b'Life with MSCCrreeaattiinnggaaGGrroouuppBy Victoria ReeseIn January 2012, I moved to Los Angeles, When I felt ready to research my newlyand in May of that year, I turned 25 and was diagnosed condition, I\'d scour through articlesliving my best life! But by September, I began and stumble on ones only with images ofexperiencing numbness in my legs, which older white people. If I did see someone oflasted several months. It had gotten so bad color portrayed in educational materials, theythat, at times, I had to crawl to my car or sit in did not represent me. They were either morestairways until someone could come to get senior, immobile, or men. I needed additionalme. After a while, I went to my primary care support that was outside of my family. But,physician and he was condent my symptoms seeking external help wasn\'t an innate nextwere because of the stress I was dealing with step for me. I\'m a Black girl born and raisedat work and prescribed me antidepressants. in Detroit, by a single Black mother. We don\'tInternally, I knew it was something else."do" therapy, support groups, national societies,After a few rounds of MRI on my legs, one or anything else. That\'s a cultural characteristicwas performed on my brain and spine. An that stems far back for deeply rooted reasonsx-ray came back showing nine lesions on and a history of medical mistrust. Black peoplemy brain. My doctor handed me a printed tend to stray from those types of support. description of multiple sclerosis on a sheet of Eventually, I attended an in-person supportpaper. It was a perfect example of how Black group meeting, and all I remember thinkingwomen are often dismissed, misdiagnosed, was how, even in a room full of people withor ignored by medical care providers. Once MS, I still didn\'t t in. At its end, I noticed themy neurologist conrmed the numbness I\'d few Black people in attendance comingexperienced for months was an MS exacerbation, together. A community within another, weor relapse, I hid the papers under my bed like saw ourselves in each other. For the rst timeI did my feelings. I avoided them until I was while living with MS, I nally saw myself.ready to deal with it. On the other hand, I was That\'s precisely why representation is important.grateful I listened to my body. Had I not, I In 2017, I created a social media awarenesswould\'ve encountered one are-up after the campaign called #Weareillmatic because Inext, all the while taking antidepressants as a saw a void and knew not to wait for anyoneremedy. else to ll it. I also knew no one could relate tomsfocusmagazine.org 52'