2. Don’t tell me what I can’t do: Bargaining

Bargaining: seeking a way out

After my diagnosis, I decided I was going to do a few things. First, I was gonna find a coach and dominate in Olympic weight lifting. Second, I was gonna eat so clean I wouldn’t even have to poop. Third, I wasn’t gonna feel sorry for myself. 

I found a gym, owned by a medical doctor that happened to focus exclusively on, you know it, Olympic weight lifting. I told him my situation and he connected me with my new coaches. I trained with his team and coaches for 1 year.  It was kind of fun in the beginning. The energy of all the athletes around me was great, lots of laughing and joking and serious work ethic. I went in with some unrealistic expectations of myself. I think I wanted to out train the MS, and I couldn’t. I was disappointed. On my last day training with the team one of the coaches was watching my lift and she said to me, “you don’t look like your trying”.  Several emotions hit me in that moment. I was pissed. I was hurt, and then I was sad. She didn’t really know me! But if you compared me to all the other athletes, she was right. I was scared to lift at 90% effort. What if I got this weight over my head and then lost control. What if I got this weight up and somewhere between the floor and over my head I admitted how tired I was. I reevaluated my need to prove myself and tried to figure out why I was lifting with this team in the first place. It occurred to me that I was afraid I’d loose the ability to lift all together and I didn’t wanna miss out. 

I asked myself if Olympic weight lifting was the metric I really wanted to measure my worth or ability by. And the answer was no.

So, on to clean eating!! I was gonna eat raw as much as possible. I was gonna supplement with greens powder. I was gonna be gluten free. I was gonna try organ meat. I was gonna intermittent fast….. and on and on. I did most of it, and it was a little bit crazy. I had unrealistic goals (again). I was gonna a cure myself of MS with food. It didn’t happen. I still have MS. Damn it.

Then I started to feel sorry for myself. Ugh.

Looking back, I see clearly where I was looking for control over a diagnosis I have no control over. Not only was I in denial about the the disease. But I was in denial about what was in my power to change. 

So today what do I have power over? Well, I get to choose the color underwear I put on. I have power to choose the beverage I’ll have with dinner. I can control whether or not I go on a cruise with my sister. And none of these choices are a metric by which I measure myself. I’ve decided that I have nothing left to prove. And thank the goddess for that epiphany.