Multiple Sclerosis - Emotions Loss with Guest and PhD Academic Hannah Morris

Part of the series - Emotions with Multiple Sclerosis.

This episode explores “Loss and Multiple Sclerosis”. Bron is joined by Hannah Morris, PhD Student at Reading University.

Hannah’s studies are exploring “Psychological Support in Multiple Sclerosis”. More details about this and a link to her research questions are below. Please do take part if you are part of the MS Community:

https://research.reading.ac.uk/neurodegenerative-diseases/multiple-sclerosis/

https://forms.gle/5YTssp4pDVFciYEe9

This makes for compelling listening as Bron and Hannah make sense of real experiences of MS loss; before critiquing well-known models of loss (grieving) and; evaluating the complex nature of repeated cycles of loss when one lives with an incurable, unpredictable condition (such as) Multiple Sclerosis.

“Immediately upon diagnosis I was catastrophising.” 

“Psychologically I’d lost everything … I was never going to be able to pursue the career I wanted to …. Or fulfil my role as a mother … I felt like I was going through the process of mourning”

“What I was crying for, in that moment … I was mourning over the loss of myself and [loss of] being able to fulfil everything that I wanted to”

“I was catastrophising really because I was able to fulfil the roles that I wanted to but I just had to find alternative ways to deal with it … even though I did lose ‘me’ and my identity as ‘me without MS’ I found alternative ways to manage myself”.

“I’ve lost the ability to do [things] in the way I want to ... or the way that I feel I should be able to do [them]”

“It’s not a physical loss … all my losses were a loss I was experiencing in my head”

“It’s a  big threat to who I am now and who I wanna be”

Copyright: Bron Webster 2020

Links: Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/multiplesuccessCommunity

Website: https://multiplesuccess.co.uk/

Email: hello@multiplesuccess.co.uk

Socials: Multiple Success

TRANSCRIPT

And so today I'm really privileged to have Hannah Morris with me, Hannah's a person with Ms. And we I came across Hannah in relation to some work that she is doing at the moment, which was really interesting to me and it really fits in terms of what I'm looking at, for this series, all about emotions with multiple sclerosis. So we're going to be looking at lots of exciting things. Probably not. You might wonder, why are we talking about loss when you've got multiple sclerosis, but we're going to so welcome Hannah Morris. Thanks for being here. Thank you for having me, Bron. I'm very much looking forward to talking about this very interesting topic that is often overlooked. When we talk about Ms. I'm really looking forward to talking about it in this session today. Fabulous. Thank you. So, Hannah, just to get us started with the interview, Could you just tell us a little bit about your own ms story, and maybe what it is you're working on now? Yep. So I've had I was diagnosed about nine and a half years ago now. And but I would have had actually the worst of my symptoms were before I was even diagnosed. And so I was going through actually very stressful time in my life, which is what I do. triggered my Ms. Actually, I was studying I was working two jobs I had three children at the time we just moved houses. So there was a lot going on in my life. And so I started experiencing symptoms of vertigo was the first symptom I had. But I tend to get a bit of vertigo anyway prior to the MS with a cold. So I just attribute it to that didn't think anything of it had a few other little minor signs as well. didn't really think anything of it, but the vertigo eventually got very severe that I became bed bound to the point that it did push me to go and see a doctor then once it was stable enough for me to leave the house. So I saw a doctor and apparently she'd suspected that I might have MS at the time, but I hadn't realized that that's what she was suspect, you know, expecting at the time. And so you know, she'd referred me for further appointments but i i have not thought anything of it. I just pushed it aside and carried on. But then I kept getting more and more symptoms like couldn't feel half of my body I couldn't taste I was my speech was slurred that was one thing that really concerned me. And eventually kind of after about eight months of symptoms now I finally thought you know now is really the time to go and see because something is not right here. So anyway when and I kind of presented myself to the to the medical assessment unit in the hospital and kind of really started the process of diagnosis going, but by which time my symptoms had gone. So by the time I finally got my MRI come through, I think it was a 13 month waiting lists. I've been waiting all that time, but in the meantime, my symptoms had gone. And so I just thought, you know, I've just been just been going crazy, those symptoms must have just been some kind of madness, but I've been going through it because I'm fine now waiting for the MRI anyway. So of course when they got the diagnosis, it was quite a shock. And that was nine and a half years ago now. So yeah, it was a shock diagnosis, but at the time, I already kind of self doubt myself after experiencing those symptoms, but then they went to when I thought that it was me that was having some kind of psychological issue. And that it, there was nothing wrong with me, after all, but then obviously the diagnosis came and it was a really massive shock then. And yeah, and that kind of came, I was in the middle of doing my masters at the time, actually, when I got diagnosed, which was quite interesting because what we were learning about happens to be it was health psychology are studying. So it's kind of we were looking at the psychological processes that somebody with chronic chronic illness might go through at the time. So I was kind of applying what I was learning in university to the experience that I was going through. And so that was quite interesting as well that I was learning that at the same time. That same time I was trying to decide on a dissertation topic for my masters at the time and have not really come up with anything is suitable. So I thought, why not just draw on my current experience and do something for people with MS. It will help me to learn more about What I'm going through as well. So that was my master's back nine years ago. Now when I did that. So that's kind of what really spurred my interest in researching that area as well given that I studied health psychology, and I did my master's dissertation on the topic. And and then I guess I just kind of stepped away after doing that from academics, to focus on family life, I suppose. And then, here I am now doing my PhD. And then kind of soft fit really to carry on with what I've been doing for my master's topic and looking at psychological support interventions for people with MS. And because I have it myself, I can kind of draw upon my own experiences as well. Understanding the kind of things that people with MS might go through the struggles they might face. I know we all have kind of different experiences, but I guess as well, not only can I draw upon my own experience, kind of I'm mixing in with groups of other people with MS. So I can kind of have a broader idea of what other people might be going through as well. And I guess yeah, kind of Yeah. As I've every each one of us has different set of symptoms, different lives going on around us. And I think everything that you've just talked about, first of all, this was going on when you've got your three children. Mm hmm. And I think, find the time to focus on yourself when you've got children is not easy. Yes, you are focusing on the children so much, and it feels certainly for me. When I encountered health problems, I felt quite selfish to then be investigating something that was to do with me. Yeah. So I don't know if you agree with that. Yeah, I do. Yeah, I do. Yeah. And I think something as well, that's kind of really given me the passion to do the research that I'm doing now is from the beginning, right from the beginning when I was having symptoms and when I've been doing knows, there was no support for that. I felt that. And I guess to kind of draw upon what we're talking about here, the last I felt the last in terms of, you know, myself, and being able to do you know, what I've always been doing. And for myself, you know, my role as a mother as a student, you know, in what I'm doing, you know, and I kind of, I didn't get the support in how to manage these things now that it was, you know, that was that had been taken away from me and I just didn't know how to cope. I didn't know how to manage those kind of, I kept like a, like, I've just been thrown in the deep end, and I'd have to find some way to manage the emotions that I'm going through. And that was right from diagnosis up until now and you know, the things will come up time and time again over the years. And I've not had any kind of support, probably in there been times when I felt that I really needed it and I moved forward to get it like I started on even x and that was awful for me doing injections. For myself, I suddenly developed an anxiety that I never had before I was never bothered about needles, but suddenly, it was a problem. And because it was causing me so much anxiety and it was interfering with my ability to kind of medicate myself, I did seek support them. But you don't xiety Yeah, for the anxiety, but not probably, you kno