On Illness And Dignity

I wrote this as part of a reply reply to a post by bg's Little Sis on her board The Sanok Frenzy

I thought it was relevant to post here because Mrs_C has been bringing up my illness (fibromyalgia) and her "support" of me during it as a bashing point recently.

She has been pointing to my illness as both as an example of me abandoning my share of work in our marriage, and of her love for me, and how she was prepared to shoulder any load for me...

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when i was in the worst part of my fibromyalgia my muscle spasms were so bad i could barely move

i was depressed and physically unable to perform many tasks

my children were thankfully never mean to me about doing things like picking things up, or tossing something into the oven or other lifting and toting [and fetching]

i spent a fair bit of time apologising to them for my infirmity. they were gracious - i am forever grateful

mrs_c was less so...

i tried to do as much as i could - and would persist even when i moved terribly slowly [I have tremendous willpower about some things]

or when i had to lie down for awhile before gathering the strength to do the task

mrs_c would get frustrated very quickly (she's a real do it, and do it now kind of person) with how long it would take me to do things. she would usually do them first, or cut in while i was doing them, because the slow pace would irritate her. she says she was just trying to help and be supportive. i think i just pissed her off. she didn't realise that by doing this she was slowly stripping me of my dignity.

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a few notes on the above:

my doctor and specialists said they had never seen such bad spasms. they couldn't control them with some pretty extreme drugs. they were worried that the spasms would damage my spine.

i was on ultra drugs as well as in excrutiating pain for an extended period

my children, and my family, and her family all said i was pretty evenly humoured and still functional through this period

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mrs_c has a bad habit of cutting in when someone - like me or the kids - are doing something and she doesn't think they are doing it right.

i had to have a talk with her once (recruited her sister, who is a teacher, for support on this issue) about letting the kids do their own thing and make a few mistakes

she would say things like "but with help it could be so much better"

i tried to impress on her the idea that the dignity and reward of having completed a task on your own was more important in most cases (especially with a kid's project)