Housewives of MS

I've never heard of Michaele Salahi before today. She is a "housewife of D.C." a reality show that I don't watch. She has some controversy, which I generally expect with anyone on a reality show. It sounds like she has been accused of having an eating disorder due to her thinness. I think this makes her sound pretty typical of a star, but about halfway through the video, she admits she has MS. And she is suddenly very emotional. I was touched by how hard it is to tell the world (however big or small one's world is) about MS.

And then she actually shocks me. She's had MS for 17 years and she JUST told her best friend. Why? Why hide it for so long from the people who care about you? Yeah, I understand that people might have pity or judgement--but your friends will get over it. I imagine the people she is "close" with who have been excluded from this aspect of her life will feel that she does not trust them. Someone we know has been having (not health) problems and didn't tell us about it, and that was certainly a feeling I had to work through, that we couldn't help or support him (or them?) while this was going on.

On the other hand, I struggled with the decision to be completely open about having MS, and it took me a while to get there. I don't let MS define me, so it's hard to start out a relationship or conversation by confessing my problems, and I don't run around making it an issue, so there are certainly people who know me who don't know about the MonSter. But anytime it makes sense, I tell people--especially if they have misconceptions about living with chronic illness. I think that just being me and living my life, I am a "Face of MS." I think this is important because people with MS are depicted as handicapped every time they are written into a script--and that is SO annoying! I have MS, MS does NOT have me.