I was able to ignore my MS until 1997 because I had only had two episodes, one in 1969 when my handwriting went to Hell and one in February 1985 when all of me went to Hell and I dragged myself back to health (according to the attending neurologist my medulla had been "fried".)
Then in 1997 I had an attack which has left its scars (in my ganglia, [which looks like a horizontal plank of sclera in the middle of my MRIs,]) and left me permanently using a cane and shuffling about with a severely impartec gait.
As long as I'm sitting in my office chair, or sitting just about anywere, I am as formidable a human being as I ever was, so that part of my somatic perception hasn't changed at all, but don't ask me to move because then all pretense has to go out the window.
Am I different?
Sure, but over the years since my first attack, I would have changed anyway.
Okay, its a bummer but I am still pursuing the same dream that I interupted for a thirty year, well paid diversion into IT sparked by a chance conversation at a Dairy Queen.
I want to be a recording engineer again. (I will never again make that kind of money, but I am more mature now and don't need the same amount of, uh, toys. [Well, maybe but they're actually cheaper now. {And its a lot easier to just use conputers that it was to program them.}])
Luckily, you have to sit at a mixing board for hours, recording tracks, tweaking audio, mixing and merging things so that they sound ... adequate. (Never ask a recording engineer if its perfect, 'cause it never is. The best you ever get is "Its good enough")
Luckily as well, its pretty much all computerized too so my thirty years in IT are not lost. :-)
But I am definitely not the same kid sitting in front of an audio tape deck with a demagnetized razor blade trying to shave the recording into perfection.
But that's as much because I'm older, than how I got older.
Good Morning
Today is my 19th wedding annver. and my husband andI have been so caught up in my illness and how to continue on we both forgot for the first time. Has it changed me? I would like to say no but it most definetly has especially due to the fact I have one that says I have MS and one that says not sure but I do have an autoimmune disorder. But I also knew what MS was due to my husbands cousin has had it for 15 years and wheelchair bound, that was my biggest fear when I heard those 2 letters MS!
My husband would tell you it changed for the best due to now I have to slow down,rest,eat properly and take care of me, but I was raised my family comes first and still do its just done alittle slower now.
Have a great day
ladygraycloud/Suzanne
I have only been dx'd for about 5 months but I feel it has changed me already. I feel less of a women or something. Kinda useless sometimes. I just get so upset when I cant keep up and do the things I once could without getting tired. My self esteem has definatley gone down a few notches. Especially when the MS is effecting the way I walk. It seems hard to feel attractive when your limping around. I know I will get more used to these things and learn to deal with it and realize this is the new me. But untill then I dont feel real great about myself.
remember-this is the ms talking-you did nothing wrong you did not ask for it nor get it on purpose. it is not your fault. hold your head up and wobble with pride. learn to laugh at your predicament. if your not ready to laugh at the funny things you do. i do feel your pain.iwas there once but i always said if they can't take a joke ---you know. a sense of humor will get you through the darkest of times when nothing else will. chin up djax59
i've had ms 36 yrsto learn to laughit started fairly easy on me. just a few short bouts of blindness. thank god it was only one eye at a time. and on and off times of wet pants. back then i hadn't learned to laugh at it yet. in '86 when i got my youngest in school i went to work as a cna.wore diapers, but otherwise did ok. i've learned to fall gracefully if i can't catch my self w/swan like flailing of the arm. what are you gonna do ms is here to stay if you fall take inventory of what still works(after a quick look around to see if any one saw you) then get up best you can. i have crawled over to something to pull myself up usually i use the butt up first approach(don,t wear skirts) now i use a cane for balance and some brace like things called toe offs. they keep me from tripping over the lines in the linoleum. and my balance is a little better when i wear them don't leave home w/o them haha djax59
I too have been grappling with this issue. Although I feel grappling is an understatement for me!! Of course it has changed me. How could it not? So much of what I do now is different from how I used to do things. From food shopping to exercising I do things differently. And yes, that has certainly caused me to view my "self" very differently. I feel as though I live half of a life. The life I live is not what I want and I don't really know how to reconcile myself to this life or the one that I will have next year or next week. I don't know how to find happiness in the life I have. I know there are any number of people who have a more difficult life than I do. I just don't really know how to be satisfied with the life I have.
I don't want to give you empty platitudes that won't do you any good.
I can only speak for myself.
I morn the loss of who I was. I was young and active. I had interests and hobbies that I can only remember fondly now. And, I've had to adjust my thinking and goals and hobbies in life.
I have found new friends on websites such as this. The support of others and the ability to say what I feel instead of tempering my words is invaluable.
I gain self-gratification in the little things that I accomplish and set the bar a little lower, so I'm not frustrated so easily. I am learning (because it is a constant ongoing battle), to appreciate myself for who I am now. I am learning to forgive myself for bad days and celebrate the good ones.
Time has a way of helping us adjust. I can't say I was like this at first but five years after my diagnosis, it's getting easier. I hope and pray that will be the same with you. Hang tough and know that there are other's who really care.
-Barb
Wow, good question.
Of course at first I started thinking of all the things about the pre-MS Barb that I miss. I miss the energy. I miss the ability to multi-task, juggling fulltime work and fulltime homemaker/wife/mother. I miss the clarity of mind. I miss walking miles. I miss gardening in the summer.
Then I slowly began to thinking of all the ways that post-MS Barb is better for all that I have learned and gone through. I am much more sympathetic to other peoples needs, no matter what that may be. I value good days, good hours, good minutes. I realize that I have an astronomical support group of family and friends who love me and are willing to give me strength. I am thankful for people who take my MS into consideration when working with me. I no longer look at people who use Parking Placards yet "look" fine, in the same way.
I could go on but hopefully by now you've gotten the message. I might be different than I was before but I would like to think that I am better for it. Then again, maybe I would have matured into this version of me regardless.
I am glad that people making the comments had a good view with living wiht MS than a negative one. I have had this disease since my 1995 diagnosis (28 at the time) and of course I had some very bad days as we all have but being on Avonex and working my ass off in making sure that I move to remind the muscles that this is what it is suppose to do when I tell it something and of course eating really well. As long as I can keep stable but you know with Second Progress. we do the best we can. I keep thinking of what it was like before, working full time compromising in situations more and letting things people say or do about you just let is roll off your back. Actually this is kind of sick to say but I think since living with this disease I am glad actually. I have totally changed as a person. I am stronger than I used to be in my perspective in life. You really get what reality is and what is really important and what isn't. I believe that once we understand that we can have a good happy life even though we have to deal with body crap that we have really no ultimate control. MS will still kick your ass even though you try to keep it as stable as you can. I guess once we have MS under as much control as possible and MS doesn't control us as much it is not bad living with it. It is just the igorance of people that is hard to deal with without telling them off but if you look normal people believe you are normal. I feel it is their loss in not really getting to know us personally and I now I tapper slowly away because I have better things to do than listen to that. All in all I like myself better now than before this disease. Weird huh !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lena
Since my MS took a turn for the worse a few years ago, I had to stop working. Good thing I got on SSDI & money is NOT a problem. Now I feel like a Big Waste. I'm using Resources that I cannot replace. I'm NOT contributing to Society & I Hate That. But I'm too chicken to kill myself. I only stay alive for my dear husband. And YES, I'm seeing a therapist. I go on and off anti-depressants. I have a B.A. in Psychology & know I can play games with myself to get in a better mood, by avoiding the Reality of MS.
Changed Me? No, not the person inside. I will always be me. Although I can't do the things I once did, or push myself the way I did, I am still me.
At 35, MS came out of nowhere and changed my life. Now at 40, I am disabled. Disabled does not mean I have stopped living, not by a long shot!
Do people think I'm different? Maybe, but I don't think about that. It's much more important to me to live the life I've been given. I can think of a lot of people in my life who would say I'm very much the same! (haha)
No one has a perfect life. I can think of a lot of struggles which are worse. I don't think of the things I"ve lost, but what I've gained... A look at the ones who truly love me, a feeling of taking it all in and not going too fast, a sense of self which has less to do with what I do than who I am. These are good things and they equal, or even outweigh, the bad that MS has done.
Am I happy everyday, no. Do I get scared, yes. I try to focus on all that it has brought, not all that it has taken.
Reading this post is like replaying the tape that's been running in my head since my diagnosis. I'm sure most of us had heard of MS prior to diagnosis but the devastation post diagnosis is something I wasn't ready for. I won't go into detail about my story, but I will say it has definitely changed how I see myself. I'm not disabled in any way....my symptoms are more a nuisance than anything else but what really bothers me is the idea that it can be worse at any given moment. I have lived my life fearlessly and now I feel like a small child who wants to cower in the corner and cry because I don't know when or if the monster is coming for me. In this day-mare the monster is MS and it's coming to take my mind.
I am the oldest of three girls and my parents assigned certain attributes to each of us. I was the smart one. I was the one who got all A's. I'm the one who thinks so unorthodox-ly. I'm the one who analyzes, questions, seeks, debates.....all of that is me. MS has me in a fog most days. It is difficult to follow a conversation without concentrated effort. How will I be able to be all the things I've been if this continues? So, to answer your question. Yes. MS has definitely changed how I view myself.
Do I feel differently about myself? OH, you BETCHA. Once I was confident, vibrant, strong and self sufficient. Now... well, while my MS is fairly mild, I am fatigued and often weak, relying on my parents for more than I care to admit at 40.... self-esteem is pretty much non-existent in my world... I feel like a less of a woman, although that may be the full time mother role I play these days... my husband left me and our toddler six months after I was diagnosed two years ago... I find that I now have zero tolerance for stress, more freak outs than I ever imagined possible, and am mildly depressed pretty much all of the time... With no health insurance, I had to leave the Big Apple and move back to a small Canadian city... I had to abandon a burgeoning career in the performing arts due to cognitive difficulties while performing...
Seriously, I don't really know who I am at all, anymore.
Sorry for the late response, but I was on vacation
with the family that week, and I am still getting caught-up with my emails.
I see so much of my own experiences in what you write! I am definitely changed...the way I see myself and the way my family & others do. I am still coming to terms with all of it!
I was dx 1-yr ago (misdiagnosed since 2001), so when I finally learned what was going-on, I was actually relieved...that is, until I learned what MS is, how it is effecting me and now understand why my career is tanking.
I just wanted to tell you that you have a gift for writing and how it touched me! 
Thanks! Jeff
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Merely Me, Today, you have my undivided attendtion. I am totallly feeling you
today
We all have been where you have been. If anyone had told me five years ago, my life would be what it is today, I would have said, surely you jest. Not because I think that I am better, I had plans, and MS was no where in those plans. I like you did not really know what MS really was, but when I was told that I had it I quickly educated myself. We are going to be fine, take care Merely Me Sherry/smomdukes