u/Imaginary-Paradox

We’ve been together for 10 years and I’m suddenly facing some serious health problems. Everything is manageable, and surgery is finally on the schedule but my bf is suddenly awful to me when it comes up in conversation.

We have really easygoing relationship and have for a long time. We don’t fight or yell and usually we’re a decent team. But lately my bf is outright mean when I talk about how scared I am about surgery, complications and how it will affect my life. I have a child from a previous relationship and my own business, but I can’t even discuss how I’m going to rearrange my schedule around surgery without him telling me that I’m “freaking out, overthinking everything, and feeding into it too much.”

I posted on my business FB page that I have to reschedule many clients around these out-of-town appts and surgeries, and he got extremely upset and embarrassed, and when I asked about it he laughed at me for posting it. He recently came to a doctor’s appointment of mine and talked over me telling the specialist that I was taking things out of context so they didn’t actually matter. And ever since, he’s been misquoting my doctors and saying it’s so minor, I should be grateful it’s not a more “severe” case of my disease.

For reference, I’m a professional artist and this involves losing my vision for several weeks, if everything goes well. The scary part is doctors can’t decide if heart attacks, strokes or aneurysms are causing it.

What do I do? What do I even say? Does this just sound like a nutcase who’s obsessed with their health? To me it feels like I’m handling this like anyone else would, but being talked down to about it… any advice helps. Thank you 🙏🏻

I’m a mom and an artist/tattoo artist. I also have an aggressive eye disorder and that is rapidly causing me to lose my vision. I’ve been jumping through hoops for years trying to get treatment, and when I finally got close to corrective surgery, I had neurological problems crop up. Drs are concerned I’m having aneurysms and/or strokes. I’m in my early 30’s and not being able to live life normally lately has been scary and frustrating.

What kills me is that my boyfriend of 7 years has begun telling me that I’m “too worried” about my health. After an expensive and scary trip out of state to see a specialist, my bf told me I needed to “stop overthinking my problems”. He told me “you don’t actually know anything that’s wrong with you” and “it’s not that bad”. For my business, I posted on FB an update about rescheduling the next few months and he became extremely embarrassed that I revealed info about my health to my friends and clients.

I hold so much resentment over the way he suddenly is framing this. Even if things go according to plan, I won’t be able to drive my child to school and extracurricular activities for weeks. I won’t be able to draw or tattoo for an undetermined amount of time. I may not be able to read for several weeks. My life is completely upside down, and I have some woman’s dusty ass son telling me to calm down. We live together, and this seems to only be affecting me.

I will never understand how someone who has always been there for me could leave me hanging during such a scary and unpredictable part of my life. Idk how to deal with this resentment. But thanks for letting me vent ✌️ life’s been hard lately

TLDR: I’m an artist and mom that is losing my vision fast. I’m trying to get it fixed, but in the process, my long term boyfriend says I need to “stop worrying so much and calm down” and I have never felt so alone and resentful in my life.

I was wondering if any artists out there have had eye surgery (mine will be a strabismus surgery) and what the recovery was like for you? They say I could have double vision and swelling/bruising for weeks afterwards. I’m really stressed about how much time I need to take off to heal my eyeballs. Very much appreciate any advice on recovering after surgery and getting back to work. Thanks!