Tag Archives: grief

Aug 29 2017
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Emotions

Denying the Anger of Bargaining with Depression and Acceptance?

griefI don’t know about you, but the so-called ‘5 stages of grief’ annoy me.

It’s too neat, too … sanitised and packaged.

MS is anything but.

So, you get your diagnosis (of this life-altering, incurable illness) and then you seamlessly glide from the Neurology Consultant’s office onto this Grief (for your old, pre-MS life) Conveyor Belt, at the end of which you happily reach Acceptance and proceed to remain a valuable member of society? And you have the leaflets to prove it.

Yeah, ok.

This concept was devised by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in 1969, primarily in dealing with terminally ill people, but has since permeated everything from illness to divorce to coping with not having your smartphone to hand for 24 hours while it’s being repaired.

  • Denial
  • Anger
  • Bargaining
  • Depression
  • Acceptance

In the right hands, it can be a useful tool, especially if you make clear that we can go through the stages in any direction, not necessarily in this order and we can boomerang between all of them for years. In the wrong hands, it can be yet another pressure to conform to what is deemed ‘normal’. You’ve got MS? Go through this and you’ll accept it. You’ve not accepted it? What’s wrong with you?

In my own case, I never once denied I could have MS. In fact, with a family history of it, it was my first thought when my body failed spectacularly, despite the initial diagnosis of a stroke. Anger? Self-pity, yes. In buckets. I’d like to add this to the ‘stages’.

Bargaining? Never entered my mind. I’m confused to what it actually means. If I do this, I get that result?

Depression is almost a given for any life-changing illness, so I think that goes without saying.

Acceptance? It comes and goes, probably in tandem for each relapse. Just as I think I’ve adjusted to MS, it throws a curveball.

There is no magical formula to coming to terms with MS. I wish there was. Just as MS is unique to us all, so are the ways we cope with it. So, resist that conveyor belt and be true to yourself. If you want to scream and shout, shut yourself away for days eating nothing but ice cream or you fancy painting the town red, do it.

Should you ever reach Acceptance? Have I ever climbed Everest?

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Sep 26 2016
24 Comments
The Teenager

The People You Love …

ghostsThe Teenager went to Manchester at the weekend to visit a close relative who is severely ill with Parkinson’s and now living in a nursing home.

I picked him up from the train station yesterday evening and could clearly see the slump in his shoulders, his troubled face.

On the drive home, we chatted about this and that but he was mostly occupied with his phone and glugging back the drink I had brought with me.

Until, ‘Mum? Can I ask you something?’

‘Of course!’

‘Will, um, do you think, well, you could ever get like that? You know, with MS?’

I took a deep breath. ‘I really don’t think so, sweets. Look at the treatment I’ve had! It was hard this weekend?’

‘Uh huh. It was really nice to see him, but really sad. I’m scared you’ll be like that when I’m older.’

‘C’mon kiddo, you know how tough I am. Tough as a toffee!’

‘So was he.’

‘Oh, I know sweets. A really strong person and what happened to him is just awful. But he’s been ill a really long time.’

‘I’d look after you, you know.’

‘That’s so lovely of you, thank you. But you know what the most important thing is? That you get on with your life. Everything is opening up for you. I’m doing just fine, sweets. I’m working, I’ve got Uni, everything’s great. You know I don’t need to ask you for help with anything. I like looking after you.’

‘Yeah, I know, but sometimes I wish you would ask me. I feel really helpless when you’re tired or your legs are sore. I’d like to make you a cup of coffee or a glass of squash. Or something.’

My heart broke into a thousand pieces.

‘Ok, let’s make a deal. Next time I’m really, really tired and have to go to sleep in the afternoon, you can wake me up after an hour with a cup of coffee? That would help me a lot.’

‘Deal.’

After growing up with ill parents, I’ve always been determined never to turn my son into some sort of carer. The thought horrifies me. But have I gone too far the other way? Am I somehow blocking him out?

And not only this fear, but also a dear friend of his, one of his close group of friends from school, passed away from cancer on Saturday. He was 17. The Teenager is struggling with appalling grief from both ends of the spectrum, at the beginning of life, and towards the end.

It is even more vital now, that I support him. But how best to do this when his thoughts are clouded by my MS?

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