Tl;dr--my SO's got some serious physical problems that I thought were less fixed than they were and I'm really reconsidering the relationship
I'll greentext the details because fuck it, I know where I am. Sorry if it's a wall of text.
>3-4 years ago
>be me, know girl (both early 20's)
>a year into knowing the girl, she suddenly (by my perspective) starts using a mobility scooter, but can still evidently walk
>I'm confused, deeply worried b/c the only people in wheelchairs I know have given up on whatever's wrong
>Eventually find out girl has EDS, a genetic disease that makes you make shitty collagen and is 'potentially disabling' because of the chronic pain/injury side effects
>~2 years later, start getting emotionally closer to girl, start growing romantic feelings
>find out girl's not taking ANY pain medications, am further confused
>eventually enter relationship with her, ask her the deal with the chair
>she describes it as both pain management and injury control (mentions a botched hip surgery that is structurally sound but incredibly painful, labral tears from overexertion, and spinal fractures from weird weight-bearing).
>>17288978
(2/3)
Here's where it goes off the rails.
>notice I have a lot of the same phenotypes as the girl--realize I'm super stretchy, flat footed, impossibly pale, easy to injure, always in pain
>ohshit.wav
>pretty obvious I've got the same thing (later confirmed by a genetic test)
>realize that I'm doing pretty okay because I'm doing some things that she's not (specifically re: weight-bearing and overexertion), and there are things that we're both not doing that would be incredibly helpful (specifically re: pain management)
>the wheelchair really bothers me (even after months of therapy specifically about it), and I've seen her sour in situations where it's evident she's in it, so I start trying to feed her what I'm doing to lock mine down, seeing as she may not know some of the things I've figured out and I may save her some emotional pain
>she's resistant to the idea, fights it tooth and nail
>I feel hurt etc et al
>>17288980
(3/3)
And here's where we're at now:
>be me, taking medicinal cannabis 2x day for pain, wearing insoles for weight bearing, managing physical activity and how I carry things like a MF
>tailoring my plan around what might make her more comfortable (no opioids because I know they really bother her, working my way out of braces because she has expressed distress in seeing me use them)
>see her continuing to use old methods
>confront her about it
>she finally gets me to realize that the opinion she's gotten from experts is that the injuries she has but I don't are extensive enough that the wheelchair is likely her best option forever, regardless of what I may give her, and that they'll likely never heal
>also gets me to realize that she's been consciously building a plan for longer where I was operating more on reflex, so she really doesn't see me as being in a place to offer advice of any import
>also mentions that some of the things I was trying to have her do she counts as 'moving backwards' (eg daily meds) and might even be exacerbating injuries, although that's unclear
>has not had to have therapy re: going into a wheelchair, but has had to because of my reaction to it
>>17288984
(4/3 whoops lol)
So here's my dilemma:
I do love this girl, but we're in such different places in terms of the repercussions of the genetic illness we share and how we're managing it that I'm wondering if the relationship is unworkable. We're both causing each other more harm than good (any SO that sends you into a therapist is not somebody you should be with, and we're both doing that to each other), and I'm really uncomfortable with the idea of someone I'm intimate with openly displaying a disability that I and so many other people like us manage with totally different methods that let us and the people who love us forget we're suffering.
If I was able to overcome my knee-jerk reaction to the wheelchair, many conflicts between us could be solved, and we could be very, very happy together.
I very much do not think I'm emotionally big enough to overcome this in a short enough timeline to spare us both a lot of hurt feelings and regret, and we've both caused each other enough of that already.
I'm leaving the country for 21 days, so we've both got a lot of time to think about it.
What would you do?
