I seem to be having a bit of a writer’s block. I realise it’s been over a month that I don’t sit here and write… about MS, about life, about living with a debilitating condition or two…. And yet it’s something I think about every day nowadays, much more than I ever did in fact. Covid19 did that. The pandemic did that. 2020, with all its misfortunes, did that.

I can’t help but wonder, what’s next? When I’m stuck in life, I always take my stuckness to therapy and this time was no different. Yes, I take the simple things to therapy sometimes and five minutes in, it hit me. I finally noticed the parallel process I seem to be having between writing and my life. I wasn’t just having a writer’s block; I was having a life-block. I was stuck. I am stuck, in a mundane cycle of pandemic life. So, possibly, despite its mundanity that’s what I should be writing about, because possibly, I’m not the only one going through this.

Let me share a little bit about how I feel these days. Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, I feel sad quite a bit. Anxious quite a lot. Covid cases keep increasing and nothing is being done about it. It feels like it’s closing in, so it’s hard to manage my thoughts. The happy days that come by, are tainted. I feel well enough health-wise, though fatigue kicks in long and hard with September weather. I’m ok. I am surviving. Yes, surviving … but surely this isn’t a way to live. There’s nothing to look forward to. No weekends spent with extended family and friends. No travel plans. No Christmas parties to count down to. No looking forward to the new season. I wake up every morning and I don’t even know what day of the week it is, because it could be Monday but it could also be Saturday. I couldn’t tell, because most days feel the same anyway.

I know I am lucky, because I have the freedom to be working from home and studying from home. My son is now also doing distance learning from home. So yes, I’m lucky; but I feel like a big fat mess on some days because I’m mentally exhausted. On social media, I see people go by their daily lives, as if 2020 was just another year on their calendar… and I think I envy them, because to me it hasn’t been just another year. My life as I know it, stopped on precisely 7 March 2020. And as well as being a little bored and a little sad – which I could live with just fine, I am also a lot scared.

I still feel most people don’t understand this fear, maybe some even think its unjustified, but maybe others understand and others, at least try. So as usual, if you can relate to this even just a little bit, then I hope this helps. If you can’t, but you’re still reading, then maybe it will give you an idea of what it’s like to live on the other side of this pandemic. To live through a pandemic with two autoimmune conditions, to be scared for your life and scared that you might not make it till Christmas lunch because you might wake up one morning with a high fever and suddenly you’re just a number on the covid list. . . that off course, had “underlying health conditions!” Gosh if I read that statement one more time I might implode!

Living with this fear, every day for 7 months now, I can’t deny it’s been exhausting, not to mention traumatic. Sadly, I know trauma. I’ve been here, more than once in my life. This current trauma, takes me back to that day. The day I had an appointment with a Doctor I never met before, change my entire life. Even though the Specialist didn’t diagnose me on that first day we met. That day I knew. I knew I had MS, and I knew it was going to change my life forever and things would never be the same. I remember it clearly…the doctor sitting across from me, my mum sitting to my left and I was just there, looking blankly at him, scared, desperate to cry, but also trying my hardest to be brave and act like I could handle whatever this man was going to say to me. And this trauma brings me back to today, to the pandemic, where those of us that actually acknowledge the seriousness of it, know, that life will never be the same again. No matter how keen everyone is to “get back to normal.” Even after a vaccine. Things will just never be the same. Friendships have changed. Jobs have been lost. Families have mourned unfairly. Mannerisms will be different. 2020 will always be the year that changed our lives one way or another. So many times, I feel the same way I felt in that office, scared, desperate to cry, but trying my hardest to be brave and act like I can handle whatever 2020 throws our way!

Despite this fear, today as I write this, I choose to be brave. Because the way we choose to feel long term, is always a choice. It’s not an easy choice, especially during a pandemic, but a choice none the less. So, when I feel I’m heading in a downwards spiral, I know it’s time to use all my strength and get the hell out! One thing I like to do is remind myself, that hardships like this, as traumatic and horrible as they may be, teach us in volumes if only we let them and I dare say, can also lead to something meaningful and beautiful. So look for meaning. Find beauty. I don’t sit here speaking about trauma as though I were an expert on the subject, cos I’m not. Nor do I think that all trauma can and will lead to something beautiful; that would make me crass and stupid. But I sit here writing from a place of someone who knows trauma because she’s experienced it more than once, and I’ve also experienced doing something with it – thanks to years of therapy. To make it clear, trauma to me is primarily; injustice. Then there’s also a lot of, pain. Grief. Ptsd. Heaviness. Anxiety. Fear. Helplessness. Loss of control. But…. I also see; I choose to see… light, because the alternative would be too scary for words, and because the alternative, would mean I wouldn’t be able to do my job as a therapist.

It’s good to know that through hardships we grow, we change. We can become better people, we become mindful. Become aware of the little things. Learn to appreciate the simple things in life. It makes me appreciate something as “simple” as a stranger wearing a mask in the street. Or the true value of a friend checking in. The sweet sound of my son’s laughter. It makes me appreciate the moments just lying beside him while he sleeps. It makes me notice the stillness of the night. A good home cooked meal at the end of the day. A glass of gin just because I feel like it, not because it’s the weekend. It makes me enjoy the sunrise and a crisp morning and the air I breathe like never before. And on these days I am hopeful that when my son is older, he won’t remember how scared I was deep down inside, but he’ll remember all the time he spent with me and his dad, learning, playing, reading, cuddling, arguing and just being and maybe that’s what we all need to do right now. Just be. Focus your thoughts a little less on the fear, the future, or what others are doing, and a lot more on being alive, today; as unexciting as today may feel! Yes, I believe from sufferings, beauty can surface, if it’s worked on regularly, if we are ready, and if we let it. There can be light at the end of the long dark tunnel that is also this pandemic. So we must try and let this light in, even just a little bit every day, and in the meantime believe; this too, shall pass.