5 star rant | Arthritis Information

I'm part of a forthcoming non-profit organization and our goal is to raise awareness about disease like ours. We are going to succeed and one day *everyone* will understand it's not just arthritis. 

 

Thank you, everyone, for your support while I raved like a lunatic! Feels awesome to have a family who knows EXACTLY what you're going though. Love you guys. I really do!

 

Hope everyone is having a superfantastic and extra-comfortable day! Wow. Shame on the person who sees a person in a wheelchair and calls them lazy.  And shame on the person who dismisses another's pain.  But I do feel sorry for the person who gets a big "f you" for trying to empathize, or offers an advil or cheese (?).  Although no one but you can feel your pain, most people can relate to suffering, and who are you to say that theirs isnt as great as yours?  I remember offering advil to a woman I was working with because she had a migraine.  She told me no thanks, that doesn't help a migraine. I wonder if she went away thinking I was a f-ing idiot because I didn't know that, or if she thought I was belittling her pain.  Hope not. I was trying to help.I think it goes both ways.  I've seen "just regular old arthritis" bring a tough burly grown man to tears from the pain... and it's not always fixable either.

As for the migraine/advil - actually, NSAIDs can be useful in treatment of migraine, especially in a person who can't take the triptans. 
There's a clear difference between people who offer what they have, trying to help, and people who minimize your condition by tossing an aspirin ar you or suggesting some dumb ass quick fix.  If it were as easy as that, I'd have done it long ago.  Snow, perfect example of being judged instantly by a moron.  Sorry about your friend's taste in men.  You obviously were polite and didn't inquire, "Why in the world do you think your opinion means jack to me?"  Sometimes I get so tired of being polite to those who aren't polite to me, but that's the Woman's Way.  The older and crankier I get, the more danger the morons I meet are in.Maybe the person with OA just wants to be acknowledged too.  Just because the the suffering may not be as bad, and really who's to say as we can only feel our own pain, but does that mean it should be written off, dismissed, because another is worse off?  I also think that people are usually just trying to relate as best they can by the closest personal reference that they have.  OA may not always be as bad, but whoever has it knows what it is like to live with chronic pain, they know what it's like to have loved activities become outside their reach, they know what its like to watch their hands become a gnarled mess. Oh! if you only knew what it's like to be made fun of from the time your born, just becauce your different.  If you only knew how it feels, to be made fun of, just about everytime you talk.  Then get RA and be treated like a crazy retare, becauce of the meds and the way you talk.  or to have people to pat you on the back and say nothing, give you a pity look like your dying or dumb.  Even Doctors.  I just want to scream, but if you get upset, you seem to prove their point. rusty2010-03-19 15:59:41

I'm not saying my pain is greater than anyone elses. My feelings were hurt because the symptoms of this disease always seem to be dismissed once people hear "arthritis." I receive comments that are downright mean.  When I try to explain what's going on, I hear, "let's not talk about that right now."

And now I'm crying because I'm so upset! I always ask how other people are doing first before I even mention my problems. I may be having the worse day, wishing for death - and I'll still call to check on my friends! I try to be supportive and compassionate and listen, offer that shoulder. I just wish everyone would do the same for me. And I just can't understand how, if they know what it's like to suffer on a daily basis, they can so easily dismiss my own pain and tell me to suck it up. CO_Mel2010-03-19 12:11:05Mel, we know you are an amazing person! You always try to look on the bright side and are always ready to laugh at yourself. You are also very caring and compassionate. You don't need to try to defend yourself here girl.. we LOVE you!

I think that Linn's comments were really more hypothetical than actually directed at you. You have every right to be upset. There is a huge difference between "Can I get you an advil?" and "Gees, just take an advil already". You were there, so I trust your judgement as to whether the person in question was trying to help or being dismissive. You strike me as the sort of person who would react kindly to kindness, no matter how lame it might be.

My mother and I speak very little these days. When she does speak to me, we never discuss my illness or how I'm doing. When I told her that I had been diagnosed with RA she told me that was impossible as there was no RA in our family. I reminded her that I know very little about my father or his side of the family (they could ALL have RA for all I know). She rolled her eyes and said "whatever". Then she told me I should be thankful I don't have a really horrible disease, like lupus. That was the sum total of the support I received. I don't know why she couldn't be sympathetic...although I suspect it has something to do with her long history of self-centeredness. I can't imagine having my child come to me with news that they have been diagnosed with an illness, any illness, and telling them to be thankful its not a different illness. So, as a result, we no longer have much of a relationship.   

I guess what I am getting at is that you can't change people. You really do have to accept their limitations. Your relative is compassionally retarded and I'm sure it effects her life and her realtionships in a negative way. (For instance, she is missing out on getting to know how wonderful you are!) All you can do is protect yourself and avoid, avoid, avoid!

Here's a big hug for you girl    I wasn't having a bad day.  I have an annoying tendancy to always be going...yeah, but what if they didn't mean it that way?  Maybe they meant this, or maybe that....  Maybe appropriate sometimes, but certainly not regarding a group of people I don't know and a situation I wasn't present for. Here's a big hug for you too Linn We can never fully understand  someone else's pain.  It's hurtfull when we say something we shouldn't or in a way that it hurts someone.