My Dad had MS, and I can remember Mom saying to us "Don't tell your father about that, I don't want him upset" or "You kiddos pipe down before your father gets home, I don't want him getting upset."

I remember being puzzled. I didn't think Dad had that bad a temper, and would try to picture him popping his cork and socking a neighbor, or hollering and my brother and me.

All these years later, the light finally came on.

I was walking home from the post office and trying to get a flare-up of anxiety under contol. I was thinking, "I hate this anxious feeling! It's awful when I feel upset but there's nothing to be that upset about."

Then, DING! It hit me that of course my mother wasn't referring to anger per se. I remember hearing them discussing the fact that his "nerves were bad" because of his "problem" (which is what they called the MS). And that is what Mom was talking about.

I always hesitate to use the term "anxiety", because people hear that as fear or worry. It's that too, of course, but "upset" describes the feeling I often have--in varying degrees--and now I know what Mom meant. And how my Dad felt.