multiple sclerosis personality changes | Unhasty Misadventures and MS Adventures

Have I mentioned I’m a bit of a control freak? Not OCD or anything, but it makes me feel safer to feel like I have control. And we all know that MS is not a condition that is easily predicted, manipulated or controlled!

So I laugh at myself when I notice how strictly I’m attempting to control certain other things in an effort to make up for it. Like the people around me. Or, you know, fundamental rules of physics. Like gravity.

Unsupported Range Hood

I partially modelled the reno house using the free version of TRIMBLE SKETCH UP.

I could NOT figure out how to support that range hood. If you look at the picture you’ll notice the only thing holding it up at the front is sheer force of will! Did you know that if you only support an object on one side, the other side simply won’t stay up? Wishing will not make it so. Gravity trumps wishing, at least in this particular case. And it took me an hour, and quite the little temper tantrum, to come to terms with that yesterday.

Sometimes I feel like I’m divided into several people. One of me is my body, my actual physical form. I have a lot of conversations with that one, mostly along the lines of “Thank you, Body, for dealing with everything that’s been thrown at you. I really do appreciate it.”

Another is the five-year-old me, who comes out WAY more than I’d like. She throws temper tantrums when confronted with things like gravity, or the need to explain things when my train of thought is going somewhere I can’t get to. I can only watch myself being that one until she subsides, since everyone knows it’s IMPOSSIBLE to reason with a five-year-old in a temper!

And then there’s me, the one who is always present (at some level) and just kind of observing what’s going on. That one feels like the real me, the reasonable one, but it can be hard to introduce her to someone who has just witnessed the five-year-old. So I just apologize. A lot. Eventually I’ll get tired of apologizing, so I really want to learn to work with that five-year-old! Hahaha now THAT will be quite the adventure!

So! Does anyone else feel like they’re experiencing an MS- (or any other condition-) induced multiple personality? Anyone else having some kind of strange personality crisis, induced by life changes you’re not exactly sure how to deal with? And does anyone have any advice on dealing with the five-year-old inside hahaha?

I’d really love to hear from you! Comment below!

Do you ever feel like your brain is somehow smarter than you? Like it’s been toying with you, the way you play with a cat using a laser pointer? The cat chases that red dot wherever you point it, but can never chase it down.

Yesterday, that red dot was my train of thought. I could see it, I could tell it was going somewhere… but I couldn’t chase it down. I’d start with a thought, actually talking out loud to my Dad (trying to figure out how to build a wall with a big window through it that can still support a range hood – see the pictures on my Feb 23 blog post.) Then the thought would just… take off on it’s own, and trying to hold onto it long enough to finish a sentence was like trying to catch the wind. And the worst thing was that, on some level, I could see my self being stupid. Unable to communicate.

I used to be such a brainiac! As an architectural drafter, my whole job was about communication. I was the link between the architects (who had all the ideas) and the construction guys who actually put it together. That’s what I DID and I was really good at it. Now it’s easier to pull nails and screw 2x4s together than it is to visualize the result of my efforts. So frustrating, especially since my physical energy doesn’t last all that long either!

So I keep reminding myself “this too shall pass, it’ll get better and/or I’ll learn a cool work-around.” Either way, I’ll learn to deal with it. It’s just one more lesson in a very long list of lessons learned. I heard somewhere that any day you’re not learning you’re dying, so in that case I’m going to live FOREVER!!!