Category Archives: Emotions

Dec 17 2013
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Emotions

Um, Om?

meditation

After The Week From Hell, which saw my stress levels catapulted into the stratosphere, I thought it was time to chill out, breathe deeply and relax.

A spot of meditation perhaps?

Call me a skeptic however, but both my ‘journeys’ into meditation have been unmitigated disasters.

The first time, I signed up for a class to impress a new partner. Big mistake.

The session was led by a wild-haired woman dressed in a flowing dress and beads, perched on a dais high above, beaming down upon us lesser mortals. A self-styled guru who had changed her name from Brenda to something vaguely spiritual-sounding.

She promised to share with us the mystical training she had received over the last hundred years and travels through several continents (by donkey). I left after three hours and split up with the partner not long after.

A few years later, I tried again, this time when I was living in Norway. At the introduction session I was told I would be given my very own meditation ‘word’ by another guru, a ruddy, wild-haired man dressed in a flowing silk shirt and beads. The word would be whispered to me and I would use it as a focus to help clear my mind. Unfortunately, the word imparted to me in Norwegian sounded very rude in English and I burst out laughing which was not particularly enlightened of me.

Would I be third time lucky? I already take time out each morning to mentally floss my brain, so how would I fare sitting still with a blank mind? Thanks to MS, that’s actually not particularly hard. My brain is frequently blank, tumbleweed blowing past and I sit down an awful lot anyway.

I read up on it, took ten minutes out and sat in a quiet place. My neighbour started drilling next door, the cat yelled for more food and I heard my post being delivered. But that was ok, I was supposed to listen to the noise, my mind would get bored and would naturally move on.

Then it was all about counting my breathing, so if my mind wandered, I could pull it back in and focus again. After ten minutes, I opened my eyes, glared at the cat and asked myself how I felt.

To be honest, not that bad at all. Will I continue the good work? I’ll try anything once three times…

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Dec 12 2013
10 Comments
Emotions

Says Who?

bubblesWe always read that we live in an increasingly disconnected world, each of us floating along in our own bubble.

I couldn’t disagree more.

I had a pretty traumatic day on Tuesday. I went home alone, tired, shaky, emotional.

But I wasn’t alone. For me, the online community has been a godsend, ready with comforting words and good wishes. Some came from people I already knew, some from people I met through social media, and others from people I have yet to meet, but would very much like to.

Imagine the same scenario just a few years ago. I’d be going home alone, fears swirling through my mind, facing a long evening of torment and worry.

Without wanting to sound too dramatic, the support I had made all the difference. Even yesterday morning as I was waiting for news about my mum, I had lovely messages on my Twitter timeline.

So where am I going with this? Really, just a quick post to say a huge Thank You. You all picked me up and I am beyond grateful.

The good news is that my mum was discharged from hospital last night. My blog has taken a distinctly depressing turn this week, but it’s not a real blog if I’m not honest. In other news, I will be trademarking the Stress Diet (TM). Not to be recommended, but boy, it sure does give results. In celebration, I have bought myself a rather large bar of chocolate.

Every cloud…

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Dec 10 2013
24 Comments
Emotions

Life Support

HeathNot the best week for a blog that’s supposed to show the lighter side of life with MS.

To cut a long story short, I had to take my mum urgently to A&E early this morning.

She’s chronically ill. It scares me. I may be 40, but I’m not ready to face all this. My mum has been my support system throughout the whole MS story and I feel kind of ….rudderless?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t rely on my mum for physical help, it’s the mulling/chatting over stuff that has seen me through the last two years. She’s been there every step of the way. It pained her to the very core to see yet another family member become diagnosed with this disease.

She nursed my father through PPMS and was only 28 when he died.

And now I am the one being strong, reassuring and forward planning. It’s not easy. I feel worn out and exhausted. But in a strange sort of way, I have found some kind of strength, from somewhere. My mum needs me.

This post hasn’t been edited. I’m writing as I find. I just wanted to explain what’s happening. I’m not the sort of person who can skip over stuff. I’d love to write about stuff that happened recently that made me laugh – and there’s been plenty. But right now, I’m in adrenalin mode. I know I’ll collapse at some point, just not right now.

I’m waiting for my sister to take me to the hospital. I’m shaking too much to drive.

Wish me luck. I need my mum. I’ve just heard she’s staying in overnight, at the very least. I’m going to hold her hand and tell her I love her. Because I do.

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Dec 09 2013
14 Comments
Emotions

Thinking Of You…

thinking of youWhen I was growing up in Glasgow, my mum had a friend with two kids.

We spent countless sleepovers at their house over the years, the mums in the kitchen talking while we played outside or watched tv.

After moving to Wales when I was 14, contact was patchy. Life moved on and we all grew older as the years flew by.

I often wondered what they were doing, how their lives had turned out.

In August this year, one of them got back in touch, the one I went to nursery with. It felt amazing to have a renewed connection with Glasgow. He teased me about how my accent had changed and sometimes I barely understood what he was saying in his broad Glaswegian accent.

We had long phone conversations, reminiscing, catching up, having a laugh. He became my harshest blog critic and threw himself into researching MS and all that it meant. We planned to meet up when his work was less busy and he had recovered from a planned operation.

Quite suddenly, contact became sporadic and during our last phonecall he told me he’d be out of touch for a few months as he was going away to recuperate after surgery.

This morning, my mum told he she had received a letter from his family. He died in October.

Grief is selfish. I’m seething at the unfairness of it. I’m devastated someone could die so suddenly at the age of 40. I’m angry.

Life is short. I hope he’s looking down on me from wherever he is. If he is, he’ll no doubt still be encouraging me to get out there, make the most of my life. I hope I do.

Nov 27 2013
6 Comments
Emotions

Have You Flossed Your Brain Today?

have you flossed your brain todayMy mornings have a fairly set routine.

Shower, feed cat, wake Teenager, coffee, make-up, brush teeth, wake Teenager again, find lost school tie, etc.

All practical tasks, aimed at making us presentable enough to begin a new day. But what about getting ready emotionally?

Woven in amongst these mundane tasks, my mind wanders unchecked, flooding my weary brain with worries and problems.

Why have I put on a pound when I spent yesterday drinking miso soup and eating apples? Will my numb arm stay like that all day?  Why hasn’t the man of my dreams knocked on my door yet? These thoughts drag me down, meaning I always start the day at a loss, so how can I expect the day to improve, despite my presentable appearance?

Felicity Aston spent two months alone in Antarctica and created ways to deal with her solitude and the challenges that lay ahead. Rather than letting a negative emotion dictate her mood (and without anyone to help rein them in), she practised ‘mental hygiene’, or psychological housework, every morning.

She would ask herself if she had any worries or doubts lurking and would mentally deal with them before getting on with her day. I read the article with piqued interest.

Ok, so I’m not trekking through the Antarctic, but I am alone a lot of the time and like most of us with MS, each day is a series of physical challenges. We could do without the extra emotional baggage.

I tried this yesterday, with one eye on the skeptic-o-nometer. Normally I start worrying in the shower. I wake up with no problems, but by the time I’m washing my hair, I’m a whole bundle of stress. I decided to just concentrate on the shower, nothing else.

Downstairs over coffee, I mentally sorted through my brain. Three major worries. I wrote them down and next to each of them, jotted down exactly how I could tackle them. It was that easy. By transferring those seemingly insurmountable problems onto paper, I had released them from my mind. They no longer had the power to cycle endlessly through my brain, colouring every thought.

And you know what? I had the most productive, most stress-free day I’ve had in a long time. Those five minutes I spent gave me a whole day off from worrying. Which gave me more time to concentrate on important things like….well, just enjoying life.

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