Hidradenitis Suppurativa Support Group
Hidradenitis suppurativa (hi-drad-uh-NIE-tis sup-yoo-ruh-TIE-vuh) is rare, long-term skin condition that features small, painful lumps under the skin. The disease manifests as clusters of chronic abscesses or boils, sometimes as large as baseballs, that are extremely painful to the touch and may persist for years with occasional to frequent periods of inflammation,...
This is for the ladies and gents either married or living together in a long term relationship.
I moved to Suriname (from the Netherlands) and even though I was born here other than my parents I have no family acquaintances or friends in this country.
My SO also from Suriname has joined me recently but he still has all his friends and a huge family.
I catch myself being overly bitter and jealous of his relationships and have many times contemplated to end the relationship. I feel like I am forever on the bench never allowed to play. Now in all fairness he invites me along to family functions or even to hang out with his friends. It is either shame or pain or a combination of both that is keeping me from going.
This illness is so personal who wants to tell their SO's macho friends that they are dealing with boils in "those" places. His family keeps asking him why I never join and have come to the conclusion that I feel better than them and don't want to mingle. Which could not be further from the truth. In fact I almost always have a inferiority complex.
This illness has kept me back making new friends every time someone invites me for a drink or something I end up with a large boil in my groin or underarms which doesn't allow me to get dressed and socialize.
I guess my Q to all of you is have you experienced these emotions towards your significant other? If so how to deal with it without breaking off the otherwise solid relationship?
I moved to Suriname (from the Netherlands) and even though I was born here other than my parents I have no family acquaintances or friends in this country.
My SO also from Suriname has joined me recently but he still has all his friends and a huge family.
I catch myself being overly bitter and jealous of his relationships and have many times contemplated to end the relationship. I feel like I am forever on the bench never allowed to play. Now in all fairness he invites me along to family functions or even to hang out with his friends. It is either shame or pain or a combination of both that is keeping me from going.
This illness is so personal who wants to tell their SO's macho friends that they are dealing with boils in "those" places. His family keeps asking him why I never join and have come to the conclusion that I feel better than them and don't want to mingle. Which could not be further from the truth. In fact I almost always have a inferiority complex.
This illness has kept me back making new friends every time someone invites me for a drink or something I end up with a large boil in my groin or underarms which doesn't allow me to get dressed and socialize.
I guess my Q to all of you is have you experienced these emotions towards your significant other? If so how to deal with it without breaking off the otherwise solid relationship?
Same with not sharing activities with a partner, occasionally I'm tempted to feel like it's wrong to have to a partner with a medical issue and be doing so many things without them, until I stop and remember I would not want my partner to give up things because of my HS.
So if I don't hold it against my partner doing things and they don't hold it against me that I'm not always able to do what they do... Well, I guess that's what's worked for over 10 years now, even though my wife has a pretty high level of community and family involvement to begin with.
Also I think it helps to find something that *I* enjoy doing that I can do instead of what they're doing, so I'm not just sitting by myself *wishing* I was going on a picnic or whatever it is my partner is doing, and making myself feel worse about missing it. (Old TV shows with long, complicated plots are something I've found make a good distraction for me - I just LOVE it when I can get so wrapped up in a story that I actually forget that burning sensation
down there for all of 10 minutes).
Sometimes my wife has sort of had to the talking explaining to my in-laws why I'm sitting out a Christmas party or a birthday. If your partner's not good at that role you might try to find or make some occasion when you can talk to relatives a little yourself so that they don't misunderstand your absence.
Sometimes it's surprising when you do that, all the things that you DON'T have to talk about to be understood. Sometimes you stumble across some common ground. God only knows what my father-in-law thought of me until someone brought up similarities to pilonidal cysts. Having seen his share of those in the military (pilonidal cysts = "jeep driver's disease"), thankfully I didn't have to go into further details or show pictures of HS to be understood much better because he already understood how debilitating these kind of things in general can be.