Losing my sense of safety after an MS relapse

During my hospital stay earlier this year, all I could think about was the relief that would come when I finally went home. I pictured sinking into my own bed, exhaling for the first time in weeks, catching up with all that had happened inside my body.

I needed time to process that I was in a relapse after nine years of remission from relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (MS). I was grateful not to be facing another diagnosis, but somehow this felt harder. A second reckoning felt cruel.

Still, I told myself, at least I wouldn’t have to face it alone. But when I returned home, I found my relationship in shambles. While my body was in collapse, so was the foundation beneath it.

It’s a strange thing when your body and your home stop feeling safe at the same time. You startle at small sounds. You flinch at stillness. The nervous system can’t tell where the threat ends: inside you or around you. Some losses are so total that they leave you speechless. I didn’t choose silence, but silence engulfed me.

For months, my body didn’t know where to land, and neither did my voice. When the ground isn’t steady, language scatters like glass. I used to write my way through pain. This time, pain wrote through me.

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When language disappears

I realized this wasn’t the first time I’d made safety an illusion. With MS, I learned young how to shrink myself, blend in, and make others comfortable with what they couldn’t understand. I learned to be an illusionist — the girl who made her pain disappear. But this time, the trick stopped working. Everything I’d hidden broke wide open, and I was left standing in the light of what was real and hemorrhaging.

It’s unsettling when language disappears from someone who has built a life on words. I tried to write, but every sentence fractured halfway through. The rhythm that once carried me through hard things just wasn’t there. It was as if my body refused to let words surface until it could decide whether I was safe.

From a physiological standpoint, that’s not far from the truth. When the body senses threat, physical or emotional, it shifts resources to survival. The heart rate climbs, the breath shortens, digestion slows, and language centers dim. You can’t narrate danger while you’re still living inside it.

The MS relapse was a physiological danger, making my own skin feel foreign. My silence wasn’t a sign of weakness. It was my body’s way of holding vigil until it could trust the world again.

Then, with the end of my relationship, it came time to move. There were boxes stacked against the same walls that once felt like home, and the rooms echoed with absence. I packed quietly, labeling not just contents but chapters: then and now. Each box was a small act of survival, a boundary drawn in cardboard. Friends showed up with tape, trucks, and tenderness. I started over one step at a time, one routine at a time, relearning what “home” means for me.

Creating my own safety

Eventually, safety has begun to whisper back — not in grand gestures, but in fragments. I hear it in the hum of my porch swing, the warmth of a mug cupped between shaky hands, the rhythmic purr of a cat pressed against my chest, reminding me what steady feels like. It’s in a meal with family, an embrace from a friend, and in choosing to keep showing up for a body I don’t fully trust yet. I know safety won’t return all at once. But I also know it can reenter in moments that are small enough to miss unless you’re paying attention.

My writing has followed the same pattern. At first, I could only manage half-thoughts and single lines that felt too fragile to matter. But each one was a pulse, proof that something inside me was still alive. Eventually, those fragments began linking together, tentative sentences bridging the distance between silence and story.

I used to think safety was something someone gave you. Now I believe it’s too precious to hand over to anyone to control. Maybe true safety is what you give yourself when you decide to keep breathing and writing, even when it still hurts to trust your own voice. My body is still unpredictable. My heart still bruises easily. But I’ve stopped waiting for safety to be given. I’m learning to create it — one breath, one prayer, one meal, and one word at a time.

Perhaps safety isn’t a place we return to after everything falls apart. Maybe it’s what we learn to carry when we stop shrinking to fit in, embrace our authenticity, and finally start speaking again.

Note: Multiple Sclerosis News Today is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Multiple Sclerosis News Today or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to multiple sclerosis.