Fractures, cuts and abrasions heal on Mercritis sufferers just as they do on anyone else.
However, compromised immunity from ingesting paint does make repair harder for their overtaxed bodies to manage. Safe to say that the MC sufferer has more emotional and psychological challenges. Aside from knowing the life span limiting components of paint ingestion, something the MC victim is self-destructively aware of when they do it, the sudden desire to live after wanting to die brings MC sufferers the worst kind of psychic pain.

"See, the ironicol (sp) spot I got maseff (sp) in is that twas (sp) a women (sp) that got me in this position anyhow," wrote Benjaman Shest of Alabama. "I had a broken heart to deal weth (sp), so I tried to finish maseff (sp) off while scraping the shed. Eat it all I figgud (sp), then she'll find me somehow and be sorry I's (sp) gone. Guess I fett (sp) sorry for maseff, is all. Then I haff to get a colostomy (sp) bag for my lodies, cuz paint ruined ma (sp) ensides (sp). Doc says I'll dah (sp) in a few yars (sp) from paint and then his phone ladie (sp) hit me weth (sp) her clipboard and it was on. In the parking lot I jumped a fence and was in the state park with four chasing me, all very pretty. Now, I'm screwed cuz (sp) I got nobody and can't get nobody. I'm lonely and sick and got blamed for what the barbawire (sp) done to them ladies evenhowing (sp) they done it to themseffs (sp) climbing the fence affer (sp) me. My lif (sp) is a craing (sp) shame I tell ya (sp) what."

A gameplan to keep the spirits up may include watching inspirational shows or listening to soft music. Avoiding depressants like alcohol are important as well. "When I drink, the damage from the paint makes me even more ill so I can't drink, plus when I drink I start making plans, big plans like I'm cured and all that. Big mistake because that leads to picking up the phone, which leads to getting together with friends which has resulted in more than my fair share of lost residences," Anonymous poster Mercritis BBS, 1996.

Also, MAR women after coming down from an attack will often return to the scene to apologize to their victims.
"That's the worst," wrote the same anonymous poster, "because they know the layout of your home and everything so you can run, but you can't hide. Then you're house gets thrashed twice. You look through the peephole and they got a plate of cookies and they look real sorry about what they done and it reminds you of the good old days when someone who didn't kick your ass may have brought you cookies. Shoot, no one ever brought me cookies, but still, that would have been nice. Still, time to move. MC guys have to travel light."

Melancholy predominates in the MC subculture "I had it all figured out," writes Julio Coppen of Texarkana, "I kept my three bedroom in the burbs and worked on my internet company selling pepper spray online. I sent pepper spray from Washington State to all over the world without ever leaving my house or ever seeing any pepper spray. The delivery food guys would toss the food over my fence and they'd find the money under the welcome mat. Same for the pharmacy as I was battling liver disease from the paint. Perfect system. I watched TV, had videos sent via mail, the mailman was always a man and the neighbors left me alone because they thought I was nuts. My escape plan was a ladder I had on the side of my house. If someone broke in, I'd throw my chair through the sliding glass door, climb the ladder and then pull the ladder up after me. And there was no way anyone could get up there. I had a cooler with survival food up there. Thing was, a jackass neighbor goes, "Julio, people are talking saying that cooler on your roof has a dead person in it and you're one of the quiet nice ones who rack up the body count. Say it ain't so." "Well, it ain't so," I replied. I climbed up there with him and emptied the cooler and we sat up there having a beer and in a way it was nice, like I had a friend. I told him what I'd been through. Seeing as he was a teacher at the college I figured he'd understand how a series of D minuses in the pre-med department killed my medical career before it started and how I chowed down on the loose paint chips of an abandoned outhouse on my daddy's ranch. I had been in despair and wanted to end it all only to realize I wanted to live more than anything else. I told him that I emitted an odor. He said I was being creative on him and I told him he wasn't a dog so he couldn't hear a dog whistle and that he wasn't a beautiful woman and so he wouldn't try to kill me. I told him about the attacks, I showed him some scars. So, he promised my secret was safe and all, but next day all these women from the local college come by and knock on the door. Seems he got his whole electrical engineering class up in a laugh riot over my "paranoia." His students, get this, came by to settle once and for all against their own slate of insecurities whether or not they were pretty. It was like mirror mirror on the wall and all of that. My chair would only star the sliding glass door as it turned out to be safety glass and while I tried to unlock it they got to me. Where I am now, I will never say."

"My escape plan was a ladder I had on the side of my house. If someone broke in, I'd throw my chair through the sliding glass door, climb the ladder and then pull the ladder up after me"