Six years ago, on Christmas day I hit rock bottom.
What would you do if your partner walked out and left you on Christmas day as you were about to serve dinner? How would you feel?
Typically, I put on a brave face and carried on, not telling anyone so I didn’t ruin their Christmas Day. I spent the next few days in shock. I was now a single Mother, with MS, on an invalidity pension, no job, no partner, living at my Mums and desperately sad and pissed off. How would I survive bringing up 2 kids, manage an illness with all of the stress? I was broke and broken. I hit rock bottom. I don’t remember the next 2 weeks until somebody asked me what I was grateful for. It struck me that all I could think of was my kids. It was them that kept me going.
Then I had a WTF moment. I wrote in my journal that day that I was going to make myself happy and heal myself of MS. Everything began to change from there. I realised that no one could fix me and that I had to do the work myself.
Roll on a year later.
And I’m sitting facing my neurologist – bracing myself to hear his review of my MRI. His words were “What have you been doing?” I definitely wasn’t expecting this. He told me that my MS was no longer active. And I should keep doing what I’d been doing.”
So what had I been doing?
Over that past year little by little everything had shifted. I switched my focus and became aware of what was going on internally. I took the space and time to acknowledge and process what I’d been running away from. There were emotions and feelings of vulnerability that I didn’t want to face.
Once I’d found a way to mute the negative voices that had kept me stressed and worried, I had expanded head space. I was able to make a commitment to look after myself physically, mentally and emotionally. This impacted everything.
I transformed how I thought, what I ate, how I moved, who I spent my time with and the media I consumed. I started getting a buzz from taking responsibility for my health.
My wellness was no longer something I felt scared and overwhelmed about but started to enjoy.
But it didn’t stop me from being scared and anxious sitting in my neurologist’s office waiting for those MRI results. My absolute focus for that past year had been to regain my health but I was blown away when I heard the news – I’d overcome MS.
I was in disbelief and looking back often have to remind myself that I did it! As my neurologist said, my MS had ‘burnt out.’
In the meantime people with MS started to hear about my story and got in contact, wanting to find out more. It gradually dawned on me that this was my purpose. I realised that I could serve people by sharing my lived experience.
It’s now my mission to help people to help themselves and transform how disease is treated. I am now empowering people with MS to reset their health. I took the long way around on my own healing journey and want to fast track yours. You don’t have to be ready to start, you just have to be willing.