MS Story

I was aged 22, when after numerous months of pain, confusion, fear and medical examinations, I was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). Nothing can really prepare you for that moment when you’re sitting in the doctor’s office and being told that statistically speaking, you will be in a wheelchair within 15 years…and dead within 30.

What led to this diagnosis and proceeded to occur over the next several years included a loss of feeling in my left leg; knee down, loss of central vision in the left eye, vertigo and numbness of the head, as well as the ‘MS Hug’: numbness of the whole body chest down. Each of these episodes lasted 2-4 weeks, with a slow physical remittance back to normality over the next several months.

Apart from the emotional and physical outfall from this diagnosis, what followed next, was several years of anguishing pharmacological interventions. You see, there are no cures for auto-immune disease; just feeble attempts to manage them. My doctor(at the time), one of the leading MS experts in Australia, had made recommendations that I start using the latest medication available on the market. These came with a warning label, that in scientific terms, implied that its actual method of action was unknown; whilst a reduction in the severity of symptoms by up to 17% was possible. How wonderful!

To ingest the ‘medicine’, it had to be injected into fat tissue (of which I had virtually none), three times a week. As the substance took effect, I would develop flu-like symptoms which would last approximately 12 hours. So, in other words, I was fighting my own’s body’s mysterious desire to self-destruct, by pumping myself full of unknown poison, that in-turn was depleting my immune system and capacity to live.

Within 3 years of being diagnosed and with my physical and emotional health declining, MRI scans were continuing to show sporadic abnormalities in my Central Nervous System, suggesting that my MS was stable, yet active. The future looked bleak.

Fast forward 14 years and I am now MS free. A medical impossibility for someone diagnosed with a degenerative autoimmune disease. I am healthy and happy…and more importantly, have a conscious relationship with my body. I carry a scar from the time I was inflicted with the illness (damage to my spine, that results in occasional partial numbness of both hands). This scar is my blessing; a reminder of what I have learnt, achieved; and what will resurge if I repeat the errors of my youth.

So how did this happen? How did I get to this point? One thing for sure, I can attest it was no miracle.

Let’s roll back to the time of my diagnosis and take a look at me as an individual, leading up to the age of 22.

I grew up in a culture that tackled emotional needs with cognitive and behavioural outcomes. Whether I was joyous, sad, ashamed or embarrassed, I was taught to do something about it. My culture also taught me that if there was money in the bank and food on the table, then there was absolutely no logic for unhappiness; and if you did find yourself unhappy, in spite of life’s commodities, to then either deal with it yourself or to shut your mouth and not complain. My culture did NOT teach me that the ONLY real way to deal with emotions is to honour and feel; at which point they would dissipate.

So, I took my lessons and actioned them. I learnt to act in response to every feeling. The pleasant emotions propelled me to action, the unpleasant emotions also propelled me to action. The really painful emotions, having no capacity to divulge them, I learnt to manage by suppression; to bury them as deep as possible and to disconnect from the parts of the body where they were stored. As I grew more intelligent, I developed better coping mechanisms to keep the mounting emotional energy under lock and key. I discovered drugs and avoidant behaviours, which helped with my capacity to disengage further from my body, whist I firmly settled to exist within the confines of my head. By 22, I was treating my body both as silenced commodity; unquestionably pushed to its boundaries, and as a prison for emotional blockages begging to be released.

And what happens when a pressure in a cooker gets too high? Yeah…shit starts to rattle, fall apart and eventually burst. My body’s bid to discharge emotional energy was clearly not being heard; it’s normal methods of communication were silenced by my defence strategies. So, naturally, I started to fall apart and rot from within: the auto-immune response.

Can you imagine the state of crisis your internal world must reach before a command is given for the body to start eating itself, literally destroying neural pathways, causing mass inflammation with severe pain and disability as the outcome? Can you think of a more desperate cry for attention; a cry for help?

And how do we treat it?

Not by listening to the body; not by recognising that we are inherently emotional beings, not by trying to understand our pain, and definitely not by working towards a psychosomatic solution to what is clearly a psychosomatic problem (like many of our illnesses). 

This right here is the fundamental flaw with classic western medicine. Our diagnoses are only informed by physical evidence and our treatment goals do not reflect any collaboration of medicine with body. We take a pill and hope it magically solves the problem.

This right here is why scientist cannot find a cause for autoimmune disease. As we cannot measure emotional wounding or blocks, we therefore, cannot medically prove its existence. And without proof, we cannot design or implement protocols to facilitate adequate healing. No wonder disease management is often the only solution.

I would bet my life savings that most people with autoimmune disease suffer from unresolved emotional trauma.

It has taken me 14 years to reconnect with my body. It is now my temple (as it should be) and my most trusted advisor; intuitively guiding me on a daily basis. It’s taken me THAT long to learn about the importance of listening and nourishing my body; and to reconnect to my inherent capacity to feel. I have been MS free for 6 years with that last relapse occurring immediately after putting my body through a week of hell, whilst negating its emotional and physical needs. I have no doubts about the cause and cure of my disease. None.

When I was in the midst of my illness, having thought about it long and hard, I’d decided that if death came knocking early, then I’d meet it on my terms; with as much freedom as I could muster. Driven by intuition, I’d decided that taking my chances without the prescribed medication was the way forward. With the help of relationships, psychotherapy, psychedelics, and alternative medical practices, I was able to appreciate how terribly flawed our western ideologies really are. I now consider myself as one of the lucky few; not because I overcame an incurable disease, but rather, because my terminal illness afforded me with an opportunity to face my mortality, question my existence and challenge how I am meant to live my life.