Taking It One Day at a Time
I don’t think about it as often as I used to. Or maybe I think about it just as much, but I have spent a long long long time just ignoring my symptoms, then trying to ignore my diagnosis – that it’s just easier not to think about the impact of those two letters. I was officially diagnosed in 2016 March, during my 4th year of medical school. It was a culmination of symptoms getting progressively worse over 2 years that finally led to an ophthalmologist of all people asking me if I’d ever gotten XYZ symptoms... of which I could only say yes and here I am.
My dirty secret
Unfortunately the outcome of my diagnosis was years of anguish and anger on my partner's side as he cycled through his grief, and shame/loneliness on mine as I tried to support him through his grief. I’ve only recently broken the news to my own family after keeping my diagnosis hidden like a dirty secret for 2 some years.
The emotional toll
For me I could accept the diagnosis and the symptoms and the affect it’s had on my ability to go about daily life, but I didn’t anticipate the huge emotional toll it had on me and the the others around me. That’s something that I don’t really read too much about.
The times, the times, the times
I try to be optimistic about the future and take it one day at a time. I have stopped saying to myself, "The times when you could do this and that... when you were strong and not riddled with anxiety... the times, the times, the times..." Rather now I say to myself that those times never ended I can find them again.
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