I was 15 when I first heard the words: "You Have MS"
I was 15 when I heard the words: “You have MS.”
I remember sitting there thinking, “What even is that?”I knew it couldn’t be anything good — because my mom burst into tears on the other side of the room.
You’d think I’d feel panic, sadness, or fear...But my first raw emotion was anger.
I was angry because:
No one had even tried to explain to me what MS is — or what it meant for my future.
I was a kid. What the hell? My friends were worrying about who liked them at school, and I had paralysis on my left side.
My second thought was: What did I do wrong?
How could something like this happen to me so early in life?Did I accidentally poison myself?Was I not taking care of myself enough?
I wasn’t drinking. I wasn’t doing drugs. I was just a kid. So what could it be?
It took me over a decade to realize something no one told me at the time:Sometimes, really shitty things happen to normal people who don’t deserve it.
And I’m still unlearning the self-blame.
Does anyone else struggle with this?
Like feeling guilty after eating something unhealthy…Or blaming yourself for drinking a few glasses of wine…As if that is the reason you have an autoimmune disease?
I’m curious — did anyone else go through this kind of thought spiral?
I can’t even imagine how tough that must’ve been at 15. Anger makes total sense - getting hit with something like MS that young, without anyone explaining it, is brutal. Most of us were just trying to figure out high school, and you were dealing with real symptoms. Thanks for sharing - it’s not easy to put out there.