Losing The Fear

When we take our first breath, it is without fear. The world is a vast playground and we –greet each new experience with curiosity and wonder. As a baby, we trust that nothing will hurt us and someone will be there to comfort us when we cry. 

As the years pass into adolescence and then into young adulthood our innocence is chipped away and we become guarded. We might become afraid to love for fear of being hurt or rejected. We might be unwilling to reach for our goals for fear of not being able to succeed and thus looking like a failure. 

At 28 my first glimpse of this new reality came through the blurred sight of the setting sun over a field of corn. I did not know why my vision was failing but the one thing I did know was I was scared.  From this moment, I instantly started living from a new place.  

This place was from a place of fear. 

When living in this state, it is hard to take control of your own life. You can begin to feel like a passenger in the ride that is your “life”. You no longer feel in control of where you are going or what direction to take. You are helplessly pulled along   with fear in control, wearing a ghastly smile.

When I was told I had MS, I was sent spiraling in all the predictable directions. Anger, despair, fear for the future which all of a sudden had changed from the promise land to the road to Bedlam. 

I would run to the nearest doctor hoping for the magic pill that would stop the disease in it’s tracks. Better yet, one that would reverse all of the damage that had been inflected on my body. To be able to drive my car or curl up on the sofa and read a paperback novel were once such simple pleasures but were now unreachable. 

With every prescription the neurologist handed out, I eagerly gobbled up, never stopping to consider if this was the right choice for me. The initial seemingly endless supply of little white prednisone pills which I had clung to with such hope, left me overweight, disappointed and wondering what now? 

I was still living in a state of fear as I spent the next fourteen years injecting daily doses of Copaxone, never really knowing if it was in fact helping. I watched in horror as the medication wrought it’s devastation in the form of lipo-atrophy which leaves it’s mark in the form of deep skin crevices where the sub cutaneous layer of fat has been destroyed. 

Nevertheless, I injected on. Afraid to stop in case of an exacerbation.

A year and a half ago, I stopped taking my injections and decided to see what would happen if I was brave enough to face my fears. 

I am by no means suggesting that you should stop the treatments you are on for dealing with the disease or it’s progression. I am simply saying weigh out the pros and cons of each medication and make sure that you are choosing to take them for the right reasons.

Could I start to live my life again with the belief that whatever happens it will be okay?

I will never know if the path I chose was the right one at the time. I only know that was not living in a place of power. I had given up control of my own emotion. 

I had lost who I was.

I can see clearly now that  by losing your fear, you can begin to take back control of your life.  

Whatever will happen is going to happen. Worrying about what might be is only a waste of your peace.  

Start by changing your mindset from a negative viewpoint to positive one. Believe that you can do it and you will. 

Live each day not from a place of fear but from a place of strength.

Vanquish your fear of the unknown, for like the bogeyman, when you see the light, it disappears.

Cindy Lee Lothian 

February 14, 2014