Living is the Hard Part

I'm ever un-impressed by people's mis-assessments of WHAT is hard about having Multiple Sclerosis. Yes, I LOOK OK (not meant to be self-complementary, just a commonly overlooked fact about having this odd form of multi-limbed paralysis). But appearance can be a really deceptive measure of a person's health.

The other misconception is that neural damage necessarily means mental retardation...I can still out-think MOST people without even trying.

The "neural damage" M.S. incurs is evidenced (cognitively) only by a minor decrease in thinking SPEED (a result of demyelinating neurons "short-circuiting" in the fluids [CSF] they pass through)...which is hardly noticable since I've been an avid student and speaker/writer for most of my life.

As Stephen Hawking's ALS has shown little effect on his thinking, so my MS has left my cognition relatively unaffected.

Yet as some of my more astute associates have observed...MANY people have a tendency to see ANY physical disabilty as evidence of diminished intelligence...I tend to think it's some latent function of the untrained mind that helped to protect people from predator-species in early human history...but that's just MY hypothesis from observation of how people treat ME.

Anyway, my point is that I DON'T have any glaring defects that might signal others that I'm really seriously disabled (that I am only able to type with one hand is something regularly overlooked by my readers...who somehow imagine 2 hands doing all this typing).

Anyway, functioning in a world where all these strange misconceptions are so prevalent IS the "hard part".

I'll never forget my mother explaining to someone that I had M.S., and the person's initial reaction was: "Is he dangerous?", which as anyone who's known me for years can tell you is a supposition that's laughable to the extreme.

Boldly expressive, maybe...but dangerous, NO.

I get these sort of naive misconceptions hurled my way all the time...

...Because I have trouble moving fluidly. Clearly, I hold no grudges against people for these reactions, but after three years of sustaining such ill-thought epithets, they DO grow tiresome.

It's hard enough dealing with paralyzed limbs...but to endure such inane thinking, too...

As I said: living is the hard part.

Don't Give Up...Even After The Empire Strikes Back

At the turn of the millennium, I was driven by happenstance to take a higher paying job and co-workers had chucklingly informed me that I was going to work for "the Death Star"...ironically the "Death Star" itself (AND many competing companies) imploded in late 2001, along with many other financial-services companies in the U.S.

The Empire struck-back by laying off ALMOST EVERY EMPLOYEE without a significant tenure. One of them was ME. (I've since developed Multiple Sclerosis, so I'm happy to have paid into Social Security for the span of time that I was able to do so...even the era when I worked for the "Death Star"...which as time has shown, was NOT the worst evil to be feared).

You can't blame either company for shedding their staffs. At least 2 of their main offices were ruined at 5 and 7 World Trade Center on the day two planes hit the towers next-door...so no matter what your circumstance...just remember that even when it seems like the world is over, life goes on. So be thankful for what you have already saved.

--mattergy

Empire of the Nonsensical

Whether people realize it or not, the whole phenomenon of competition in the Job Market(tm), is at it's very heart "SELF-interested".

This is in no way meant to be an indictment of the need to provide for one's family (By the way=BTW). to provide for one's family is usually an honorable ambition.

But competition in the JOB MARKET has one particularly selfish characteristic...

There is a share-system, that only ever becomes diluted when the person or persons doing the job are "not meeting their targets"... That is an intrinsically volatile way of determining who "gets" a job and who "doesn't".

That's just a fact of logic You can't split a person's needs.

To state the otherwise-obvious--one person needs what one person needs.

There's a bit of a deception in any share-system itself...from the get-go.The only option the worker has is whether or not to participate AT ALL. And there''s no real choice there, is there?

Even in the most primitive economies people use "indivisible" denominations of "resources".

Res-pennies if you will.

aka the Stuff. "Understanding" resource "dilution" requires at-least a knowledge of algebra.

And some people have just resigned themselves to living in a world where not knowing the "math" is A-OK.

They'll acquire the necessary resources sometime before they reach the register. lol. ;)

I know because I have often played the role of the "spot-supplier"...a skilled-art that should NEVER be under-estimated by the general-public. ;)

People and Companies that Make a Difference

Some readers may be under the mistaken impression that I am not thankful for the assistance I've been getting from various persons and companies. I really am thankful...it's just that the agony of being essentially paralyzed in invisible ways makes daily-life so overwhelming that I have trouble thinking about everything at-once.

But I do want to point out a couple very helpful people who have made this experience a LOT less troublesome. In fact, although I previously agonized over this company's minimizing of support to its own staff that made email-communication impossible, in fact, the superior efforts of that same staff made the lack of email far less problematic than it could have been.

That is the kind of ingenuity and fortitude that makes companies thrive. And I like to recognize that kind of effort.

So I do...and because I have a strict policy of anonymity for ALL corporate entities that are the subject of my personal experience, I very sincerely hope that both the company and the person(s) to whom I am referring know implicitly that I am paying them my deepest respect for turning an unhappy person into an appreciative one.

Thanks.

--mattergy