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⚠️ Please read with care: This blog shares personal, sometimes painful experiences. My intention is to support and speak honestly not to harm. I’m not a professional, just someone who understands how hard it can get. If you're struggling, you're not alone please reach out for professional help.
Autonomic dysfunction.
Sounds clinical, doesn’t it? Like something you’d hear from a doctor wearing a tie far too cheerful for the situation. In reality, it’s more like your nervous system looks at its job description, shrugs, and says “Nah mate, not today.”
So for those who don’t live in this circus of malfunction, here’s the truth:
The autonomic nervous system is the part of your brain and body that should run quietly in the background. Heart rate. Blood pressure. Body temperature. Digestion. Bladder. Breathing. Sweating. The automatic things the stuff that keeps you alive without you having to think about it.
Except mine and maybe yours doesn’t. Because MS came along like a drunken arsonist with a lighter, and torched the wiring.
Now I get autonomic dysfunction. A fancier way of saying:
✔ My body forgets how to regulate itself ✔ My heart and blood pressure do whatever the hell they like ✔ I can faint, shake, freeze or burn up for no bloody reason ✔ Digestion? Chaos. ✔ Temperature control? Ha. Good joke. ✔ Fight or Flight? Always stuck halfway like a buffering YouTube video
And the kicker? I’m pretty sure I had this before MS even moved in and pissed on the carpet. MS just amped it up, added fireworks, and turned life into a physiological hostage situation.
Some days my body works. Some days I stand up, and the universe tilts sideways like I’m in a Salvador Dalí painting. Some days breathing feels manual. Sometimes my heart behaves like it’s remixing a drum solo.
And yes — it’s exhausting. Yes — it’s humiliating. And yes — it pisses me off because there’s no switch to turn it off, no fuse to replace, no user manual. Just me. Living in a house where the wiring is frayed and the electrics flicker whenever they feel like it.
But here’s the truth I sit with:
I’m still here. Still writing. Still swearing. Still breathing — even when my nervous system forgets how to.
That, my friend, is survival. Not pretty. Not poetic. Just real.
Welcome to my living hell. Make yourself uncomfortable.
Warlock Dark Chronic illness survivor, truth-teller, occasional bastard. From My Living Hell (For those who came here by accident: yes, my living hell is real. And yes, we still fight. Every shitty day. With defiance.)
