Hi there, it's nice
to meet you. I'm
Jeanene
If you give me a minute, I'd like to tell you a quick story.
Because I know what it's like
to have your life suddenly
get very small and very scary.
To plan your days by what your body will let you do. To watch pieces of who you were slowly disappear and then wonder if this is just what life is now.
I stayed in that dark place
for a very long time.
But my story didn't end there.
THERE WAS A TIME
Even smiling took effort.
I was diagnosed with MS at 26. A few years later, I was using a cane, and then eventually a wheelchair.
I stopped trusting my body. I stopped making plans. Little by little, my life became organized around what I might not be able to do.
And then one day, sitting on this couch, something in me changed.
Julie Fell
I was alone with my 2 year-old daughter for a few minutes during a time when my arms and legs wouldn't work.
That sweet little girl got up to show me
her toy. She tripped and hit her head on the coffee table.
She stood there crying with her arms reaching for me as she yelled, “Mama, up, Mama, peas.”
Mama, please. Please pick me up.
I couldn't. I couldn't even get to her.
I was her mother.
And I could not get to her.
Something inside me didn't just change.
It broke.
I Started Looking for Answers
When I got the use of my arms back, I started reading.
Books about the body. How it worked. What helped it heal.
Anything I could get my hands on.
For years, I became my own guinea pig. I was obsessed.
And I was getting better.
But I still walked with a cane.
I still had days when one leg or sometimes both would stop working.
I had made progress.
But I still wasn't free.
And then life took away the safety net.
My husband walked out on us.
I had two little kids to take care of.
No money.
No job.
And a house that I soon discovered was in foreclosure.
As if that wasn't enough, Hurricane Sandy dropped a tree on my house.
Then I Saw Her
My reflection in a black refrigerator.
I don't know what happened that day in the kitchen.
But when I looked at the woman staring back at me, I heard:
No one is coming to save you.
It's just you.
Get your shit together and figure this out.
Your kids need you.
SOMETHING IN ME KNEW
If no one was coming,
I was going to have to
become the woman who
figured it out.
THE WORK CHANGED
I thought 'the work' was trying
to get my body back, but...
I was becoming someone completely new.
I kept learning.
I kept experimenting.
But somewhere along the way, the work became something more than just my body.
I started questioning my thoughts and my opinions. The patterns I kept seeing myself repeat. The fear. My God the fear. And the never ending pressure.
I began to see how much of my identity was based on what my body could or couldn't do.
Little by little, I stopped asking what MS would allow me to do and started asking what I WANTED to do. Who was I underneath MS?
And then I kept going.
The question became, "What do I WANT" instead of just reacting to what I'd been taught I SHOULD want?
Who was I underneath all of it? Who was the real Jeanene?
THAT led me back to myself.
Long gone are the days of "Mamma, peas."