There are many emotions that come and go throughout life with Multiple Sclerosis and one of those is grief. Some people might not recognize their grief, as grief, and mistake it for depression (which often goes hand in hand) or just feeling down/angry/disbelief etc. But grief in chronic illness is real. Some professionals name our grief as “infinite loss” or “chronic sorrow”, as there are things to be grieved over and over again, as we lose different parts of ourselves throughout the disease.
I’m sure you’ve heard of the 5 Stages of Grief, as defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who did her work for these 5 stages with terminally ill patients. Now there are many other theories on grief as well. As no one person grieves the same way as someone else.
Being diagnosed with a chronic illness, especially one as difficult as Multiple Sclerosis can be challenging, to say the least. There are many emotions that someone can experience between shock, anger, denial or numbness. One of the first questions that is sometimes asked, but often thought is: “what about my future?“. What we’re really asking: “what am I going to lose?“
Grief is a reaction to loss. Since there is potential for many unplanned losses with MS, experiencing grief at diagnosis, even if you haven’t lost functioning yet, is common.
As our disease course progresses, the losses start to accumulate. This can be in various forms too. Abilities, dreams, wishes, friends, jobs, it’s not only relegated to disease functioning, but to all other areas of life as well. Friends might become distant, a job might be harder to manage, future dreams might be difficult to see coming to fruition and many more.
Since MS is a chronic condition, the grief process isn’t limited to a one time event, which you learn to manage. Instead, it is cyclical. Happening over and over again, with each new loss. It might even happen from day to day, as symptoms are experienced differently.
Acceptance looks different on everybody. As I mentioned above, everyone grieves differently, so what acceptance looks like from person to person will be drastically different. However, there is a way to get there and cultivate resiliency.
Doing all of the aboves steps won’t make grief (or anger, or depression) just suddenly vanish. What it will do, is help you feel more equipped to manage those feelings and situations when they do arise. This is a lifelong journey, your relationship to grief will ebb and flow as the years progress, as it does with other emotions as well. Just remember, you’re never alone in this.
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