What is FND like ?

MY NAME IS MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS / FND Functional Neurological Disorder / FIBROMYALGIA/CFS Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Hi, I'm an invisible chronic illness. I am now gorilla glued to you for life. Others around you can't see me or hear me, but YOUR body feels me. I can attack you anywhere and anyhow I please. I can cause severe pain, or, if I'm in a good mood, I can just cause you to ache all over.

Remember when you and Energy ran around together and had fun? I took Energy from you and gave you Exhaustion. Try to have fun now! I also took Good Sleep from you and in its place gave you Insomnia and Brain Fog. I can make you tremble internally, or make you feel cold or hot when everyone else feels normal. Oh yeah, I can make you feel anxious or depressed too. If you have something planned or are looking forward to a great day, I can take that away too.

If you are going out for dinner I can make you choke on your food in front of everyone or even better mess with your bowels making them uncontrollable. You didn't ask for me. I chose you for various reasons: that virus you had that you never recovered from, or that car accident, or maybe it was the years of Abuse and Trauma. Well, anyway, I'm here to stay!

I hear you're going to see a doctor who can get rid of me. I'm rolling on the floor laughing! Just try. You will have to go to many, many doctors until you find one who can help you effectively. You will be put on pain pills, sleeping pills, energy pills; told you are suffering from anxiety or depression, given a TENS unit, get massaged, told if you just sleep and exercise properly I will go away; told to think positively, poked, prodded, and MOST OF ALL, not taken as seriously as you feel when you cry to the doctor how dibilitating life is every day.

I will take your memory making it difficult for you to concentrate, you’ll find it hard to keep track of conversations, but I will be with you, laughing in the back ground when you stumble on words you can’t get out. I will take your attention span and give it away, making you feel stupid and uneducated. I will give you uncontrollable episodes of laughter or crying at that most inappropriate times, just for my amusement.

I will visit your cerebellum and brain stem and have a party without you...making you lose control of balance so you look drunk..but I am the one in control....you’ll be like a puppet on a string, with me at the helm.. I will dangle you, make you fall, stagger, room spin, Your co-ordination belongs to me, tremors, spasms, stiffness, muscle weakness ..it’s all mine to do what I want. With you.. gee whiz what a party we can have.

Your family, friends, and co-workers will all listen to you until they just get tired of hearing about how I make you feel, and that I'm a debilitating disease. Some of them will say things like "Oh, you are just having a bad day" or "Well, I can't do the things I used to do 10 YEARS or 20 MINUTES ago", not hearing what you said 20 SECONDS ago. Some will just start talking behind your back, while you slowly feel that you're losing your dignity and mind trying to make them understand, especially when you are are in the middle of a conversation with a "Normal" person and can't then remember what you were going to say next! Making you feel worthless.

In closing, (I was hoping that I kept this part a secret..but I guess that you already found out!)....the ONLY place you will get any support and understanding in dealing with me is with Other People With these conditions which gets to be the main people in your life who you live with, ONLY they know and understand.

You depend on those who don’t drop you as a friend or as a valid family member, however a lot of them will.

You are still the same PERSON just that your brain and spinal cord is under attack and damage, love this part, I make sure I’m with you always.