I read somewhere once that when you discover you have a debilitating or long term illness you go through the same process as when grieving. The famous five stages of grief (outlined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross) denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.
For the longest time I was stuck at the first stage... denial. Because my MS was mostly remission and very little relapse for the first few years after diagnosis I pretty much ignored it and pretended to myself that it was all a big mistake.
Stages two and three happened pretty much one after the other when in 2007 I suffered a pretty major relapse which ended up with me being stuck in bed for around six weeks. At first I was angry because I was missing work and I was extremely bored; then I was making deals with my capricious health... you know the sort of thing; "I'll ease off the hours if I can just be well enough to go back to work".
Depression hit around a year ago when it hit me how long I'd been continuously using the stick and how nothing seemed to have got much better in the longest time and therefore probably wasn't ever going to.
Now, finally, after so many years I seem to have reached acceptance. I know this because I sent of my application for a blue badge today.
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