Multiple Chemical Sensitivity

All too often, for those of us with Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, just making it through the day can be a superb challenge. For myself the first year or so following the onset of this disease saw me go from getting good grades at an academically intensive private collage to barely finding myself having the cognitive functioning to be a bus boy in a second rate restaurant. Everything I believed I was and every thing I believed I needed in my life was stripped away. After only a few years everything that was not absolutely necessary for life fell away: college, friends, my car, girlfriends, etc… During this time I had visited several doctors and received countless tests only to be told that I am perfectly healthy. I was left in a place that seemed hopeless; no one could tell me what was wrong, and worst of all I had no idea for several years how to get better.

But I did get better. I quite drinking, I quit smoking, I started to eat better, I read every book I could find on healing with alternative medicine. I started to see a counselor and worked on issues from my childhood that may have held me back form getting well. I fasted, I became vegan and I eventually stopped fasting and being vegan. I dove into developing a spirituality that I could draw strength from. I saw Acupuncturists, Homeopaths, Naturopaths, and Massage Therapists; whatever seemed to be the best tool at my disposal I pursued it with gusto. I never lost sight of where I wanted to get back to; I remembered who I used to be, I remembered being able to learn at a college level, I remembered being able to navigate the social world, I remembered being able to have hope for the future. At first the going was extremely slow, but with time and perseverance healing got more rapid.

Now, please don’t misunderstand me, the path to healing was not a straight upward line, with myself looking up to a brighter future like some old Soviet propaganda poster. Rather it was up and down with periods of very rapid advancement and other periods of me seemingly giving up and wallowing in despair. For the first two years of having Multiple Chemical Sensitivity I just lived my life like I had before, I had no idea what was wrong and simply hoped that things would eventually get back to normal. After that first two years came and went, I discovered with crushing disappointment that ‘just getting better’ was not going to happen, at least not on its own. At that time I had never heard the term MCS, I had no idea why I felt terrible ALL the time. Once I emerged from my own denial, I understood that if I was going to heal it was up to me and no one else.

It was that realization that let me start the long, rocky, up & down climb back to health. Looking back I am actually quite glad that I did not know that this up & down climb would take the better part of the next decade. If I had known what I was in for I’m not sure I would have had the courage to face the task. Using the tools mentioned earlier and many more, I did eventually get back to a point where I found a life worth living; a life with health, good jobs, learning, and relationships. In fact the main reason I have written my Thriving With MCS blog and started this MCS Facebook page is to perhaps help the next person with MCS get better sooner; with any luck you may get better in three years instead of the thirteen it took me.

So the real question becomes what to do after we feel better. I did not write a blog called “Surviving with MCS” nor “Getting to an Acceptable Level of Health with MCS”; my focus is Thriving. This means that once we get back to an acceptable level of health what do we do then? And this is not as easy of a question as you may think. When we first encounter this disease we get wildly knocked out of our comfort zone (for more information on the Comfort Zone please see. At first we can think of nothing else but how to get back to what we remembered before MCS, but what happens when we get there? When we get to an acceptable level of health? When we discover a place of not having every moment be pain or discomfort? The very human thing to do at this point is to stay there, don’t rock the boat; don’t do anything to make this place of rest turn back into the MCS nightmare we once knew. But this does not work, we live in a universe where as the Buddhists say, “The Only Constant is Change”, a universe where the fourth law of thermodynamics is a fundamental aspect of Being (This law states: systems have a tendency to go from an ordered state to a disordered state over time). These are the underlying reasons for the phrase that is often used in many healing circles, “If we are not Growing we are Dying.”

Where do we go once we start feeling better? Just as with everything else with MCS that portion of the journey will be unique to you. Maybe you need to go back to school and finish your degree; maybe it’s taking the next step in a relationship, starting a business or having a child. The path to healing will be different for each of us. But if we don’t progress into greater Thriving we will start to succumb to entropy just like any other ordered system in the material universe. We must continue to grow, to stretch our comfort zone and lock in the gains we have made. The only way to ensure that we keep our gains is by growing beyond them. If we want to keep what is good at the edge of our comfort zone then spend some time just beyond the edge, in a place that is even better, our comfort zone will expand to make the new good our new normal. That way when we move too far way for the new good, we will feel the strong emotional need to do whatever we can to keep our new gains.

Thriving is really about continually moving forward. If you are new to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity then it is about doing everything you can to get healthy as soon as you can. If you are in the middle of the process then it is about not giving up. If you are just about back where you remember, then it is about taking your life to the next level and locking in the gains you have made this far. Life is full of setbacks and is also full of triumph. Arriving at your destination is not really about what you do or don’t do in any one moment. It’s about what you do over time, where your focus is held from day to day and from week to week. A ship will arrive at its destination despite tides, changing winds, and sea currents; as long as the person at the helm keeps an eye toward their next port of call. So keep an eye on your destination and things will get better; even if it takes three, thirteen or thirty years to get there.

Blog 46