However, because of that I'm going to publish this post early (I was going to wait until the weekend, although I actually wrote it *before* my last post....). I hope you enjoy :)
I am also going to pledge £100 towards my (minimum) £1,500 target for running next year's London Marathon. I'm hoping that a lovely friend will help me set up one of those donations pages, which I'll obviously post a link to when it's set up.
Anyway, here's my post, Riding the Rapids:
I was talking to the SGBF one night last week about the CBT sessions, and the Fun Fortnight of hospital appointments, and he made a comment about having to carry on fighting. I can’t remember if I’ve posted something about this before, but I thought it was significant enough to warrant a post anyway.
All of the semantics surrounding
illness and coping with long term illnesses, in particular, rely on aggressive,
war-like metaphors. You ‘fight’ an illness if you want to try and carry on with
your life; you ‘struggle’ to come to terms with things; someone ‘loses their
battle’ with cancer when they pass away. We’re always waging war on our bodies,
for getting things wrong or breaking down.
I’m sure with some illnesses, and
for some people, these cognitive metaphors are useful; they inspire people to
carry on in the face of adversity. They encourage strength of spirit, and a particular
sort of candour about a difficult situation. I, however, struggle to see the
worth of this particular cognitive metaphor. I have a disease that is currently
*incurable*. Why the *fuck* am I wasting my already limited energy fighting it?
Am I not already aware that I’m fighting a losing battle? I might gain ground
now, but I’m only going to lose it again further down the line. Should I not be
putting my already sparse energy reserves to better use?
Besides which, what exactly is it
that I’m fighting? I feel like I’m in the chamber from The Pit and the Pendulum, flailing around wildly in the absolute,
pitch blackness, hoping that a punch here or a kick there will miraculously
land in the right place and floor my enemy, and that I won’t fall into the pit
in the meantime. But who or what *is* my enemy? What am I fighting *for*? These
are questions that I just cannot answer. I keep being told that I’m strong,
that I’m a fighter, that I should carry on fighting, but I don’t know who or
what or why I’m fighting in the first place, and I’ve got to be honest with
you, I’m tired of it all. I am *exhausted*.
Of course, I explained all of
this to the SGBF, so he decided to try and come up with alternative ways of
thinking about it, firstly suggesting “controlling” or “keeping [the MS] at bay”.
I contested these, saying they still felt confrontational and aggressive; I
tried to elucidate, by explaining what I was trying to get at was that I know I
have a limitation, so I want to work *with* it, not against it. I want to be
able to go with the flow, not fight against it to get a tiny bit further upstream.
Going with the flow doesn't have to mean you’ll get pulled under or drown; you
can still do what you want, and go at your own pace, you're just using the path
of least resistance to do it.
The response from the SGBF was
truly inspired, and one that only a direct quote can best portray:
“Riding the rapids: It's a
delicate balance of controlling your boat so you don't sink, but also accepting
you can't go upstream”.
Apparently this spark of
inspiration is thanks to the Comic Relief fundraiser that has been plugged a
lot on Radio One recently. Since I pretty much live in a university bubble, and
have little to no knowledge of what’s on television or national radio, this was
news to me. Apparently a group of 6 celebrities including Dara O’Briain went
white water rafting down the notoriously dangerous Zambezi River in Africa in
aid of Comic Relief. Well, thank you Comic Relief for providing me with a much
more satisfactory metaphor for how I deal with (or rather, how I *want* to deal
with) my MS and how I cope with it.
I like the metaphors used here. Is the way I try to work with my MS, that is *with* it rather than against it. I suppose we negotiate with each other, perhaps. After around 30 years since dx and prob 40 years since it all began I'm sort of used to it; well, it'd be odd if I wasn't.
ReplyDeleteBut MSers are all different I suppose? I'm lucky: now mine is more or less benign and more or less stable (he says with fingers and toes crossed).
Good luck with the Eng Lit.