No more stress? Is that even possible?

MSAA 

Multiple Sclerosis Association of America

November 28, 2016

By Penelope Conway

Stress is not a good combination with Multiple Sclerosis. I hear all the time how stress needs to be limited to keep from triggering an exacerbation, but how do you do that in a world full of “I want it now” people and “it can’t wait” situations?

There are hundreds of lists on the internet explaining what you can do to avoid stress, but listing things out and doing them are two different things. Then if you add MS into the mix of things, it seems an impossibility.

Maybe your day starts something like this…

You wake up in the morning to a busy day planned. You didn’t hear the alarm clock earlier so you are already being rushed to get your day started. It’s early, you’re exhausted and your body isn’t cooperating. You take a shower, and even though you did every cool down technique you know, your body is simply too weak to keep going at the fast pace you have set for yourself.

You take a moment to rest then push on to get dressed so you can get out the door to make up for missed time. All the while, playing through your head is a rundown of everything you must do today. You have lists created, app alarms set on your phone to remind you of your time constraints and post-it notes scattered everywhere.

You do your best to hold back your frustrations but before you have even left the house to begin the day, you are feeling overwhelmed and defeated.  Somehow MS just doesn’t fit into a busy day and somehow you always seem to forget that tiny little fact.

The unexpected happens much more often now that MS is a part of your world. You get tired faster, weak muscles limit your functionality, your vision messes with your ability to complete even the simplest of tasks, dizziness and vertigo trip you up, and your thinking gets all muddled in the process. It’s hard planning for the MS unexpected. I always say a life with multiple sclerosis is like a box of chocolates…you never know what you’re gonna get. (Thanks Forest Gump for the inspiration.)

I have discovered that stress makes you extremely tired and can cause MS to worsen, but it’s stressful to avoid stress so you end up stressed out anyway. It’s really not easy trying to avoid stress. Ugh…just thinking about it is stressing me out.

So how do you fit a life with MS into a stress free list found on the internet? Well, for me that’s an impossibility. It seems MS doesn’t like lists or plans. It kind of has a mind of its own and doesn’t seem to want me to know ahead of time what it has in store for me throughout the day.

When life become overwhelming, and many times even before it gets to that point, I find that I need to take a moment to step back from all my commitments, work, and obligations. I need to take a moment to pause and re-examine everything. Literally.

Is there anything I could change or remove from my day that would help ease the load? Do I really need to vacuum the house today, tomorrow or even next week? If I wait and take a shower before I go to bed rather than when I get up in the morning, will it help? Can I recruit someone to pick up a few things from the store for me so I don’t have to go? Will the world fall apart if the laundry isn’t finished?

You are more important than the chaos that surrounds you and way more important than the stress that it can cause. Work on changing your workload bit by bit, little by little, moment by moment. You won’t be able to quit everything (which I happen to think would be nice to do at times) and you won’t be able to stop the world from spinning out of control, but you can make a positive change in your own life.

Take time to slowly work your way out of those over-commitments by finding others willing to step in and help. You may need to juggle schedules around and say no to people you normally wouldn’t say no to, but in order to simplify your life and relieve the pressures weighting you down, you have to do it. It’s not an option.

Do what you can today and leave the rest for another day. Take one step closer to living stress free, and before you know it you will be enjoying your life….even with Multiple Sclerosis.

*Penelope Conway was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in November 2011. She is the author and founder of Positive Living with MS:

http://positivelivingwithms.com/

where she uses humor and her own life experiences with MS to help others navigate this unpredictable journey. She believes that staying positive and holding onto hope is the key to waking up each morning with the strength to get through the day.

About MSAA:

As a national nonprofit organization, the Multiple Sclerosis Association of America is a leading resource for the entire MS community, improving lives today through vital services and support. MSAA provides free programs and services, such as: a toll-free Helpline; award-winning publications including a magazine, The Motivator; website featuring educational videos and research updates; S.E.A.R.C.H.™ program to assist the MS community with learning about different treatment choices; a mobile phone app, My MS Manager™; a resource database, My MS Resource Locator; equipment distribution ranging from grab bars to wheelchairs; cooling accessories for heat-sensitive individuals; educational events and activities; MRI funding and insurance advocacy; and more. For additional information, please visit http://www.mymsaa.org or call (800) 532-7667.

In support of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) research:

Never give up!

http://www.nationalmssociety.org

http://msfocus.org

https://multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com

http://mymsaa.org

http://positivelivingwithms.com

Faith is ...

Hell hath no fury ...

This is why I get up first, hurry downstairs, and get the coffee pot brewing before my wife finishes her shower!

MSAA - Giving Tuesday:

Today is the day! #GivingTuesday is here and MSAA is counting on generous friends like you to help twice as many people with MS.

That's possible thanks to generous MSAA supporters who will match your gift up to $50,000!

But your donation must be received by tomorrow, November 30.

You're the reason MSAA can help as many individuals with MS as we do, 

so please GIVE NOW:

http://bit.ly/2fi3s4R

Never give up!

http://www.nationalmssociety.org

http://msfocus.org

https://multiplesclerosisnewstoday.com

http://mymsaa.org

http://positivelivingwithms.com

http://facebook.com/msmemesandmore

Have a great [and safe] Black Friday:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8 Lines Written by Anne Frank Fetch $148,000 at Auction:

By Dan Bilefsky.

New York Times.

November 23, 2016.

In 1970, a Dutch woman named Christiane van Maarsen took out a notebook from her childhood. She tore out a page with an eight-line poem that her little sister’s best friend had written decades earlier. The friend’s condescending tone had long rubbed her the wrong way.

The friend was Anne Frank.

The opening lines of the poem, written in a “poezie album,” or friendship book, sought to motivate Christiane, whom Anne regarded as somewhat idle. They are traditional lines of encouragement that might have come from a 1930s Dutch periodical.

The closing verses — which may be Anne’s own — say:

If others have reproached you

For what you have done wrong

Then be sure to amend your mistake

That is the best answer one can make.

Ms. van Maarsen, who died in 2006, gave the poem to her sister, Jacqueline, Anne’s best friend, for safekeeping, and she kept it for decades.

On Wednesday, the autographed poem fetched about $148,000 at an auction in the Dutch city of Haarlem, a price that reflected the profound resonance Anne Frank continues to have in global popular culture, seven decades after she perished in the Holocaust.

Addressed to “Dear Cri-cri,” the poem is signed by Anne and dated March 28, 1942, nearly four months before her family went into hiding in an annex of rooms above the Amsterdam office of her father, Otto Frank. It was there that she wrote her famous diary, which was published in 1947 and transformed her into an emblem of lost innocence.

In a phone interview from Amsterdam on Wednesday, Jacqueline van Maarsen, 87, said that she had decided to part with the poem in part because her sister had spurned it. She stressed, however, that she treasured the notes and verse that Anne had written to her.

“My sister didn’t really like the poem very much because Anne was very critical of her, because she left school early, whereas Anne was busy all the time,” she said. “She gave it to me because she knew I was collecting Anne’s things. I would never sell the verse that Anne addressed to me. But as my sister was not attached to hers, I decided to sell it.”

Thys Blankevoort, co-director of Bubb Kuyper, the auction house that sold the poem, said the price was nearly five times the minimum price of $32,000. He said the successful bidder wished to remain anonymous.

Mr. Blankevoort said that autographed works by Anne Frank were extremely rare and that only four or five had been discovered in the past four decades. He said the auction had generated strong interest, including inquiries from as far away as Fiji and Japan.

The short handwritten poem by Anne Frank, before it was auctioned on Wednesday in Haarlem, in the Netherlands. Credit Peter Dejong/Associated Press

“The bid was much higher than I expected and shows Anne Frank’s cultural importance and also the emotional attachment to who she was and what she represents,” he said. “Any item by Anne Frank is very important, as there is not much left. When the Nazis broke down doors, they put everything on the street, where it could be destroyed by the rain or stolen.”

After two years of hiding from the Nazis in the annex, the Frank family was discovered in August 1944 and deported. Everyone died, except for Mr. Frank. Anne died of typhus at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany in the first few months of 1945. She was 15. Her “Diary of a Young Girl” has been translated into 67 languages and has sold 30 million copies.

Mr. Blankevoort noted that the “friendship books” that circulated in the Netherlands in the 1940s were the social media of their time, and that the sentiments expressed by Anne to Christiane were particularly notable because they were written before Anne was confined, emotionally and physically, by the attic walls that would soon curtail her activities.

“In our mind, she is the girl who never left the attic,” he said. “But here she is free, with her spirit free.”

In the spring, a Massachusetts museum paid $50,000 for a copy of Grimm’s fairy tales in which Anne had inscribed her name and the name of her sister, Margot. In 1989, another short piece of verse written in a friend’s notebook went on sale at Christie’s.

The Anne Frank House, the popular four-story museum in Amsterdam on the Prinsengracht canal where the Frank family hid during the war, decided not to bid on the latest document for sale.

Maatje Mostart, a spokeswoman for the museum, noted that the poem was addressed to the sister of a friend and, as such, did not shed deep light on Anne’s own story.

“It’s, of course, very special that part of an Anne Frank collection comes out after so many years,” Ms. Mostart said. “As we have other original manuscripts directly connected to her life, for us this is less important.”

Jacqueline van Maarsen, whose father was Jewish, survived the Nazi occupation because her mother, who was born Catholic, had registered her as a Christian. The father survived the Holocaust, but his relatives died. She has written a memoir, “Your Best Friend, Anne Frank,” which she said was how Anne signed a farewell letter to her before she went into hiding.

Ms. van Maarsen said the two had enjoyed playing Monopoly and chatting about Hollywood stars. She said her friend would have “loved the interest around the world” that her writing had inspired.

“People say her diary was very well written, and I think her work remains powerful so many decades later because of her intelligence and her character,” she said, adding, “To me, she was just my little friend, and I miss her very much.”