Admitting the Fear

It is often said that receiving a diagnosis of something like MS is like a grieving process. Grieving for the life once lived, for the things you can no longer do. I always try my best to have a positive outlook on having MS, always try and look for the silver lining. I sometimes find myself rephrasing things I've written because they sound a bit too negative. I don't want to bring anyone else, or myself, down. A lot of people I see online (and the few I know in real life) try and keep the same positivity, and I do find myself avoiding those who tend to always focus on the bad aspects of this illness.
However, lets face it, there ARE bad aspects of it and some days I find it difficult to see past them. The positivity is not so much a mask because that would insinuate it isn't real, it is more of a genuine outer shell that is the one most of us choose to show the most. Under that outer shell however is a plethora of fear.
There, I said it, I am scared. Terrified in fact. I have a constant running of thoughts going around underneath that positive outer crust, terrified of the future and of my own body. Try as I might to put these thoughts away, push them out, shut them in a mental box, go to my 'happy place' - they still persist. Every now and then they hit me so hard it feels very much like jumping in to a pool of freezing water, that moment that you plunge yourself in and feel how cold it is, that involuntary sharp intake of breath and the all over rush that follows. This can happen at the most unexpected of moments, I can think I am distracted, not actively thinking about things and suddenly a wave of total terror washes over me and I am frozen to the spot.
In my experience of grieving at the loss of a loved one, it is quite usual to feel overwhelmed by sadness; fear; anger and denial. These are all things I have felt in relation to M.S. While I often hear (within the positive circles I choose to mix) M.S likened to the grieving process, the conversation tends to stop there. Lets speak out about the actual feelings that it can bring. Lets accept that it is okay to express not only the positives but some negatives too. Don't get me wrong, I am not going to start lamenting about my symptoms and daily struggles in a non-constructive way, but I think sometimes it is all too easy to feel the fear and feel alone with that, when lets face it we are not alone with it. Lets not be scared about frightening others by expressing our own fears!
I think only by accepting and talking about the bad feelings can we learn to live with them.

I am scared, and that is okay.