Self Perceptions: Fact or Fiction?

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Most of us go through life with a very definite idea of who we are, what we stand for, what we believe and sometimes what we believe other people think of us.  Until ten years ago I certainly had all those concepts firmly planted in my mind and went on happily believing that I was a fairly good looking, intelligent woman who had overcome various challenges on my path to being a successful professional with a career in academia, a single mother that put my daughter above all else even if it meant that I would remain single because between my child and my career I didn’t have the time or energy to invest in another relationship, at least a good one, and that there would be plenty of time for that when my daughter went to college.  After all I had her when I was only 21, so I would only be 39 when she went away to school, and I knew plenty of women who started long lasting relationships at that age, or older.  I had many friends and business associates so I was always busy, professionally and personally, and I was sure people liked me for all the reasons I list above, and I would always have people in my life.  Oh, and I had a back problem that caused me pain and required surgeries and sometimes was so bad I was hospitalized for pain and treatment; but I could handle that and would never let it get in the way of what I was doing or become the main focus of who I am.

That was who I was, at least in my own mind, and perhaps in reality as well.  But things change, and I never left open the possibility that as circumstances change the reality of who I am would change also; in fact it took me several years after everything in my life was turned upside down to actually begin to accept that the picture I portrayed was quite different than it was just a few years ago.  I still have trouble letting go of some of the attributes or characteristics that were once part of who I was, yet the truth is that very few are still visible at all.

Yes, I am still an intelligent woman, although I’m not sure I would preface that with the term “fairly good looking” as I once did.  I am still single and still have a daughter, although she is now married and a mother herself, and my expectation for a relationship when she grew up didn’t work out as I hoped.  I fell in love, and maybe even was loved, but some of the other changes in my life, specifically related to my physical abilities, served as a major obstacle to lasting relationships.

My back problem continued to get worse and I had a total of 4 major spine surgeries, including an anterior/posterior spinal fusion.  My back pain increased over time as well, and I was living on strong medications to get enough relief that I was able to continue working.  And then, in the early 1990s, the diagnosis of probable Multiple Sclerosis I received in 1980 became a definite diagnosis and as the disease progressed I became more physically disabled. I also began having the nerve pain associated with MS in addition to the back pain I had been living with for years.