Courage under MS’s fire…

I am trying to get the courage to share the more difficult experiences of my early MS days.  Several times I wanted to put them down on paper to share these stories.  The problem was that it was too emotionally painful.  I look back on some of these situations, and I try to think logically.  I wonder what the difficulty was.  I contemplate the reasoning for my mental conflict.  I ponder the possibility of being judged for my actions.  Not for doing anything wrong per se, but that I just did not handle the situations “correctly.”  Although what does dealing with them correctly mean?

I look at these predicaments from the outside.  Someone could say that the answers were so simple.  I might be told that a smart person would have seen it.  The intense fear that someone might say that I am making mountains out of molehills petrifies me.  The emotional struggle should merely be swept under the rug and ignored, they would say.  They might say that these should not be debilitating moments that cause lifelong anguish.  Wiping these catastrophes from my consciousness should be effortless I could be told. 

I had never been faced with anything that I could not contend with.  I have done many challenging things in life that would be impossible for most.  Every time that I was confronted with these arduous events I prevailed.  At times I was sopping wet with blood, sweat, and tears.  However, I was always triumphant in the end.  These life-altering hardships knocked me down a time or two.  However, I quickly got up dusted myself off and moved forward.  I have been faced with many forms of adversity yet I never backed down.  Like a zebra that got away from a hungry lion I lived and can tell my story.  

I have faced literal mountains in my much younger days.  In the southern Rocky Mountains, I hiked while I carried an overloaded backpack.  This pack was full of clothing, food, a sleeping bag and a tent for a twelve-day hike.  Some areas were so high that plant life could not grow.  At times there was such a torrential downpour that we looked for the lifeguard.  I was a sixteen-year-boy carrying a thirty-pound backpack for twelve days.  I carried this pack well over one hundred miles.  This hike was up steep mountains and in areas known for black bears.  I never flinched at the venture.

A challenge from ogres and I did not concede.  During my Marine Corps days, I quickly learned the meaning of never to back down.  I have had men nearly twice my size use their stature to attempt intimidation over me.  However, when I stood up my nose to their chest, they backed down.  I often wonder if they were terrified of a maniac my size that would stand up to them. 

My body had begun to attack itself.  This was an onslaught that I was ill-equipped and not prepared for.  My new antagonist did not fight fair.  Despite demanding that I run, this advisory stole my legs.  While robbing me of confidence, this demon required that I ask for help.  When I began to research and study how to fight back this vile monster took my vision.  For the first time in my life, I was genuinely terrified of the torturous unknown.  I had no comprehension of the maleficent evil that was headed straight at me. 

I had never really feared anything before.  I nearly slid off of the edge of a one hundred and fifty-foot cliff in my younger days.  Thankfully, my best friend grabbed me and kept that from happening.  I merely looked at him and said: “well that could have been bad.”  Yet, there was a deep-seated fear of this destructive beast.  This dastardly brute was beyond my understanding.  The battle ahead was honestly going to be the fight of my life.

So here I sit with a brain loaded with cruel consternation causing memories.  I am trying to figure out how to tell these terrifying tales of mine.  Thinking about them causes significant anxiety.  Writing down the appalling sagas is an impossible undertaking.  Talking about them in any form feels insufferable?  Putting them into a blog makes them a permanent part of my story.  I thought that the idea was to erase them from my brain box and not to solidify them?

At this point, I see two possibilities.  They say that time heals all wounds.  These cataclysmic events are only sixteen years old and may need another decade.  Like a piece of fruit that has been in the bottom of the refrigerator for too long, they may need more time.  I suppose that I also need more positive memories.  New constructive flashbacks would drown out the torturous nightmares.  This action would help me forget that these horrors even exist.  I continue to contemplate this complicated cliffhanger.