The following first appeared on Multiple Sclerosis News Today:
If you weren’t aware (I wasn’t), last Friday, June 17, was National Eat Your Vegetables Day. The day wasn’t created to tout any special diet per se, but to increase awareness of the benefits of vegetables in a healthy diet. If you were already aware of those benefits, then at the very least, it raises your awareness that there really is a day for everything.
Growing up, my parents made certain I was aware that eating my vegetables was not only a good idea, but also benefited my health. When I protested, they would offer words of encouragement like “They’re good for you,” “You’ll grow up big and strong,” or “You’ll live longer” — which, now that I think about it, may have actually been a thinly veiled threat.
My parents rarely used it, but one of the more common phrases that parents use to get kids to eat their vegetables, consume a disliked food, or finish all their dinner is the one that invokes “starving kids” in some far-off place. You know the one: “You have to finish your dinner because of starving kids in _____.” The name of the faraway land varied, but the message was the same. Someone, somewhere has it worse than you, so your complaints are not valid.
Multiple sclerosis (MS) and each individual’s experience with it are so variable that it would seem ridiculous to compare symptoms, but people, myself included, do it.
We expect that kind of comparison from people without MS. They all seem to know someone with multiple sclerosis who is better off or more able, or they tell us not to complain because they know someone worse off. Those of us with MS, or another disability, tend to do it, too.
There are several types identified, but even within the same type, my MS isn’t your MS and vice versa. I know that, and I still have to remind myself, almost daily, not to compare my situation with someone else’s and base what I say or how I feel on whether I think I have it better or worse.
My multiple sclerosis is the primary progressive type and has been aggressive, but I didn’t wake up in a wheelchair one day. There were steps — or a lack thereof (ouch! I just hurt my own feelings) — along the way, and with each step I based my actions on comparisons. For example, I can’t complain about my limp because others walk with a cane. I shouldn’t complain about my cane because others have to use a rollator. I should keep quiet about my rollator and be glad I don’t need a wheelchair. And so on.
Conversely, I sometimes think that my meager accomplishments pale in comparison or aren’t worth mentioning to people who I perceive are “better off.”
I touched on this briefly in my last column, so I did a little research and found out that this is a logical fallacy — specifically, the fallacy of relative privation. It essentially says that you can’t dismiss a problem because you perceive that another problem is more or less important.
Do you do this? I know I do — both ways, in fact. I feel like I shouldn’t feel bad about things when I think someone has it worse, or feel good about things if I think someone has it better. I think this could be a part of why those of us with chronic diseases often just say, “I’m fine.”
Yes, yours truly routinely falls into this logic trap. As if multiple sclerosis didn’t have enough problems of its own, I can always find another one. I daresay I’m not the only one who does this, and I doubt it’s the only trap I’ll run — well, wheel myself — into.