Dealing with Anxiety & Living with Muscular Dystrophy Part 1
When it comes to living with a physical disability I am sure we can all agree that everyone's story is different. There are some who say when and if we are diagnosed with a disability that we should just accept it, adapt and move on. But for some that is easier said than done. I have always been a firm believer that there is nothing wrong having difficulty coming to terms with any type of diagnosis. I guess when it comes to being diagnosed with any life altering condition how you deal with it depends on when you were given your diagnosis. In my case being a child at the time of my diagnosis it was easy to accept as I didn’t really know too much about Muscular Dystrophy. But for those who receive a diagnosis later in life it can definitely be upsetting and sure some may handle it better than others. For some this can lead to a bit of anxiety around what the future might hold. Thankfully though we live in a time when we can connect with others and hopefully find the support we need. This can help ease a bit of this anxiety. Understanding that sometimes the challenges we face at times can actually result in making us stronger. I also firmly believe that we can learn from each others experience and that is why I have chosen to share this part of my story - to seek support and to show everyone we don’t have to go through this alone.
Up until the point before I suffered my work-related injury which was blamed on my muscle-wasting disorder I actually didn’t know too much about Muscular Dystrophy. At the time of my diagnosis I was only 10 years old which meant I wasn't old enough to fully understand what my diagnosis really meant. One thing that might have really helped is the fact that I grew up in the 80's and the internet wasn't something we had access to. So unlike today I wasn't able to look things up, and I honestly believe that may have gone a long way in helped me accept my diagnosis. Looking back now at that time I was more focused on riding my bike and playing with friends.
But now we live in a world where if we want to look something up within a few seconds we are able to learn everything we want to know about any given subject. This isn't always a good thing. At times knowing too much can end up taking the joy out of life leaving you overly concerned and worried all the time - this is never a good thing. To be completely honest it wasn't until my work related injury was blamed on my condition that I started looking into what it means to live with Muscular Dystrophy. I was 34 years old and at that time all I really knew was that it affected my muscles making me much weaker than others my age. So I as a child just knew the basics and this allowed me to spend a large portion of my life not being all that concerned about my future and living with Becker’s Muscular Dystrophy. But that all changed in 2009 after suffering my work-related injury I started becoming concerned about what it might mean for my future. It was around this same time I was no longer working when I started sharing my story. At that time I was truly all alone in my journey with Muscular Dystrophy. My very first time connecting with someone else living with Becker’s Muscular Dystrophy was when someone left a comment on my blog. Shortly after this I joined Facebook then created the My Becker's Story Facebook page when I started meeting others who were affected as well. So from that day on my life truly changed. It was at this point when talking to others helped to make me aware of some of the issues I may one day face.
A look at when my issues with Anxiety Began
At first it was great connecting with so many people but to be honest eventually all the information I was learning started to concern me. Now not too much but it eventually lead to me speaking with my family doctor who started sending me to heart specialist for yearly check ups. This helped to ease my mind especially since every time I went for my appointments the result always came back as completely normal. So again this really helped to set my mind at ease since there were no issues. Things were going so well my cardiologist said to me that since he hadn't seen any changes over the last 4 years that he didn't believe that he needed to see me once a year anymore. To most people that would be great news but being able to have my heart checked every year was something I had grown used to. At first everything was fine but after reading a few stories on a few BMD related Facebook pages about heart related issues I became overly concerned. So a year has passed by since my last check up and to me I started to think that I was overdue for my annual heart check up. This is when I started to worry and get anxious about it being over a year since my last check up. Again the mistake I was making at that time was reading other peoples stories on Facebook thinking the same heart issues they were facing would happen to me. This is when I started to face issues with anxiety simply because I started allowing other people situations to influence my thoughts.
