Trust (noun)
firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something
As an American there is a lot not to trust right now. Trust in (most) of our government to have our best interests at heart is thoroughly in the toilet. It certainly has brought us together in a way I haven’t seen in decades, but it’s still a scary time trying to figure out who to trust.
Being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis I felt as though my body had betrayed me. I didn’t know my body anymore. I didn’t trust my body.
When you receive life altering information like this it turns your world upside down. Some say you can control it, or let it control you. I would argue that it’s not so simple.
Your body feels different every day. It’s hard to trust that it’s going to to be there for you on a daily basis, to support your physical and emotional needs. And you quickly learn that sometimes it doesn’t, which is extremely frustrating.
Trust in yourself is a different kind of trust, as opposed to putting your trust in others. It’s intrinsic, a gut feeling, and that was gone. In place of fear and uncertainty. We’re trained to deal with the uncertainty of life, or we couldn’t walk out of our front door each day. But this kind of news makes the uncertainty more uncertain.
I’m pretty out there, so when I was telling others about my diagnosis I didn’t worry so much about trusting the outcome. Though I often had it make it ok for others after I told them. You could see the change on their faces as the words came out of my mouth. I had to help THEM trust that I would be ok, especially the ones who knew nothing about multiple sclerosis.
There isn’t a day I wake up that I can forget that I have multiple sclerosis. For a split second, I wake up symptom free, think about the day ahead (usually hit the snooze button), and then remember. Remember that I have a neurological disease.
It’s taken me a very long time for that trust in my body. That it will do what I need, when I need it. In the last few years I’ve learned that it will be more than not. And part of learning to trust it again, is making to work it stronger. The stronger I get, the more I can trust it. And the more I don’t wake up each day thinking will this be the day another relapse happens. And I’m trusting that even if it does, that I can come out ok on the other side.
Two Faces of MS 