living "well" with MS

This is no longer a secret.... I have MS.
I've had it unofficially for 18 years....  and 12 knowing it...

Why am I writing this today?

Because I am struggling a little lately...

No crisis...  no major symptoms...  no need to go see my doctor or start taking my medication again....  I have not done so in 8 years and not planning on going back to that!

But I know my body... it's sending me warning signals that I cannot ignore and I need to rest and calm down... and most importantly let go.

All that said, MS has been with me all my adult life...  or most of it... and it will always be there...

I deal with it well 95% of the time...

NOT BECAUSE I AM LUCKY like some people say... because I take extremely good care of myself...  I do almost everything right to tame the beast...

I eat a vegan diet
I have recently switched to 97% free of process food diet
I sleep well
I do yoga
I practice meditation
I work part time
I live in a relatively low stress environment
I manage my stress
I do not drink alcohol (nor smoke of do drugs but I never did that anyway)
I keep away, as much as possible, negative energy in all it's form

This makes me pretty happy and healthy!

Now, I need to work on eating more organic... switching to a deeper more meditative and spiritual form of yoga... as well as let go more of things I cannot control!  Control freak and MS do not go well together.

MS will always be there...  and I am only human...

Sometimes I would like to be "normal"... and blend in... I use to...
I would love to do something crazy... like a spartan race... but cannot work out to that level...
I would love to run a marathon... but it is physically not possible - I've been there
I would love to own my business again... but it is WAY too stressful...
I wish I could use my BSc and have a career (I use to)... but I can't work so many hours anymore....

I manage my health well but it comes with a price... it comes with the price of being different...  being vegan... being a minimalist...  being boring (yes some people have said that of me)... and antisocial....

I am labelled..... even though I freely used those labels now, I only do so because they were "given" to me to replace the "being sick with MS" label! It's a fair trade.

OK... maybe I do not truly wish or would truly love the above mentioned statements... because I know they'd come with a price which I am not willing to pay!
And maybe where I am at in with my life, I know better.... I know you do not really need those things.... and some are actually really not so good for you...  but I am only human...

And sometimes I have my weaknesses... and sometimes when I get to involved how I was raise comes back to me and old patterns surfaces... and this is when it all goes bad!

The thing is, as soon as I get into that "zone" (of wishing, or thinking I could or slipping in my diet) my body sends me small signals... it can be tiredness, it can be pain in my hands or stiffness in my neck... it can be restless mind... it can be slightly numb toes...

But then I know I am going down a path I wish not to take anymore... and then the struggle begins...  I wish, I could only think of those things...  I wish they would only be available to me... like to everyone else...  maybe I'd never do them...  maybe I'd still be vegan and minimalist... and a boring yogi...  lol... but I wish those choices would not have been "forced" on me... to manage a health condition that I wish would not be there! To manage something that really scares the hell out of me.

If only I could feel like the choices to live my life the way I do would actually be mine...  not because I am more afraid of something else then being labelled as the "minimalist vegan boring yogi"

If only I could know how my life would have turned out without MS and maybe be appreciative of what it brought me instead... because most of the times I am pretty sure that I am much better here and now then where I was heading before I found out.

And don't get me wrong... I am not unhappy with the way my life turned out...  au contraire! But if I put it in a more easily understandable way, it's like if someone lost their legs, turned out to run marathons in their wheel chair and won the marathon... they may be happy with the result.... but in the end they may have rather run a marathon on their legs... they just made the best out of a crappy situation... and no matter how great they seem to all the others, they know deep down that somehow they wish it would have been different! Nobody wants to be in a wheel chair.... and no one, ever, wanted to live with a chronic illness... no matter "how well" they handle it to the face of every one they know!

There you have it... this is what I am struggling with lately... and this is why I am off FB for a while.... and still writing this blog which is like journaling to me.... it helps me see things more clearly...

And by the end of writing this, I know I am where I want to be... and my stress and anxiety have gone down... but I also know that the next few days will not be easy and I will be back and forth between both...  I do that every now and then... I just need to do more yoga and meditation...ask my husband for Reiki (which we have schedule for tonight)...  and keep my mind off of stuff... 

I will go through this, this time again...  it takes time to heal... it takes a life to heal.

thanks for reading, I really do appreciate it a lot!!!

love&peace,
nath
xox
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