As I’ve mentioned before, this blog is anonymous. I keep it that way so if someone Googles for my name (hey, it could happen), they aren’t confronted with THE TRUTH ABOUT ME. I worry what they’ll think, how they might react, whether they’ll still be able to think of me as who I am and not what I have.
(I’m sure someone could figure out the true identity of Tingly Feeling if they really wanted to, but I’d hope people have better things to do with their time.)
My close friends and some trusted co-workers know about my multiple sclerosis (those words are still so hard to spell out!), but I conceal it from more casual acquaintances and colleagues. It’s a tricky balancing act, keeping my MS a secret from some people while disclosing to others. It’s getting harder and harder to keep the two sides of my life separated, especially with my participation as a team captain in the upcoming MS Walk.
So I just got off the phone with my mom, who doesn’t really understand how I feel about all this. (She’s the person who’d told our whole family about my MS not even 24 hours after my diagnosis, after all.) I sensed a judgmental tone in her voice when she asked if a guy I’ve recently started seeing would be participating in the MS Walk with me and my team in April. He does not know I have MS. He knows about the Walk, but will be out of town, I told her. And then I told her that when I’d explained to him why I was leading a team for the Walk for the second consecutive year, I gave my sister’s MS as the reason.
“That’s beating around the bush,” said my mom.
True. I’ll give her that. But I’m not ready to have that conversation with him yet. Everything is too new and good. Why complicate things by telling him, “Oh, by the way, while you’re deciding whether you like me enough to keep me around as a girlfriend, let me tell you about my chronic and potentially debilitating disease.”?
Mmm. That’s some good pillow talk, right there. For now, I want him to like me–or not like me–for me, and not base his decision on this total buzz-kill of a revelation.
But I’m not naive. I know I can’t put this conversation off forever and that anyone I date for a significant amount of time deserves to know about my MS. I’m just not there yet. And I’m still figuring out the duration of that “significant” time period. I have no idea how this works–it’s my first time dealing with this. I’ll be honest with him when the time is right, I guess, and hopefully he’ll understand why I felt I couldn’t tell him immediately. And hopefully he’ll stick around.
It’s only been two years since my diagnosis and I know I can’t keep up this facade forever–it’s bound to crumble eventually. Leading a double life is complicated and exhausting and I don’t like being dishonest with people I care about. But for now, I hope that my friends and family can respect my choice to protect myself from scrutiny and rejection.
Dating is hard enough as it is.
