Energy

Multiple sclerosis changed my relationship with energy completely.

Before diagnosis, energy was physical. It meant movement, momentum, productivity. It meant long days, busy schedules, rehearsals, work, plans, spontaneity. Energy was measured by how much I could do, how quickly I could move, how long I could keep going before needing rest.

MS took that version of energy away piece by piece.

Fatigue became part of my daily life. Not ordinary tiredness, but neurological exhaustion — the kind that settles into your body without warning and refuses to leave simply because you want it to. The kind that turns simple tasks into negotiations. The kind that forces you to sit down when your mind still wants to keep going.

For a long time, I measured myself against the person I used to be.

Against the woman who could do more, move more, achieve more in a single day without needing recovery afterward. Every moment of exhaustion felt like evidence of something lost. Every cancelled plan felt like proof that my world had become smaller.

It is difficult living in a society that treats energy as productivity.

People admire busyness. They praise constant movement, endless ambition, relentless output. Fatigue becomes difficult to explain because rest is often mistaken for laziness.

When your body can no longer produce energy in conventional ways, it is easy to feel diminished.

That feeling stayed with me for a long time.

Then my fiancé said something that changed the way I saw myself.

He told me that I still have energy.

Just a different kind.

A witchy energy. A positive energy. Something warm, grounding, intuitive, impossible to measure through productivity or physical stamina. The kind of energy people feel when they are around you rather than something they can count on a schedule.

Nobody can take that away from me.

The moment he said it, something shifted.

I realised how narrowly I had been defining myself. I had been measuring my value through physical capability, through output, through the version of energy capitalism and able-bodied culture teaches us matters most.

I had ignored the other forms of energy I still carried.

The emotional energy that comforts people. The creative energy that still exists in my writing and imagination. The quiet, intuitive energy that makes people feel safe, understood, and seen. The softness that survives despite everything my body has put me through.

MS changed my stamina.

It did not extinguish my spirit.

There is something powerful in recognising that energy is not singular. Some people radiate movement. Others radiate calm. Some fill rooms with noise. Others fill them with warmth.

Chronic illness forced me to stop defining worth through physical endurance alone.

That shift has been difficult, but also strangely freeing.

I may not have the energy to do everything I once did. I may need more rest, more recovery, more pauses than the average person. My body may not always cooperate with my ambitions.

None of that erases the energy people feel from me.

The kindness.

The creativity.

The humour.

The emotional depth.

The strange little witchy light my fiancé sees so clearly.

Illness can alter the body profoundly. It can reshape routines, identities, and futures. It can take physical strength, certainty, and ease.

There are parts of a person it cannot touch.

MS can drain my body.

It cannot take my presence.

It cannot take the way I love people. It cannot take the warmth I bring into a room. It cannot take the imagination that still exists inside me. It cannot take the quiet magic of being someone who feels deeply and loves fully.

For so long, I focused entirely on what illness had reduced.

I am learning now to notice what remains untouched.

The world often values loud energy. Productive energy. Visible energy.

There is power in softer forms too.

Power in gentleness.

Power in empathy.

Power in resilience that does not need to announce itself constantly.

Maybe my energy looks different now.

Maybe it always did.

Either way, it is still mine.

And nobody can take it away.