What’s the point?

[Daisycat]

I was recently diagnosed with ms and I am having a hard time caring about anything or seeing the point of life. I had so many plans and now I have nothing to live for and a life as a cripple who has to quit a job I love to look forward to. My life is Work, the gym, sleep. I have no desire to see my friends or do anything. Sleeping is the only thing that brings me peace because at least in my sleep I still have a future. How did everyone come to accept this life ending hell on earth?

[ElliotB]

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. This popular saying is basically advising you to make the best of the negative situations in life.

And that is what you have to do now with your life.

Life goes on after a diagnosis of MS, and there can still be plenty of life, in fact, plenty of excellent quality of life after a diagnosis of MS.

Many, many years ago I had the good fortune to become familiar with a great motivational speaker named Earl Nightingale, and one of his many great stories/life lessons he shared is called "Acres of Diamonds."

Here is a link to that story. I hope you take the time to read it, understand it, and learn from it:

http://www.nightingale.com/articles/acres-of-diamonds/

There can still be plenty of excellent quality of life after a diagnosis of MS!

AND what you may not be aware of is that much if not all of what you are currently experiencing will likely go away (assuming you have RRMS) as the disease goes into remission. Ultimately in time, hopefully a short period of time, you will feel much better than you do now, in fact you may feel 'normal' for the most part.

[Scott1]

Hi,

So what are your symptoms?

Regards,

[Boudreaux]

Your life is not over.

It won't be as easy....
You may not be able to do asa much as you would like....
You may not be able to do as much as the next person....
but, it is not over.

The entire left side of my body was paralyzed in the latter part of 2002 from MS. I was tired, even after I could walk, I was tired. I went back to work and everyday I came home and went to sleep because I was tired. I had to change my role in the company I was with because I couldn't do the job I used to do and I really like that gig too. I eventually got better not back to what I was before but better than some, not as good as others. It's all in the attitude...I know healthy people who are miserable, constantly complaining like the deck of life is stacked against them when they have everything that a person could want except a good attitude. I've seen men missing arms and legs from IED's compete on dancing with the stars......If you sit around thinking that your life is over, you're right. If you get up and enjoy what you have, life is good.

Get after it.

[jimmylegs]

dx and just post-dx is a rough time. it can take a while to figure out the new frame of reference. meanwhile everything feels desperately urgent and it's impossible to learn everything at once, especially if you are interested in complementary as well as mainstream approaches.

ime the silver lining to ms is the process of unlearning and relearning how to take care of oneself. ms is not all the same. with which of the several types have you been diagnosed and based on what findings? what is your day to day like symptomatically? what's your long back story family wise, genetics wise, other illness wise, odd things that bug you, more up front symptoms you'd consider ms related, how many hours per week do you spend in the gym and has a sports dietitian assessed your daily intakes of essential nutrients against needs for your age, gender and activity level?

just a few questions ;) welcome to the forum

[Daisycat]

I will never feel normal again. My life is over and I’m just basically waiting around to die of old age and suffer from ms attacks along the way. The is nothing positive about this. My backstory is I was a happy person with goals and plans for my life until a month ago and now I’m nothing. I workout as much as possible since if I can’t control anything else at least I can control my weight. I eat healthy now and since there is so little we can eat I’ve lost 25 pounds in a month. I also now think anything and everything that happens is related to ms. I know my life is over but I just want to pay off all my debt so I don’t leave my loved ones with massive debt. I refuse to live as a paralyzed cripple.

[THX1138]

I will never feel normal again. My life is over and I’m just basically waiting around to die of old age and suffer from ms attacks along the way. The is nothing positive about this. My backstory is I was a happy person with goals and plans for my life until a month ago and now I’m nothing. I workout as much as possible since if I can’t control anything else at least I can control my weight. I eat healthy now and since there is so little we can eat I’ve lost 25 pounds in a month. I also now think anything and everything that happens is related to ms. I know my life is over but I just want to pay off all my debt so I don’t leave my loved ones with massive debt. I refuse to live as a paralyzed cripple.

I hear you, I might not want to be a living cripple either. Oh wait, I guess I already am. I can't walk but a few steps without a walker. Just standing up isn't very easy and I usually can only stand a few minutes at a time. I ride my mobility scooter around the apartment building where I live and to the grocery store and mall. I spend a lot of time on the computer and listening to audiobooks. I also talk on the phone a fair amount. Those are my main activities.
When I was diagnosed about 15 years ago, I was in the best shape of my life. I could run 4 miles or go on the stairmill for about 40 minutes, dripping with sweat. I hadn't yet gone to Africa, learned how to hang glide, or met the very wonderful girl who was soon to be my fiance.
These days, much of my focus is on getting better. I've noticed that some things really make me worse and some things really make me better. Most doctors, being mainly focused on drugs, have no idea how these things help or hurt how I do. But they are just drug doctors, as I call them.

I have a few times over the years thought of killing myself. But I'm glad I didn't. If I was in physical misery, then possibly.
I really don't want to end my life because of anticipating misery. Ending of my life because of being truly miserable, not miserable because of how I'm currently thinking of things, might be a possibility someday.
I have noticed several times that I can feel really down one day, and pretty good later that day, or the next day. When I'm feeling down I am sometimes have some thoughts of suicide. However when I'm feeling good, usually less than a day later, the idea of killing myself seems very unappealing. I need to remember these changes in how I feel and think.

I guess I would not be in a rush to kill yourself and to let procrastination reign when it comes to suicide.

If you kill yourself, you will have no options whatsoever. If, for some reason you're not FULLY successful in doing it (and many are not) you could end up in a real fix. Maybe a situation where you are truly, truly crippled and unable to do anything about your situation. Maybe something like what happened to the soldier who was severely hurt described in
this video:

We humans often aren't so good at predicting how the future is going to be.

I wish you the best

[jimmylegs]

"I workout as much as possible since if I can’t control anything else at least I can control my weight. I eat healthy now and since there is so little we can eat I’ve lost 25 pounds in a month"

can you elaborate on which dietary guideline you have chosen to follow, and the details of your personal interpretation?

pls also see: http://www.thisisms.com/forum/mental-sp ... ml#p250366

[Daisycat]

My diet is low sodium and low saturated fat and I avoid sugar and caffeine. It’s kinda a combo of everything.

[jimmylegs]

while working on undesirably high macronutrients is a good idea, you can actually work on *increasing* problematically low macro and micro nutrients - without completely denying yourself things you enjoy.

[Daisycat]

THis is new to me so I have no idea what to do besides what I read online. I see my neurologist Thursday to decide on medication and I’m going to talk to him about diets.

[jimmylegs]

ya the learning curve is quite a ride. it took me i think something like 8 months to stop reading obsessively and start to care about ordinary things again.
pro(amateur) tip: if you can, ask for a referral to a dietitian. neuros are not diet specialists - not in my xp at least!
see if you can get a referral to a dietitian with ms xp (the ones on campus were like 'uh, hmm. this dx does not typically happen with undergrads. we can't answer your questions').

[Daisycat]

Hopefully they have one in my town. Right now all I can do is go by the internet.

[jimmylegs]

oh, good old internet ;) one of these days maybe i will write a position piece with a paragraph devoted to each of the various diets. my 2c, they are all just looking at the same elephant from a different angle. or maybe i should stick with the ocean analogy. each aircraft carrier reverses its own particular route to the bermuda triangle.

[Daisycat]

All I have right now is the internet. My experience with the drs was horrible. I feel like the internet is more reliable than the drs I saw.