mizuiro007 is offline mizuiro007 Post #1  June 18,2008, 2:18pm
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This isn't a subject I see discussed much. How do you approach dating when you have a chronic illness? I try to be honest and open and hope that anyone really interested in me will look past it.


What about fairness though? How can it be fair to start a relationship with someone and throw something at them that's been hard for even my family to deal with? To deal with good and bad days and the long nights of pain without a thing to relieve it. How would it be fair to me though to deal with this my whole life and to avoid dating out of fairness to another person?


I'm really wanting some opinions on this.
 
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Fan4No20 is offline Fan4No20 Post #2  June 18,2008, 3:10pm
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Hi there,





I definitely understand your concerns. I was diagnosed w/ severe RA and find it hard to figure out when to drop that bomb. I have days the pain is so bad I can't walk without help or crying. My family struggles to understand it even. I've undergone one surgery on my shoulder & am awaiting shoulder replacement now. While they finally have meds that really seems to help the RA as far as the chronic pain, I still have damage in joints that needs to be repaired & who wants to deal with that. I've been talking to one guy that doesn't seem to mind but he has a little of the mind games going on with different issues. It's so completely frustrating!! Wish I knew the answer & plan to check back to see what others day.
 
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mizuiro007 is offline mizuiro007 Post #3  June 18,2008, 3:28pm
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This is something I'm eagerly waiting answers on. I've had Lyme disease since I was four but was only resently diagnosed. I had a picc line last month (iv catheter) for antibiotic infusions I had to have everyday and I think the reaction that made me feel the best was one guy telling me "Oh yea baby show me those tubes!" lol. I've also had knee surgery to remove tissue and chronic fatigue. Believe me though I understand the RA and I'm just 18! So of course I'd like to meet someone. I did decide when I was diagnosed though to put in my profile that I do have lyme disease and that I'm looking for someone patient and understanding.


Jessica
 
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BSipple is offline BSipple Post #4  June 18,2008, 10:02pm
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I'm glad to have found this section of eHarmony. I too have been wondering when is the best time to tell a match about my health issues. In June of 06 I had my fourth brain surgery.just before this last surgery I was unconcious for a day and a half. One of my biggest struggles is memory loss, which has been caused by the surgeries. Are there others on eHarmony that have had brain tumors and/or shunt replacements?


Brett
 
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tom555 is offline tom555 Post #5  June 19,2008, 5:21pm
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mizuiro007,144485 wrote :

This is something I'm eagerly waiting answers on. I've had Lyme disease since I was four but was only resently diagnosed. I had a picc line last month (iv catheter) for antibiotic infusions I had to have everyday and I think the reaction that made me feel the best was one guy telling me "Oh yea baby show me those tubes!" lol. I've also had knee surgery to remove tissue and chronic fatigue. Believe me though I understand the RA and I'm just 18! So of course I'd like to meet someone. I did decide when I was diagnosed though to put in my profile that I do have lyme disease and that I'm looking for someone patient and understanding.


Jessica
Lyme disease is cureable. Chinese traditional medicine (acupunture and herbs) can cure it. I've seen plenty of people treated for very similar problems, both Lyme and cronic fatigue.
 
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dontwant2baphony is offline dontwant2baphony Post #6  June 20,2008, 1:03am
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I have myasthenia gravis, a neuromuscular disorder of the nerves and muscles. I've had it most of my life. I have always felt different fromPE classes to talking to new people (boys especially when I was a teenager). Many people have made fun of my voice or made strange faces and I am not taken seriously. My voice is nasal and garbled and sound as if I'm drunk or retarded. I can't keep up very well physically because I tire easily and it has only gotten worse as I get older. I've been married twice and left both times because men always want to try to control me. Those with disabilities are sometimes fierclyindependent because they are afraid of losing it, but somehow that is threatening to theman. I have usually as a rule gone above and beyond and pushed myself to exhaustion when it was easier to hide so I wouldn't spoil the other person's time. Now I just refuse to do that because it is too hard. My feelings on dating are split. I suffer from chronic clinical depression and like to be alone to rest when I'm not physically my strongest. When I'm feeling physically strong I wish I had someone to do things with. I don't know of anyone who would want to be stuck with someone like me with my medical difficulties and expenses, and things don't seem to be getting better. I don't want someone to feel "ambushed" when I bring it up after we've been communicating by email or phone. I want to be honest, but that makes them run in the other direction. I am tall and slender and I've been told very attractive. My bra size is 34DD. I want someone to like me for who I really am first so I'm vague talking about the things alot of men find attractive. I just don't think I'll find someone who is patient enough and loves me and be able to trust again. Sometimes I just feel hopless and depressed.
 
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mizuiro007 is offline mizuiro007 Post #7  June 21,2008, 5:31pm
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tom555,145600 wrote :

mizuiro007,144485 wrote :


This is something I'm eagerly waiting answers on. I've had Lyme disease since I was four but was only resently diagnosed. I had a picc line last month (iv catheter) for antibiotic infusions I had to have everyday and I think the reaction that made me feel the best was one guy telling me "Oh yea baby show me those tubes!" lol. I've also had knee surgery to remove tissue and chronic fatigue. Believe me though I understand the RA and I'm just 18! So of course I'd like to meet someone. I did decide when I was diagnosed though to put in my profile that I do have lyme disease and that I'm looking for someone patient and understanding.


Jessica


Lyme disease is cureable. Chinese traditional medicine (acupunture and herbs) can cure it. I've seen plenty of people treated for very similar problems, both Lyme and cronic fatigue.
Not everyone responds to these treatments and while it is treatable and sometimes curable there are still nasty lingering effects. Personally I have some brain and organ damage that can't be cured. The topic was about dating when you have an illness or disablity and not about the particular illness.
 
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Doctora2012 is offline Doctora2012 Post #8  June 21,2008, 6:17pm
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I'm not going to comment on your illness, as it's beyond my field of expertise but I do want to encourage you to date! Your illness should not preclude you from dating and, while it may be difficult to talk about your illness, I strongly believe you should go out and have fun. Whether it's having a chronic illness, a divorce, a less than stellar background, etc., we all have something that may be difficult to share. By no means do I want to understate the severity of your illness, but I do think that everyone has something that they've experienced and may find difficult to share. With this said, I do think sensitive matters are to be shared only after one establishes a serious connection (i.e. you're falling in love with the person and believe it's the person with whom you'd like to share this aspect of your life).


I think it's admirable that you're considering the other person's feelings and want to ensure that you're not in someway being "unfair" to them, but allow yourself to get to know other people and allow them to get to know you. *You* are a wonderful individual and I'm certain you have a lot to offer --- your illness is a part of your life, but it doesn't define who you are. The people who truly love you and appreciate what you have to offer will accept you no matter what -- whether you have perfect health or not. And, it's important to know that perfectly healthy couples get married all the time and, in some cases, the "in sickness and in health" part of the marriage vows is tested. In no way are you different than anyone else -- we can never be sure when an illness will fall upon us, but our loved ones --- including the one with whom we choose to spend the rest of our lives with--- will be there always.


This is certainly just my opinion, but I think you should go out, date, and give yourself the opportunity to meet people. Live life, have fun, and when you find that special someone (your heart will tell you) then you may disclose your chronic illness. I think most folks, with a degree of sensitivity and understanding, will understand your reluctance in sharing such a sensitive issue (the fact that even your family has difficulty with this attests to this).


I wish you the best, and hope that you'll enjoy dating and will meet individuals who are incredibly sensitive, understanding, and loving -- anything short of these qualities may indicate they're not worth your time (or mine! ;-)
 
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pinz is offline pinz Post #9  June 21,2008, 8:06pm
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I'll take a slightly different angle here.


I met a great guy about a year ago. We hit if off instantly. Great humor, great personality, sex appeal, the works. Our work schedules conflicted badly so we couldn't actually spend as much time together as we might have liked at the onset. We developed an incredibly good on-line 'relationship' in the course of which we got to know each other very well. At least so I thought. Slowly I started to learn about an asortment of his ailments ... one by one they were revealed ... I don't deny that it made me start to 'stand back' and reconsider 'our possibility' and potential. He started to come across as a hypochondriac, even though many of his 'illnesses' were seemingly legit. It did start to get to be a bit wearing. He sounded like he wanted more of a nurse, then a mate. We stumbled on, and had a few 'meetings' when time would allow. There seemed to be a growing disparity between how he represented himself 'on-line' and how he was in person. I TRIED hard to accomodate both, but found increasingly that, regardless of the initial spark, it was just going to be TOO MUCH HARD WORK.


Perhaps if he hadn't made his illnesses so central to his being, it may have developed a bit differently. But honestly, talking about his health all the time was a real bummer. I knew he had 'ihealth issues', chronic health issues, but I got tired of hearing about them ALL THE TIME.


For what it's worth.
 
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Syd Kroft is offline Syd Kroft Post #10  February 15,2010, 6:00pm
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Dear Miz,
I was fascinated and sorrowful when I saw your posting re: dating and chronic illness. The discussion thread appears to be closed so I am posting this message to you via your Profile site and on this Thread. I just wanted to send you a "hello" and let you know, as I saw others did, that you are not alone no matter how much you feel alone when you look around an empty room, reach for the phone but don't know who you could call, or, worst of all, look in the mirror and face yourself, literally or figuratively.

Thankfully, I FINALLY no longer need to detail my story of how my life progressively collapsed over the past five years following my work-based exposure to a rare Asian cross-species flu strain to which I am, to date, the only known American survivor. In brief, to show you that I understand where you are coming from, I'm giving you a bare outline of what I experienced and am still dealing with. The virus activated as many as possible underlying genetic disorders and made 3 autoimmune disorders full-blown, resulting in, among other things, a predictably fatal condition in which I died -- and was revived -- on the operating table. Shortly thereafter, enduring a recovery that I was not expected to survive a week, much less to the year mark (that I passed last year!), I was severely beaten in a home invasion. Emerging from the hospital, I discovered that my identity had been completely stolen and all of my accounts, including my home ELOC, had been emptied. That's the abbreviated story.

Ironically, a good friend and roommate of mine in grad school suffered a similar series of events and, in fact, graduated but has never been able to recover enough to practice in our field. She did, however, meet a guy online who fell in love with her even as her series of health complications began to worsen. Throughout her stint in a wheelchair and her series of brain injuries and manifesting underlying autoimmune and genetic disorders, he stayed connected and they eventually married. Her health has continued to deteriorate but rehab helped her out of her wheelchair. Throughout all this, while I retreated to lick my wounds and rail against my health condition and loss of my support groups, she remained upbeat, connected, and cheerful, and in fact has thrown herself into volunteer work on some of the disorders we developed. She's now considered one of the national leaders in the field of Celiac disease and is the editor of a magazine with a subscription of about 50,000. Her husband is sometimes burned out and snappy with her conditions; his family violently objected to him aligning himself with a woman with chronic illness and years later still voices their displeasure; and his travel schedule and workload leaves her fairly isolated as she can no longer see well enough to drive, but she just channels her energies elsewhere. I hope that her story is inspiring to you.

Even I have had numerous boyfriends as I traversed the past 5 years of injuries, illness, and prolonged convalescence. Beforehand, for over a decade, I had had a grueling career in which I was a internationally recognized expert, yet the hardest thing I have ever had to do was to rebuild my self image, bolster my health, and re-connect socially upon emerging from the wreckage of my life. Just this week, I joined several groups on Yahoo! Meet Up.

So many people have continued to tell me to feel grateful for having a "clean slate" (emptied accounts, trashed credit, shutting down my business when work was my life, losing my friends and family support groups because I was no longer the primary caretaker and monetary provider for them, and physically too weak to resume my career and re-staff my consulting business, especially now that I was shouldering PTSD and non-epileptic seizures from head injuries I sustained in the home invasion). I have found that the adjurement to feel grateful for my "clean slate" is about as applicable as saying the same peppy phrase to the survivors in Haiti.

Nonetheless, I finally mustered the emotional and physical energy to take steps to rebuild my self-image and my overall life. Among other things, I renewed my subscription on eHarmony Advice this week!. Please allow me to suggest some great reading for you to help you have the heart to prevail: "The Dance of Anger" and the other books in this seminal series by Harriet Goldher-Lerner; "Making Sense of Marital Conflict," by Notarious and Markman, a fabulous book about communication that is useful for friendships, romantic relationships, and work relationships, and "The Feeling Good Handbook" by David Burns, M.D. An underlying theme in these books is a form of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and/or neurolinguistic programming, helping you change the way you think about things or how you take things such that you can remold yourself into a more positive, satisfied, and self-confident adult.

There are men out there who will date you despite your illnesses and there are men and women out there who will distance themselves from you because they do not have the capacity to be caregivers, are shallow and self-involved, OR are put off by repeated discussions of health issues. You don't have to pretend to be someone else or work to hide all indications of your illnesses; to be a happier person in a healthy relationship, you just have to find and cultivate your sense of self and self-worth.

As for when to break the news about your illnesses, my and others' experiences indicate to me that it is a matter of chance, personalities, and the level of your relationship with the other person. Some people go with the "all issues upfront -- take it or leave it" approach; some go with the approach, described in your discussion thread, of revealing things bit by bit but meanwhile trying to cover up the effect of the illness(es); and some people never reveal the information to the other person until well after -- or the night before -- the wedding vows. All of these approaches have their share of success and failure; it just depends upon how you project yourself, your selfworth, and your levels of emotional and physical self-sufficiency -- AND the other person's emotional maturity, sense of self, conversation style, and capacity for empathy or caring in the face of REAL problems. As Harriet Goldher-Lerner advises, you can only change yourself and your reactions. You can develop the self-knowledge and communication skills to have a sense of what will appeal to or unnerve or repel the other person.

As a final suggestion, coming from a professional whose degree and career is in the field of compliance in life sciences (pharmaceuticals), you might want to consider speaking with your doctor about taking a medication like Provigil or Adderal, both of which are designed to promote wakefulness and focus. They both boost your energy level (just boost, not knock you into mania) and that energy boost can help you re-connect socially and sustain those connections, embark on an outdoor or exercise exposure program suited to your abilities, or just get you out of the chair or off the couch.

I personally think that this should be an ongoing thread that makes room for people struggling with loss of their careers, their sense of identity, and/or the structure of their lives. It is a timely subject for us all. Thanks for initiating the topic.

Best regards, Syd
 
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