A neighbour gave me a gentle telling off today.

For the past three weeks, I’ve been going through a multiple sclerosis flare up. I thought I was just tired at first and suffering from burn out. Then that tiredness became exhaustion. I booked a couple of days off work and was looking forward to getting some much-needed rest. When I woke up on the next day, the fatigue has increased. I had slept for over eight hours, but it was as if I hadn’t slept at all.

The brain fog came rolling through my mind like smoke, but this one was different. It felt like it was taking my mind from me, but that I could see it through a cloud of vapour. It would hover just out of reach the more I tried to reach for it. The only way that I could observe my thoughts was to stop reaching and let them come to me.

It was as if my whole body was stoned all the time. I ended up taking a week off work, unable to find my way through this heavy blanket that covered my body and my mind. I started taking Tarazodone for sleeping again and I haven’t had to take that medication for a while now. The insomnia that can sometimes be my companion hasn’t been around. My reason for taking it was to make sure I slept, that my sleep was deep and healing.

Though the Tarazodone made sure I slept, the flare up has yet to go away. It’s different every day, much like my multiple sclerosis. At night, my body is at war with itself as the multiple sclerosis and the cerebral palsy battle it out to see who the supreme ruler can be. I wake with pain even more than usual, but that’s the least of my worries right now.

It’s been ten years since I was diagnosed with relapse and remitting multiple sclerosis and thought I’ve had new lesions; I’ve never had a flare up. That’s a sign of the care that I take of myself, or it’s just luck. Either way, I was hoping that the flare up would be over in a couple of days. It has now stretched on for three weeks.

I’ve had to learn how to balance myself. For the first week, I dealt with my brain fog and fatigue as well as dizziness, balance issues as well as nausea. I was reminded of all those years ago in 2013 when I lost control of my body. I had to learn to speak, walk, type and function all over again. I figured that if I could do it ten years ago, I would do it now.

I’ve been trying to heal by doing the things I love to do. I love my job and my work brings me a lot of satisfaction. I love to write and lose myself in the words I write. I also love to paint and look forward to seeing if I can get what I see in my mind to work upon the canvas. I’ve had to balance what I love. Some days, I’ve been able to work, but then can’t accomplish anything in the afternoon or evenings and others I can. I fit in the writing and the painting when my body is able and my mind is clear and I can handle movement or remain still.

Every day has been different. Some days I’m clearer headed, and my mind feels more my own again. Other days, my body feels stronger, and the fatigue is father away. There are days that I can push through like I always have and I’m able to reach within my mind and part the intense fog, or I can see through the cloud vapors. Everything isn’t completely clear, but it’s clearer, if that makes any sense. Last week, I was able to clean the bathroom, but I couldn’t remember names or places I had been. I went back to work two weeks ago, and my mind has been present, but my body has been rebelling against me.

Wednesday was the worst day that I’ve had with the MS flare up so far. It got progressively worse throughout the day. I had difficulty speaking, that was the first clue something was up. I had to think of the words I wanted to say and then gently push them out of my mouth, as if they were shy to be out and about in public. When I got back from my short walk in the morning, the fatigue slammed into me even harder than before. My head was swimming and indeed, it felt like my whole body was underwater.

I took a very short nap in the afternoon, but the fatigue wouldn’t dissipate. It was all consuming and I wondered how my body could hold a tsunami of emotions and such crushing fatigue. The tiredness took everything from me. If I stayed completely still, I was fine, but the moment I introduced any movement, my body was taken by the waves. I had a difficult time holding on. I was able finish the workday by pushing myself. One more hour, I kept saying, thirty minutes, ten minutes, five minutes, done. When I made it to the end of the workday, I had nothing left to give. I didn’t even have the energy to make something to eat for dinner.

Thankfully, my beautiful husband got takeout for dinner. I could barely finish my meal, but I ate everything I could. I was able to read for a bit, but when the words began swimming across the page, I just put the book down. I wanted to take a bath, but I didn’t trust myself to get in and out of the bathtub. It also involved too much movement. There would be no way I would get any enjoyment out of it.

I knew that I should have logged off during the workday and let my body rest, but I’m so used to pushing through and moving forward. It’s what got me through 2013 and in my mind, I had engaged in battle. I would win this battle and fight the good fight. Multiple Sclerosis has taken so much from me, I would not let it take everything. So, instead of letting myself heal, I pushed my body beyond what it was capable of because I was being stubborn and headstrong.

I had taken everything I had taught myself about balance and thrown it away. In the end, my body shut down and took everything from me anyways because I had pushed it too far. I did not respect what my body could do in that moment. Throughout the last three weeks, I’ve had to listen to my body and in that moment, I didn’t want to listen anymore until my body gave me no choice but to listen. I was wrapped in a cocoon of water and fog and even though my physical body was still, the body within danced with the waves.

Even so, after all of that I returned to work on Thursday. When I went out for my walk in the morning, I saw my neighbour. She’s always lovely and I know that she works as a personal care worker. She asked me how I was. When I took a moment to say that I was all right, she gave me the look and asked me how I was really feeling. I took a deep breath and told her all about the flare up, what I had been going through and the curveball that life had thrown me.

When I was done, her intense look deepened. “You have to stop that,” she said. “You need to listen to your body. It’s one thing to offer the people around you the support and kindness they need in moments of like this, but why would you deny that to yourself?” Her gaze softened. “There is only one of you and you have to take care of you.”

I thanked her for her words and have been thinking of them since. They struck a chord within me. I think I was pushing my body past what it could do because I didn’t want to admit that I was weak. In reality, giving in to the need to rest would have been a sign of strength by choosing myself and giving my body the time it needed to heal. There is nothing weak with choosing me, and it took a friends kind words to see that.

I’ve been wired this way for a long time. My father used to yell at me when I couldn’t do something on the first try and kept saying that I had to give 110 percent. He didn’t take kindly when I told him there was no such thing. However, after so many years living with that mentality, that kind of attitude is hardwired within me. I’ve done a lot of work with a therapist to try and let go of the need to push myself, but some habits are hard to break.

With the flare up, I’ve gone from working out three times a week, swimming three times a week, painting and writing and working full time to having everything on a standstill until my body tells me what I can do. I’m not working out of swimming due to the vertigo and balance issues and I’m painting and writing when I have the energy and the brain power. Perhaps pushing through on Wednesday and Thursday was my own was of rebelling against the MS and the waves of the flare up.

I have to realize that part of self care and self love is paying close attention to my body and honouring it when it needs rest but doing what I love when I’m able to do so. It’s been a hard lesson for me to take on, but what I’ve learned is that with healing, it’s not one step forward and three steps back. It’s always going forward, even if I’m just resting. The act of healing is done by honouring my body and learning to listen to it as closely as possible.

More than anything, I must give my body love all the time, not just when I’ve reached the point of exhaustion. There is joy in all of this, though. I’ve learned an even more valuable lesson because of this journey that I’ve been on. I’ve found joy in the small moments and the minutes where I was able to achieve stillness. Every small action of self love that I make is a step towards reclaiming me.

It’s all part of the beautiful dance with the waves within as I take on life one step at a time.