Home

I used to feel like my body was hurting me, actively choosing to make life harder, never giving me a break, always giving me something to have to deal with. I would punish it with over-exercising, birth control, dieting, different medications, and an overwhelming supplement regimen. Bombarding it with quick fixes, I never just let it rest. I was in charge and I wouldn’t let my body get in my way. Looking back, I could not have been more separated from my body if I tried.

It was when I saw my MRI for the first time that I saw my body differently. Lesions, white spots lit up on the screen, casually flickered across my brain as my neurologist scrolled through the scans. To know that all of these years I carried these scars made me so remorseful for all that I had put my body through, all those years I hated it. In reality, my body needed me and I ignored it, I ignored it repeatedly while it was slowly being attacked. Seeing my lesions illuminated in front of me resurfaced a perspective that I had been enlightened with months prior – a tool, of seeing my body as my home, that I didn’t know how to use at the time but am so appreciative that my mind stored for me. 

I had an ominously foretelling mushroom trip a few months before I was diagnosed, one that was so complex and overwhelming it took me about a year to process it. I was feeling so disconnected, lost, and hopeless, hanging in limbo between vague MRI results while planning a move to a new city for a new job that I already hated. I thought that a hero’s dose of psilocybin was my path to getting answers about what to do with my life. Hilariously (and to no surprise), I received no neatly presented answers about what my purpose on earth was or what my career was meant to be. Instead, and now that I’ve had moments to revisit some of these visuals and sensations in therapy, I recognize that I received many insights into inner parts of myself that needed healing, relationships I needed to reprioritize, pressures I needed to alleviate, and narratives I needed to rewrite. I was also reintroduced to the very real, very present “me” that exists inside, level-headed and strong, comforting and forgiving, joyful and funny. I was invited several times to simply sit in the presence of myself, to see my body as my home, find comfort and safety in myself, nurture connection with my inner parts, and just really be kind (!!) to this body and all that it holds.

I didn’t want to see my MRI scans at first, nervous that I would hyper fixate on them and start to feel woozy about all the systems and pathways the lesions were messing with. However, knowledge has been powerful, and learning what my body is going through has been essential in motivating me to take even better care of it, to alleviate stress and inflammation as best I can. I’m reevaluating relationships, redefining career success, learning to regulate my nervous system, forgiving and letting go, eating thoughtfully but enjoyably, prioritizing movement, trying new things, setting routines, going to therapy – taking care of my home.

Historically, I always clung to the idea of home as being reliant or dependent on the presence of others. When I was little, home was our house, our family unit. It was safe and consistent, it had everything I needed. When I moved away for school, my childhood home was healing, like a sanctuary. I relied on nostalgia and memories of moments in that house to bring me peace – the feeling of the flannel sheets on my twin bed, the joys of movie nights in the basement, the calm of a post-school nap on the patio swing. My parents sold our home and built something new, so when I moved across the country, my home was exclusively my family. I wasn’t whole unless I had family with me and, because I didn’t see them often, I spent those years on the east coast feeling perpetually in limbo between a life of my own and a life with them. Moving back to the west coast many years later was motivated largely by an ache to be nearer to my parents, nearer to “home”. Everything was supposed to feel ok once I moved closer. I swore that this was it, this would make me feel whole again. 

Receiving my MS diagnosis illuminated a dependency I had on other people, my family in particular and my memories of who they were when I was younger. Though having MS is so much easier with people to support you, there is a loneliness that I find hard to describe that requires you to become your own support system, your own advocate, your own safe space. MS has required me to develop a confidence in myself, to know and like myself as I am without other people, to trust and care for my own body and mind first and foremost. My perception of home needed to change from a place, or people, that I could escape to, and become a place within that I needed to take care of, one that could take care of me. I am my home. My body and my mind are my home. 

I do crave moments to sit with myself, alone, in my own safety and comfort, mindful and connected, unafraid of how emotional it feels or trivial it sounds. I now know how important it is to maintain and care for this first true home of mine, and to check in on it, to be kind to it. For me, when I close my eyes and inhale, I can create a space for myself. I envision myself, sitting on the grass outside on a summer’s evening, grounded, my hands moving through the blades, the setting sun’s warmth and the shade’s chill finding balance on my skin, slowly breathing in fresh air. I am here, I am calm, I am safe. I know it sounds so specific but it’s a place I’ve cultivated for myself, where my mind can integrate and feel the most connected, the most at home, in this beautiful, resilient body of mine.

With that said and with this homecoming to myself and sense of individual safety and connection, I now fully and finally have the capacity to build another home, one that exists with and compliments mine, one with my partner (soon-to-be husband!). Having always been one foot in my family’s world, I never fully formed my own while he and I were together. He waited ever so patiently for me as I started to navigate this undiscovered world within, to cultivate my individual home, to find a sense of inner safety post-diagnosis. The space he selflessly provided me to do that is what allowed me to become not only a better version of myself for myself but also a better partner to him. He is my ally in this new home we are building together, a home I can contribute to without losing myself, a home where I am now one of two.