Part two (http://myotoniacongenita-faintinggoat.blogspot.com/2013/03/hiding-diversity-what-myotonia-can.html)

Are you someone who hides your diversity to the detriment of your physical, mental and emotional health?

If the answer to this question is yes, then you have something in common with people who have Myotonia. The reasons "why" and the "ways" you hide your diversity may be different from people with Myotonia, but the outcomes are the same: "Because so much time and energy is wasted hiding our Diversity, we are failing to meet your full potentials." And why bring up Myotonia? Because people with Myotonia are a great example of how hiding Diversity results in wasted energy and potential.

When we talk about Myotonia and Diversity what do we mean?

Essentially muscle stiffness. But it is a little more in depth than that. The muscle stiffness appears and then disappears. It is barely noticeable and then very noticeable causing people to question its validity ... causing people to think a person is faking their condition.

Since no one likes to be accused of doing something they are not doing, especially when they don't have control over that something, many people with Myotonia choose to hide the stiffness instead of explaining the inconsistency of their stiffness.

How do people with Myotonia hide their muscle stiffness?

Doctors call it "warming up." People with Myotonia have some other words for what happens--not very nice words--but essentially when a Myotonic muscle is warmed up, it begins with a contraction followed by a delayed relaxation of the muscle after the contraction (being stiff). After repeated contractions and delayed reactions--each time the relaxation time speeding up--the muscles eventually reach a state of normal relaxation (being loose). If you put a rubber band in the freezer for an hour, took it out and started stretching it, you would get an idea of this process. The rubber band starts off very stiff, but the more you stretch it, adding heat and energy, the more flexible it becomes, until it is just as flexible as before you put it in the freezer.

So prior to every situation that could might require movement, people with with Myotonia "warm up" their muscles, by forcing their muscles to contract and relax over and over again. Little contractions don't do the trick, so the contractions must reach the level of strenuous exercise. But "warming up" the muscles is only half of the story, because the moment a person with Myotonia stops contracting their muscles the muscles start freezing up again (which is comparable to putting the rubber band back into the freezer).

Essentially to effectively hide their Diversity the person with Myotonia has to keep warming up their muscles, without stopping. To stop means to freeze up. To freeze up means to be exposed. This is incredibly tiring, physically, and requires much mental energy, as well, because the only way people won't see the stiffness is to anticipate every situation that will require movement. As you might imagine anticipating when movement will happen is a very precarious position. More often than not, no matter how hard they try, the stiffness, the Diversity, is eventually seen by others.

So the question becomes, "What do people with Myotonia do when their Diversity is exposed?"

They do what many people do in this situation--they lie.

--Continued in Part Three of Three

Type of Myotonia: Thomsens

Country: USA