See the accompanying comic!
Since my diagnosis two and a half years ago, the topic of telling has been a pretty consistent one in my life, and therefore, in my writing. Most of the time, the decision of who to tell and how has felt like an extremely personal matter to me, but lately, I have begun to realize that talking openly about rheumatoid arthritis is one of the best ways to promote awareness of the disease and to put a face on it. So, in honor of the fact that May is Arthritis Awareness Month, I have another story about disclosure to share.
Back in January, I out’d myself for the first time on a date. It went pretty well, and I felt like I had cleared a big hurdle by figuring out how I felt comfortable sharing this information about myself with someone I didn’t know particularly well. Perhaps conveniently, nothing more developed with the guy I told, so I didn’t have to worry about dealing with what might happen next. Instead, I had time to myself in my comfortable singleton existence to digest the experience. I decided telling would be even easier to do the next time the opportunity presented itself. Silly, silly me. When will I learn?
A few months later, I met a guy- a pretty amazing guy- and realized that telling someone you really like makes the disclosure bit a lot harder. After all, risk changes everything. Our first date lasted 7.5 hours and was the most fun I’ve ever had on a date. On the train home that night, I felt giddy, but then felt myself go cold all over knowing that I had to tell him I had a stupid chronic disease. I vowed to go ahead and get it over with on our second date, before I had a chance to like him even more.
The second date came…and was equally incredible…and then went with nary a word said about rheumatoid arthritis. It was in the back of my mind the whole night as we were having dinner, as we strolled by the White House, as we leaned out over D.C. on a rooftop bar, as we drank our wine, and as we said good-bye, but somehow, it never made it past my lips.
Afterward, I kept coming up with excuses in my head like: we were having such a great time, why put a damper on it? Or, the conversation was just so natural and easy between us, and rheumatoid arthritis just didn’t happen to come up.
By the time the third date came around, I knew I was in for it. I really liked this guy a lot, but the time had come, no matter how much I had at stake. He had to know, because I had to know how he’d respond. There was nothing about him to indicate that he would be anything but understanding and compassionate, but having a secret like RA can make you a bit distrustful and irrational. When you feel like damaged goods (at least sometimes), it’s hard to believe other people won’t see you that way, too.
The date felt a bit like a countdown. At first, I thought I’d tell him at brunch and get it over with, but then we were having so much fun talking and laughing that I honestly forgot about it. The museum we went to after hardly seemed like the appropriate place to have the conversation, even if it did go casually. I came close when we stopped for a drink, but then shied away. Finally, when we were lying in the park soaking in the sun, I decided to bite the bullet. Clearly, the tactic of looking for an easy way to slip it into the conversation was not working this time around, so I screwed up my courage during a momentary pause in our conversation, and without a bridge of any kind, I opened my mouth and said: ‘Do you know what rheumatoid arthritis is? Ok, good, because I have it.’
