie, but I found a blog theme I liked, uploaded a picture and hesitantly wrote my first post, ‘The Loneliness of The Long-Term Diagnosis’ and I was off. I wrote about make-up, round robbin letters, work, emotions, The Teenager, my cat. I wanted to show that living with MS is not solely about symptoms, appointments and restrictions.

Ultimately, most of us are young-ish when we are diagnosed. We’re in the middle of bringing up our kids, working, studying, carving a niche in the world. MS could be re-named, ‘Life, Interrupted’. I wanted to show that life does goes on, albeit in a more serious, more measured manner. Saying that, I wanted to pull out the humour. Tease the threads of how life is different, yet essentially the same. We still worry about exactly the same things, just with a skewed slant.

I was shy when I told people I had started a blog. I had five views a day. Ultimately, I saw the blog as a diary, and perhaps a present I could give to The Teenager when he was old enough to understand. I promised myself I would write for a year only, until September 2013. A year with MS.

Then everything changed.

Life suddenly got more serious. I ‘lost’ my job. I was betrayed by a ‘friend’. I was in a pretty bad place. Blogging took on a whole new meaning. I joke that it kept me sane, but really, it did. The support I had was/is incredible. I used to be dismissive of the ‘blogging community’. Who needs it? I have great friends, right here, on my doorstep.

Ah, but. Connecting with people from around the world, all of us finding ways to live with this vile, cruel disease, has been (words fail me).

So, to all of you who have supported me, made me laugh out loud at your comments, sent me a cheery Tweet – Thank You. Yup, a soppy blog post…..

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Jan 08 2013
2 Comments
Emotions

Help! Do I Need a Wantologist?

Thanks to MS, my life-plan is all up in the air right now, so what I need is a ‘wantologist’, right? Yup, the latest craze from California is to get yourself a wantologist, an offshoot of a life-coach. Originally devised to help business managers make purchasing decisions, could this be the Holy Grail I am seeking?

Apparently, the first step is to think about what you want, then decide if you are ‘floating’ or ‘navigating’ towards your goal. Seriously? After that, you have to describe how you would feel once you have what you want. People pay for this?

Ok, so assuming I find a wantologist in the Yellow Pages, can you imagine how my initial session would go?

‘Right dear, mind the incense stick, oh and watch out for the candle. Now, sit down, clear your mind and breathe deeply. Concentrate on what you really, really want. Can you tell me?’

‘A cure for multiple sclerosis, please’.

‘Oh. How would you feel if you had a cure for multiple sclerosis?’

‘Um, healthy?’

‘And how can you attain this goal?’

‘Raise money from bake-sales to help fund vital research?’

‘And how would that make you feeeeel?’

‘Happy?’

‘Are you floating towards that goal or navigating?’

‘Well, I’m feeling pretty floaty on that incense’.

‘Ok. You go away and make some cakes; navigate towards that goal! You have the inner strength! You can do it! Now, that’ll be £95 please. We take all cards’.

I have ‘wantology’ conversations with my friends and family all the time. We all do! I’ll chat to my friends about what job I want, which pair of shoes I should buy, which shade of lippy suits me best. Through chats over coffee or wine, we put the world to rights and sort out thorny issues, they help clarify the jumble in my mind. I don’t need an expert to replace that.

Mind you, with my sticky job situation at the moment, I’m tempted to take the two-day (yes, really!) training course and set myself up as one. But how would it make me feel? Shall I float or navigate?

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