Here are more tips for overcoming the challenges of an MS diagnosis using a positive attitude.
(see Part One: Steel yourself, look away from the belly button and cut some cords)
(see Part Two: Gratitude, going outside, the Paradoxical Commandments and the New You)
7. Stop worrying
One of the most common behaviors that follows on the heels of an MS diagnosis is the seemingly incessant need to worry! Stop it! Others smarter than me have already addressed this bugaboo:
- Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear.--Corrie Ten Boom
- Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.--Leo Buscaglia
- Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.--Dale Carnegie
- It makes no sense to worry about things you have no control over because there's nothing you can do about them, and why worry about things you do control? The activity of worrying keeps you immobilized.--Wayne Dyer
- If you know how to worry, you know how to meditate. It means to think of something over and over.-Joyce Meyer
Anxiety and worry are two things that really need to be addressed if you are going to move forward with optimism. They both take up way too much energy to ignore and may require that you seek out counseling to conquer them. Please do so, if necessary.
8. Learn to expect and to live with uncertainty.
People who grew up in truly dysfunctional households probably already have this skill in hand. I know someone who grew up with a loved one who was/is very likely bipolar, but their loved one refused to acknowledge it (which means their mood disorder remains, to this day, untreated).
My friend's childhood was a series of days in which he walked on eggshells in his own home. Talk about uncertainty. If he didn't walk on eggshells, he could easily attract the wrath of his mood disordered loved one. This is how he moved through childhood... tentative, leery, expecting the worst while hoping for the best. Don't feel sorry for him; from this, he learned survival skills by way of necessity. Now that he has MS, he knows better than to demand that life be predictable, but because of the unfortunate circumstances of his childhood, he also knows how to keep moving forward anyway.
However, this isn't the case for a lot of people, I'm discovering as I move through different forums and hear people's different stories about how they are dealing, or not dealing, with an MS diagnosis.
Others can be way more challenged to deal with the loss of control that uncertainty possesses. You can't control anything in life (with or without MS)... not really. You can work hard and still lose your job. You can walk across a quiet street and get hit by a bus. You can try to have children over and over again without success. You can practice an art or craft and never master it. You can tell someone you love them a million times and still lose them because they don't believe you. You can make all the best laid plans o' mice and men and still find yourself in the center of a tornado where everything you cobbled together in your life is lost.
How you deal with this uncertainty depends upon how you relate to the way you manage time, energy and resources. The more flexible you are with your time, energy and/or resources, the easier it will be to manage uncertainty. But if you live by a rigid and inflexible schedule, if you still continue to "push through" periods of fatigue because you still believe you can (P.S., the secret is out! With MS, you can't), or if you are stingy when it comes to using your resources to guide changes in your life (being willing to spend more money for convenience products or pay for help, for instance), then you will be challenged to manage the uncertainty that comes with MS.
A suggestion here... make some plan Bs for specific situations in your life where you know that uncertainty can derail you. In example, make contingencies for days when you're hit by a wave of fatigue or a major migraine or temporary blindness in one eye. It may happen on that day when you had major plans (going to work, taking care of a lot of complicated errands, volunteering for your kids school, attending a critical board meeting). A plan B is your way to be part of those major plans even if you are waylaid by MS symptoms.
You could, for instance, work with your boss to make up for lost time at work or issue a protocol for rescheduling or reassigning tasks as a plan B.
You could ask for help with your errands from a handful of friends who have offered their support in the past; make a plan B phone tree, even, for such situations.
You could have a backup volunteer in place for those times when you can't do the school bake sale after all.
You could attend the board meeting via cell phone or iPad or get someone to record it or read your presentation in your stead.
Some of the most successful people I know in life are those who regularly anticipate the need for a plan B and use it when something happens. Not just MSers, mind you, but people in general who see the value of moving forward and not letting obstacles get in the way. You don't always have to jump over the hurdle, see? You can always walk around it, hire someone to do it for you, or push the darn thing over and walk ahead. There's more than one right way to do something.
This is not to say that a plan B will always fix a problem. Sometimes MS hits and there's nothing you can do. Then your plan B really needs to be one of surrender and acceptance; tomorrow will be another day to try again.
9. You don't have to smile all the time!
It's okay to admit that you feel like shit. It's okay to say, crap, I need help today. It's okay to recognize that your energy is nearly depleted even if you just got out of bed and, acknowledging this, go back to bed. You don't have to be Miss Happy Face all the time. That's perpetuating a lie. People who only see you has Miss Happy Face will not have an accurate portrayal of MS, which is a disservice to all who do suffer terribly at the hands of this disease. You have permission to feel grumpy. You have permission to cry. You have permission to be snarky and to call the disease nasty names. You even have permission to be annoyed by well meaning people who seem to argue with your diagnosis when they say "But you look fine!" when you are feeling Not-So-Fine-At-All.
You didn't ask for this. Still, it's up to you to decide how much grace you want to apply toward managing it. Some people are saintly about it, but most of us are more provincial... we get pissy or depressed or disappointed. And it takes its toll, for sure. People who put on the perfect happy face and never complain are repressing legitimate emotions and denying themselves an opportunity to deal with the dark side of their chronic condition. It's normal to feel negative emotions, even healthy. Don't shortchange yourself an opportunity to more precisely hone your coping strategies... by getting these feelings out in the open, acknowledging them and dealing with them, you are going to be a much stronger person. If you don't, you can only expect resentment, anger, frustration and outrage to consume you over time.
But you don't have permission to hurt others. Responding to their insensitive comments with information and education is a far better approach. And you don't have permission to lash out or to make comparisons with other people's pain or health issues. Comparing apples and oranges is never helpful for anybody. And you definitely don't have permission to use your condition as an excuse to make everyone else around you miserable. Nobody ever has the right to do that, no matter what's wrong with them.
Just be honest and keep it classy. If you are having a crap day, and somebody asks how you are, and you know they can tell you are having a crap day, just say it: "I'm having a crap day." Shrug. Move on. Do or don't do as determined by your body and your energy level. Don't make it everybody else's problem, just find help when you can, defer what you can, and tend to your situation until it turns...
Because with MS, it usually does turn itself around... three days of blindness in one eye forces you into bed and then, boom, you can see again, your headaches are gone and you feel great! We often focus only on our relapses but how often do we celebrate the end of relapses and the beginnings of remissions? If you have energy and you feel good, use it while you can! And if you have nothing to work with, well, then it's time to lie fallow until the pendulum swings back in your direction. For the vast majority of MSers, symptoms come and go and our biggest job is to just manage them. That means making the most of the best days and riding out the worst ones.
And finally...
10. Choose.
Repeat after me. I have MS, it doesn't have me.
People all around you are dealing with chronic illness, not just you. They are diabetic, they have asthma or terrible allergies or arthritis or fibromyalgia or mood disorders or a host of other health problems that can create barriers to living a full life. Find those people, ask them how they push through it all. The fact is that multiple sclerosis is two words, not a sentence! And you still have opportunities to choose how to live your life. You can set your terms. You can even revise your terms. It's all up to you, as long as you remember that you have a choice. You can choose to live with MS or be its victim. What will it be?
MOST PEOPLE WITH MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS
LIVE TO THEIR ANTICIPATED LIFE EXPECTANCY
LIVE TO THEIR ANTICIPATED LIFE EXPECTANCY
Given this fact, why choose to be its victim?
Here is where choice is everything: you can choose to curl up into the fetal position and stop living, or you can choose to move forward hesitantly, or you can just decide, what the heck, I'm just going to go back to LIVING MY LIFE because there were always obstacles to whatever it was I wanted to be doing anyway, EVEN BEFORE DIAGNOSIS.
Even those with extreme disabilities can CHOOSE to continue to do what they can do, can CHOOSE to focus on ableness, can CHOOSE to keep moving forward as a whole human being. Watch the Special Olympics sometime. Be inspired. Even better... be empowered.
When you actively, consciously choose to move forward with positive energy and optimism, you are choosing to live an empowered life. An empowered life is lived when you are educated about your challenges and have come to accept them and persevere in the face of them.
MS is only one obstacle of many that can befall a human being. If you learn to live your life believing that obstacles are opportunities to learn, grown and improve, then even something as monstrous as MS can't keep you from living the whole, rich and interesting life you deserve.
