How to Avoid Imploding When You Have MS
I don't think there's a direct connection between having multiple sclerosis (MS) and the terrible loss of the submersible craft Titan, but I think it's very clear that we need to keep an equilibrium between internal and external influences.
Disruption versus Deplosion
Even without taking high school physics, one can easily discern the syntactic distinction between the terms "explosion" and "implosion." An explosion ends. A collapse occurs.
One possible implosion scenario is depicted in a MythBusters movie on YouTube, and it seems like a relevant metaphor for those of us with MS to think about.
The host of the video makes an attempt to explain how and why a large, weighty railroad tanker vehicle suddenly collapsed. The reason for this was that the inside of the tanker was cleaned with high-pressure steam before it was sealed. As the interior air cooled, it produced an enormous pressure difference—not quite a vacuum, but close enough—that allowed the regular air pressure of our planet to crush the world to bear.
"We do what we do until we can no longer do it, and then we find something else — the important thing is finding'something else,'" is a statement I've made many times.
The key to managing pressures from both the inside and the outside is to make sure we switch out one source of fulfillment and identity as soon as feasible for something almost identical.
I can speak from personal experience when I say that following my diagnosis, a number of areas of my life had devastating collapses. My identity and sense of value were destroyed like an egg when I was made to quit a career that I not only liked but also from which I fabricated a false sense of who I was.
Personal relationships deteriorated as I worried about money and how people would see me after my diagnosis.
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