Category Archives: Emotions

Nov 28 2012
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Emotions

Happiness Starts Here…

I had a lovely response from yesterday’s post – thank you to those who took time to comment. This got me thinking about gratitude. My recent work and health situation has taken a lot of my energy and it is all too easy to forget that for 90% of the time, life is just fine.

Like mindfulness, it is about taking pleasure in all things in the present moment and being grateful. It means not dwelling on perceived hurts, slights, comments. They have happened, they are the past. To drag the past into the future is to set yourself up for failure.

So today, I want to give myself a kick up the backside and jot down everything I have to be grateful for:

  • My family – they are incredible and give me an enormous amount of strength and confidence.
  • My friends – who have been so supportive through this difficult time. They are always there for me.
  • The NHS – especially the MS team. I don’t know where I would be without their help, advice and shoulders to cry on.
  • My health – strange to be grateful for this. I have MS, but it could have been worse. Much worse. I still walk, I still have my sight, I am still independent.

These are only the main points. I also have a lovely house, a comfy sofa, a huge stack of books to enjoy and a firm belief that life will get better. My MS is almost under control with medication, bar a few hiccups. The work situation will be history soon enough. The Teenager is growing up to be a darn fine young man. A fantastic friend made me a Shepherd’s pie and cake at the weekend when I was poorly. Seems to me I’m actually very fortunate.

Sure, we all get dark days. I know I do. Days when the situation seems hopeless. And that’s fine too – we’re all entitled to feel sorry for ourselves now and again. But when the bad days start to outweigh the good ones, that’s when you have to act. The famous phrase is that we don’t regret what we have done in life, but what we didn’t do.

This situation will pass. Life will move on. Will it all matter a year from now? I doubt it.

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Nov 27 2012
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Emotions

Right Here, Right Now

I am stressed. And if you follow this blog, you probably already know that. There’s far too much going on, and my brain is in risk of imploding.

Losing my job has unsettled me far more than I expected. I don’t feel safe or secure. I know I have continuing employment, thanks to my friend, but it’s a stop-gap. I worry about money, about  when/if I will have a full-blown relapse, about the future. This has to stop.

So I have decided to try to live much more in the present. Right here, right now. I don’t know about you, but my mind starts whirring over as soon as my alarm goes off in the morning. Standing in the shower, I go over my fears, what I should have said to someone but didn’t, my worries, everything. By the time I make my first coffee, I’m bogged down with stress. Surely not the best way to start the day.

By trying to yank my mind back to this present moment as much as I can, I am hoping to stay focused, serene and stress-free.  To start with, it is difficult. Our minds like to go wandering about, poking into all the dark places. But then we miss the beauty of the present. We live life only by reviewing the past, which can get pretty tedious.

At the shops yesterday, I tried it out. It’s fabulous! I noticed things I don’t normally see. I appreciated beauty more, rather than constantly thinking, analysing and brooding. I have applied it to my work, too, with great results. I have four weeks left in my old job and I want to give my absolute best, as a matter of principle.

In some ways, MS helps with living day to day. I know, not always in a good way. We worry about every new symptom, every little tingling or numbness or something not working the way it should. But in another way, MS can help us appreciate the good things in life. A day with fewer symptoms than before, or a good catch up with a friend or simply feeling that life isn’t that bad after all. MS really does put life into perspective.

Life is short. Life could be worse.

 

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Nov 25 2012
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Emotions

Happy Anniversary, MS (you suck)

cream pie on faceHey, MS, Happy 6 Month Anniversary! After a year of hell, I was officially diagnosed on 25th May. I don’t need to tell most of you how horrendous the diagnostic process can be, suffice to say I am overjoyed never, ever to have to go through a lumbar puncture again. Have you seen those needles?

Having MS sweep into your life is like having an ugly, unwanted house-guest move in with two huge suitcases and the kitchen sink. For ever. No matter how much you try to get on with life, work around them and keep ignoring them in the hope they will go away, they stick around.

Not content with that, they inflict pain on you mercilessly in unexpected ways, physically, mentally and emotionally. They rack up extra costs, they stop you going out as much as before and they chuck out your high heels (that was a cheap, low shot, MS). They rob you of your health, your confidence and your zest. They frighten your family and taunt you about your diminishing prospects.

If MS were a person, they’d be arrested and banged up for life.

So how do I feel, six months on? The absolute permanence of MS horrifies me. It will never go away. The progression of it, too,  is something I tuck away in the furthest reaches of my mind, only to be thought about in very dark moments. I hate the constant fear, the gnawing anxiety of a relapse just around the corner. I hate the way MS has shaken my life so completely to its foundations that nothing is the same as before.

I know, I need to embrace this illness. I should accept that MS is now indelibly imprinted on my life. I need to Think Positive! Meditate, do yoga, give up the sweets, the alcohol, the stress. Don’t we all? If pushed, I would say that the one thing MS has given me is the ability to appreciate things more. Not in a hippy-dippy, mung-bean eating way – just enjoying small pockets of time when everything is ok, I don’t take so much for granted now.

I am still debating whether to get a tattoo, to mark this little anniversary. Something small, just between me and MS. I want a barcode, with the words, Best Before 25/05/12. Or should that be Best After…?

 

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Nov 06 2012
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Emotions

Long, Dark Nights

I love autumn, the crisp, bright days, the leaves, the bonfires, but it passes all too quickly. Winter? I’m undecided as yet. I’m turning the lights on earlier and earlier and soon it will be dark by 4.30.

I am torn. On the upside, it’s not hot, so no bright red face, sudden weakness or behaving like a demented vampire. I can now stay outdoors for longer than an hour without melting. And when I get tired, there’s no shame in curling up on the sofa with a good book and the remote control come 6pm, as it’s just what most of us do in the winter. I am glad the summer nights are over. It’s unspeakably sad to watch the world go by with your nose pressed against the window.

The flip side though, is being the only adult in the house. The evenings are endless. The clock slows down. I flit from one thing to another, unable to settle properly. It’s astounding how dark it is outside. Darkness does strange things to the mind. Small problems are magnified and big problems seem insurmountable. Old fears seep out like vapour.

Perhaps I have too much time on my hands to think about everything and nothing. I am in an odd limbo-land; still working for two months for the company that sacked me (for having MS). I want to celebrate, feel free, take a deep breath and thank God I am no longer there. But that’s on hold right now until just before Christmas.

Mind you, I used to live in a Nordic country, where it was dark by 3pm in the winter, wasn’t light the next morning until 10 and alcohol was shockingly expensive. Now, that really was grim.

 

 

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Nov 02 2012
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Emotions

The End of the Beginning

I think I reached my lowest ebb yesterday, and when you’ve hit rock bottom, the only way is up.

I am going to be more proactive rather than reactive. I don’t have a daily routine any more, so I will have to create my own one. As Jan pointed out in a comment to yesterday’s post, these couple of months are a great opportunity to review my life and see which direction I want to take. When your whole life is smashed to pieces in a year – from a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, to bullying to being sacked from work – it’s a rare chance to re-build it, just the way you want.

So, I am going to regard today as the start of the next chapter. Yesterday marked the end of the beginning. On the plus side, I have two months work, I am away from a toxic office, I will no longer be bullied and they made a huge, massive mistake in sacking me the way they did. On the down side. Hmm……absolutely nothing. I can’t think of one thing.

There doesn’t seem much point stressing any more about the MS. Stressing will only make it worse anyway. There’s not a thing I can do to change it. What I need to do though is have some space to come to terms with it, but that’s kind of on hold right now. And that’s fine.

Autumn is a time of renewal. So I have decided to be a tree, shedding all the old leaves and generating new shoots, ready for next year. And if that sounds odd, it’s probably because I am working from home, all by myself, with only the cat for company. And we have great conversations…

 

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