Living With Multiple Sclerosis on Standard Time
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We change the clocks here in Ireland on a different date than in the United States. A week or two earlier and a week or two later, depending on whether we’re springing forward or falling back.
It makes for an awkward few weeks as I’m trying to remember if we’re an hour later or earlier than usual when getting in touch with someone there. And, just about the time I’m used to the new difference, one or the other place changes, and we’re back to the same difference — just an hour different (if that makes sense).
When we fell back recently, there was another week before they did the same. It was while I was setting up several calls and video meetings for upcoming trips. I was very confused. It was a lot like living with multiple sclerosis (MS) in a world that doesn’t.
A Single Hour Can Make a Big Difference
The difference between standard time and daylight saving time is only a one-hour change, but many find it takes a couple of days to get used to it. It’s not unlike acclimating to a new time zone while traveling. And we all know what jetlag can be like.
But still, it’s only an hour.
I have been feeling like I’m living in a sort of MS standard time while the world around me continues on a daylight saving course. I’m out of sync with it and them, but it’s more than that. Daylight saving time is in the seasons of lengthening light, warm days, and frolic. Standard time is when the evening darkness and winter cold begin to fold in on us.
MS and standard time have me living in a smaller window of opportunity — of shorter daylight hours and longer periods of darkness.
I Feel Out of Sync in Bigger Ways Than Just Time
Many people with MS report, anecdotally, that the time changes can have an impact on their symptoms. I don’t know that my disease changes, but I know that those earlier sunsets seem to fold in on me like I have known MS to do on my body and my mind.
It’s my relationship to the world around me that strikes me closest this year as I try to keep up with when, where, and how fast everyone else seems to be living as I attempt to pin others and myself down for meetings. I’m an hour out of sync with their existence, and they with mine, only they don’t seem to notice.
The world is a big and busy place. It often seems that they haven’t time for us as the rest of the world spins at its pace and we unwind at ours. Things need to be done by those who can (still) get them over the line, and I often feel that I’m no longer welcomed on that team of doers. I’m relegated to the slow lane, as they walk along the people-mover of life.
Stress, Change, and Anticipation Influence My Mood
I’m sure that some of this feeling can be chalked up to the stresses I’m currently under. Some of it is also getting used to the change in time of sunrises and sunsets. And there is likely a bit of mourning for another summer gone (this one a cold and wet attempt, at best). That last winter was one of the coldest, darkest, wettest in local memory doesn’t help as we head into this next one.
I hope that the metaphor ends there, because I just don’t have time — neither daylight saving or standard — for my MS to get any worse right now.
Wishing you and your family the best of health.
Cheers,
Trevis
My book Chef Interrupted is available on Amazon. Follow me on the Life With MS Facebook page, and read more on Life With Multiple Sclerosis.
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