Brains Still Scary, Emotions are too

An October tradition and a tribute

In last month’s blog post I started by saying that September was kicking my butt. What I wasn’t ready to share, I will share now.

The biggest reason September was tough was because my family lost my oldest sister. Laurie J. deSousa passed away at the age of 63 after struggling with multiple sclerosis and a rare skin disorder called Darier’s disease.

My family and I were/are a bit overwhelmed and so autumn this year has not been very kind. But Laurie was born in October, near Halloween, and loved the holiday. She had some amazing costumes.

Thus, she was particularly fond of this, the second blog I ever wrote, Scary Brain, Scary Movie (2012). It has become a tradition to repost this blog every October because it was not only Laurie’s favorite, but the favorite of many of you too. But I post it this year specifically in Laurie’s honor.

Of course, I have great pictures of Laurie dressed as a green M&M one Halloween and as a genie another. Can I find them? Of course not. So we will have to get by with pictures of other images for this year’s Halloween blog.

My best to you my readers.

And mostly, rest in peace my dear sister- the pain and struggle are now gone for you and we who love you take great comfort in that.

Scary Brain, Scary Movie

It is the afternoon and I am shuffling around my house, trying to focus. I have my lists; all the MS helpful tip books suggest lists.

There is the to-do-this-week list.

There is the to-do-before-Christmas list and the things-I-should-try-to-do-in-general list.

There is, of course, the things-I-should-try-not-to-forget list.

But the lists and lists were not helping me focus. Oh, I know, the dishes need to be done. I will feel better when I have finished that.

So I start with the dishes and realize I might have more motivation if I had music going. I dry my hands and head to the stereo.

But then I see my computer and try to remember if I responded to that important email I received this morning. Yes, I see now that I did but there are some more emails to read. I get overwhelmed with the amount of junk emails and chain emails coursing through my web account and give up, deciding to play FreeCell instead.

What is up with us MS’er’s and FreeCell? Every MS’er I know is addicted to FreeCell.     

My meds are giving me an awful taste in my mouth so I get up to brush my teeth and drink some water. I see that I barely started the dishes and dunk my hands in the soapy dishpan yet again.

And three plates, two glasses and three minutes later the 8ozs of H2O has gone right through me and I am off to the bathroom. How on earth am I supposed to drink eight more glasses today? I might as well move into my bathroom.

The fog in my brain continues. The only thing I can focus on is my lack of ability to focus. I am forever existing in this fog-like state. Perhaps because Halloween has just passed I think of the movie The Fog.  

Figures.

Leave it to me to equate my multiple sclerosis to a horror movie.

But is The Fog the right horror movie?

I am wandering around lost in my own little world and not feeling quite right- almost zombie like.

Yes, zombies, zombies are a good description. I am an MS zombie for sure.

I will likely stay like this until I fall asleep where I will be alive but dead to the world for at least ten hours.

Then it hits- it is not The Fog but Night of the Living Dead.

Somehow thinking of my MS in terms of horror movies brings me comfort as I try to remember what it is I was supposed to be doing. Night of the Living Dead, that is definitely the horror movie for sure.

Or is it?

Sometimes I just want to scream.

Actually, I just want to scream a lot.

Maybe my MS really is Scream?

I have always been a Neve Cambell fan. But does the movie Scream completely reflect all that my MS is to me?

It likely depends on what my MS is doing on any given day. Often, it makes me think I am going crazy. I think of the classic line in Psycho, “she just goes a little mad sometimes. We all go a little mad sometimes.”

I remember all the hysterical mood swings and weird symptoms I experienced before I knew I had the illness.

I remember hundreds of times of being convinced I was getting the flu due to the insane body aches, only to have them disappear, believing myself to be a hypochondriac.

I remember the all the people in the world around me being totally off kilter but acting as though I was the one who was screwed up. Like when I had to go to my drycleaner’s several times in one week insisting that they had given me the wrong pants.

“Yes, they fit. Yes, they are the same color. Yes, they have the same fashion label and size label. But these pants have cuffs at the bottom hems. My pants don’t have cuffs. Yes, of course I would know if they were my pants or not. I will keep them as I need black work pants but one day soon someone is going to come in and say they have the wrong pants and I am telling you, I have theirs and they have mine. Feel free to call me when that happens and I will exchange them.”

My drycleaner and I had this little diatribe over and over. Funny how the other customer never realized she had the wrong pants.

Yes, Psycho is the movie. That is the one that most describes my MS.

And it is appropriate and personal as when I was a teenager I had actually waited on Anthony Perkins at a candy store only ten days after seeing Psycho for the first time. My friend Heather worked at the store too and she was too freaked out to wait on him so it was left up to me. I gave him a whole extra ½ lb of penuche fudge so he wouldn’t bring out his knife and start swinging.

Yes, Psycho feels right.

Bathroom again, but I stop to remove the pebble in my sock. But there is no pebble. What is that annoying feeling?

And that one, the sudden sharp, jab in my left arm?

And that one, the squeezing and releasing of my abdomen as if my stomach were in a vise?

And here are those weird ear noises again- has my body been taken over by aliens?

That’s it, Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That is definitely the horror movie that best describes my MS.

It all makes sense now- aliens have taken over and turned me into a screaming, psychotic zombie living in a deep fog.

Finally, having this serious question answered and finishing up likely my tenth trip to the bathroom, I try again to remember what I was supposed to be doing. Oh right, the dishes.

I shuffle back and plunge my hands into the now cold water. As I do so I feel awkward and completely out of sorts. I am tired and clumsy and blinking from the glare of the setting sun.

Funny how images of The Creature from the Black Lagoon begin to cloud my foggy, psychotic brain.

If your MS was a horror movie which horror movie would it be???????