To Disclose or Not to Disclose

I'm not a list person, especially those "pro and con" lists that we're supposed to make when faced with a difficult decision. I know people who swear by them – question at the top of the page, pros on one side, cons on the other, objective viewing, presto, decision made. In my experience trying to weigh the pros against the cons usually leaves me even more confused. Let's take the thorny issue of disclosure. You've just received a diagnosis of a chronic illness; when, how and to who should you disclose that information? Well, I can think of tons of reasons not to disclose, and really, only one good reason why one would want to disclose. In future posts, I'll be discussing the various considerations to keep in mind regarding disclosure. For this post I want to focus on the one good reason in favor of disclosure.

Drum roll please….

It's easier.

I'm not saying that the actual disclosing is easy. Obviously, sharing that news can be potentially really difficult to do. When I finally acknowledged the truth of my own situation, I thought, wow, I don't have to pretend anymore. Even so, when I sent an email to people announcing my blog, I stared at that "send" button for quite awhile. Going public has lots of ramifications. But I had to break those ramifications down between what was an issue for me and what might be an issue for other people. And then I thought, you know, I can't spend my time worrying about what might an issue for others, that job belongs to them.

The hardest part about keeping your chronic illness a secret is that it just gets more and more difficult to pull off. Have other people noticed anything that might give you away? You may get tired easily, how do you explain that? Discussing this issue with my neurologist, she said, "One problem for you is that you look really good, and most people, unless they looked really closely and knew what they were looking for would never guess that you have PD. For the most part, that's a good thing. What it means though, is that their perception of you is completely out of synch with your reality." Well, yes. It's even harder when the people you are referring to are people you live with, or are otherwise close to you.

At some point I just got tired of pretending, and tired of having to wonder what people would think if they knew, and tired of pretending that I felt better than I actually did, and tired of not being truthful. This is my reality; a reality that has been creeping up on me over the past ten years. I just don't want to pretend anymore.