Relationship advice

For questions on how to support loved ones with MS.
mayprimrose
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Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:23 pm

Re: Relationship advice

Post by mayprimrose »

jimmylegs wrote:i'm the one with the dx. the relationship was always pretty weak. the friends-after-breakup thing was in the picture for a few years, also sucked, and in the end i walked away from that too.

personally, i don't focus on illness and inevitable decline. i aim for health and make a point of being able to do all kinds of things better than before i was diagnosed.

i've been flying solo for so long now that i can't relate to needing someone to be there for me. i'm fine if my ex has forgotten all about me and how i'm doing!
Oh I see. Was your ex the one who was trying to pull away from the relationship and if so how did that make you feel?
I like your optimism. Thanks for responding.
mayprimrose
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Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:23 pm

Re: Relationship advice

Post by mayprimrose »

MSKarateka wrote:
mayprimrose wrote:I feel like just as a friend I want to be there for him. Am I supposed to move on and forget about him and how he's doing?
This is where you have to decide whether you can be friends with an ex. You will never forget about him and always wonder how he is doing. You need to decide whether the relationship helps or hinders you. You have to decide rationally whether to maintain a realtionship with him, or if it is your nuturing nature that is being taken advantage of.

My sister-in-law is a collector. My other halfs ex is a collector. They collect all their exes in their life. They think they have to remain in some contact with all their exes. They cannot move on. Would you want a possible relationship with another person to be hindered by your collection?

I have zero contact with exes. I have no clue what they are doing. They are not part of my life. I see no rational reason to keep a collection.

I had friends in college who broke up, got back together, broke up, got back together, etc. Afer graduation they finally split for good, and both are better off for it.
Here's the thing. I have one ex and I've been just fine moving on and not wanting to stay friends. I believe it's the fact that my boyfriend has MS and the intense attachment I have to him that doesn't let me leave him. It feels like an abandonment and betrayal to someone who cares for me.
mayprimrose
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Joined: Sun Jun 25, 2017 2:23 pm

Re: Relationship advice

Post by mayprimrose »

jimmylegs wrote:this may sound super weird but since there is a nutritional component to depression, which can feature feelings of guilt and anxiety, you might actually be able to do some work on your own physical health and through that, find some relief from the emotional struggle you're dealing with. my lifelong chronic anxiety melted away, along with a bunch of other sucky 'status quo' aspects of my previous life, once i figured out how to do magnesium properly (and with it, many other essential nutrients).
No that does not sound weird at all. I tried therapy for a while but I stopped going for some reason. What does it feel like for you when somebody knows you have MS and just sees you as that "person with MS?" I feel like it must be frustrating and just so negative. How long did it take for you to finally be free from 'status quo'? Was it something you physically had to do or with time it just changed?
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jimmylegs
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Re: Relationship advice

Post by jimmylegs »

i don't feel like my ex suddenly just saw me as that person with ms. in fact when i got start suddenly there was a lot more caring and niceness which evaporated back to status quo remoteness as i got over that first episode (still waiting for a second..).

re opinions of others, i told lots of ppl right away. then i was pissed when taking a sports cert that one of my co-workers blabbed to the course conductor that i had ms. this was within a year of dx. i didn't want to get failed for trying a higher level with ms. nor did i want a pity pass. in the end i passed, but i know i did well (co-workers commented on improvements) and i know the room for improvement items on my eval were valid.

in the end having ppl know what's up is better than not. if i over exert myself and get wobbly ppl understand it's neurological and not some other form of impairment. if ppl see me as 'just that person w ms' they don't tell me, and i don't know about it, and i don't care.

mostly ppl react along the lines of 'wow i never would have known'

re the status quo aspect. i had been low magnesium my whole life. healthy but not sufficiently nutrient dense diet. then a high anxiety life situation, which makes you burn through magnesium more quickly, made things worse. and then getting into active lifestyle year round vs just during a couple of months made me burn through nutrients even more quickly.

i had a slow burn of anxiety going in my gut all the time. and the cramping assoc w menstruation was debilitating. docs put me on prescription meds but no one ever bothered to address nutrition.

when i finally got really really sick i had ended up on a more and more restrictive diet over more than a decade, less and less nutrient dense, and a more and more active lifestyle especially in the last year, and then everything fell apart.

then i spent a decade trying to figure out what i'd done wrong and fix it, with many trial and error challenges along the way. i took too much vitamin d3 and my already low magnesium levels got worse. (oh and by the way they never tested outright deficient). but once i eased off on d3 and worked hard on fixing magnesium specifically, all my d3 side effects vanished, AND my chronic anxiety vanished, AND my years of intense monthly suffering also vanished. i'd had other 'a ha' moments with nutrition, but magnesium is one of the real standouts in my xp.

and so, given that the research is there linking nutrition and mental health, if you are suffering emotionally, can't do any harm to make sure you're taking care of yourself. who knows, maybe will help you see things from a new perspective. i recommended it to a woman who was grieving the loss of her husband. of course magnesium does nothing to the facts of the situation but her comment was that she just felt better able to *cope*. i could go on with other anecdotal reports from before and after mag but the point is the same. if how you're feeling is in fact to a subpar nutritional situation, why not work on that physical element, and see where it takes your mental and emotional state. hope you feel better soon!
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