Dysesthesia tale of dismal Dame: 7 Bright, Bizarre Triumphs | MS is me living authentically

Some days my nerves behave like bored telegraph wires: tapping out messages I never asked for, in a code I can’t reliably translate. I can still smile at it — not because it’s funny, exactly, but because humour is the only tool that never runs out of batteries.

This Dysesthesia tale of Dismal Dame is not a lesson, not advice, and certainly not a cure in fancy dress. It’s a small, nonsense lantern I hold up when the body insists on improvising. If you live with odd sensations, you’ll know the strange truth: you can be perfectly calm and still feel as if your skin is auditioning for a different life.

And because my mind enjoys wandering (even when my legs don’t), I keep hearing a parisian soundscape during lannée terrible — a city clattering through history, all echo and urgency — as if the present moment has its own cobblestones, and my nerves are rolling little prams over them at speed.

The dysesthesia tale of dismal dame frames unusual sensations with gentle humour, making space for understanding rather than fear.

Introduction: Multiple Sclerosis and the present moment

I’m not here to explain symptoms like a textbook in a white coat. I’m here as myself — a person living with multiple sclerosis, doing what I always do: noticing patterns, making meaning, and occasionally turning the whole thing into a daft poem so I can carry it more lightly.

Dysesthesia (to me) can feel like the body’s map has been redrawn overnight by a prankster with a smudged pencil. Nothing is “wrong” in a dramatic, cinematic way — it’s subtler than that — but it can still be exhausting. The most practical thing I’ve learned is to meet the sensation where it is, in the present moment, without making it into tomorrow’s catastrophe.

When the fog thickens, I go back to my own small library of nonsense and survival tactics. If you’d like to see how I keep that lantern stocked, this post lives beside other gentle absurdities like Nonsense Verse Joyful Gems and the grin-and-grit reflections in Growing Old Isn’t for Wimps.

And yes — sometimes I even rhyme my way through the serious bits, because it turns the volume down on fear. (My earlier experiment is parked here: (Rhyming Wahls Protocol.)

This dysesthesia tale of dismal dame captures how strange sensations can intrude on ordinary moments without warning or explanation.

The Dysesthesia tale of the Dismal Dame

Here she comes now — my imaginary heroine — the Dismal Dame, striding into the room like she owns the place, wearing a cape stitched from “unhelpful sensations” and “timing that could not be worse”.

She doesn’t arrive with a diagnosis or a lecture. She arrives with ambience: trauma and the Parisian soundscape in the background, like distant boots on stone, like a radio in another flat playing a sad accordion tune. It’s not that I’m claiming my nerves are reliving history — I’m saying the feeling has that flavour: noisy, urgent, echoing, and hard to ignore.

When my body starts doing its odd little rewrites, I remind myself I’m allowed to slow down. I’m allowed to soften the day. I’m allowed to choose comfort where I can find it. On the rougher sensory days, I sometimes think of my other characters for company — Sir Prickalot and Pins and Needles makes me laugh even when my skin is being dramatic.

In this dysesthesia tale of dismal dame, humour becomes a way of standing steady when the body starts rewriting its own rules.

A Dysesthesia tale of a Dismal Dame

In this version, the Dame isn’t wicked — just persistent. She taps my shoulder and says, “Excuse me, I’d like to be the main character now.”

And the world obliges.

The kettle hum becomes an opera. The jumper seam becomes a committee meeting. The air feels busy. The nerves feel chatty. If I get spooked by it, the whole thing swells. If I greet it with a steady breath and a bit of humour, it often shrinks back to its proper size.

When I’m feeling extra reactive, I remember I’m not alone in the cast. There’s Miss Hypersensitivity’s Unpleasant Day — who can turn a gentle breeze into an epic saga — and Mental Fog Blundering Bat, flapping about with sincere optimism and absolutely no sense of direction.

Sometimes the best “adaptation” is not a grand strategy, but a small permission slip: sit down, change the fabric, lower the lights, stop wrestling the sensation like it’s a dragon.

The dysesthesia tale of dismal dame unfolds as a gentle, absurd reflection on living with sensations that refuse to behave.

Dysesthesia: the tale of a Dismal Dame

Here’s where I admit something quietly practical: I cope best when I respect my limits without turning them into a tragedy.

If the body is loud, I make the day soft. If the skin is irritable, I avoid scratchy textures. If the nerves are sparking, I do less and do it slower. I don’t frame it as surrender — I frame it as steering.

It helps to see the whole MS circus as a set of characters rather than a single monster. The cast includes the awkward dancers in Dancing Through the Discomfort, the disorientating mischief of the one Who Suffered a Loss of Proprioception, and the lightning-bolt drama of Trigeminal Neuralgia: A Nonsensical Tale.

And then there’s the weirdest part: the sensation can arrive with no clear “reason” I can point at. That can feel unfair. But fairness isn’t a requirement for reality, is it?

At its heart, the dysesthesia tale of dismal dame uses nonsense and reflection to soften the impact of unpredictable sensations.

The tale of the Dismal Dame with Dysesthesia

This is the chapter where the Dame stops being a visitor and becomes a soundscape — not constant, not predictable, but familiar enough that I recognise her footsteps.

On these days, I think about space trauma and the Parisian streets again — not as literal history, but as metaphor: a city marked by events, a body marked by experience. Sometimes it feels like I’m carrying scars in urban space trauma across my own skin: invisible to others, very real to me, and oddly shaped by memory.

When the sensations turn electric or “wrong”, I try to anchor in something ordinary: tea, music, a familiar room, a steady routine. I might also remind myself that other strange bodily signals have their own stories — like Lhermitte’s Sign: A Nonsensical Tale, which taught me that the nervous system can be a mischievous instrument.

And when walking itself becomes a small comedy, I tip my hat to Sir Snortleplops Shoe Left Feet — because if you can’t laugh at your feet, they’ll get ideas above their station.

For a clear, plain-language overview of dysesthesia as a symptom (not advice — just reference), I point curious readers here: Cleveland Clinic: Dysesthesia.

This dysesthesia tale of dismal dame turns lived confusion into language, using wit to stay grounded when sensations misfire.

Nonsense Verse: “The Dame Orders a Present Moment”

The Dame arrived wearing Tuesday’s coat,
 with pockets full of borrowed note,
 she hummed a seam, she rang a sleeve,
 then asked my skin what it believed.
My elbow swore it was a knee,
 my sock declared, “You’re mocking me,”
 the teacup sighed in minor key,
 and toast fell down rebelliously.
A lamppost blinked inside my shoe,
 a zipper sang the whole night through,
 and somewhere — distant, under breath —
 a violin rehearsed my left.
I tried to argue, tried to plan,
 the Dame just smiled, “I’m not a fan,”
 of maps and lectures, charts and forms,
 I deal in whispers, shocks, and swarms.
So I sat down and sipped my tea,
 and let the moment simply be,
 the carpet rolled a quiet wave,
 the curtains practised how to behave.
My nerves performed a cabaret,
 then promptly forgot what to say,
 and in that pause — absurd, serene —
 I found a softer in-between.

Reflections: Living Kindly inside the Oddness

If you’re reading this with a knowing nod, here’s what I’m really saying underneath the silliness: I’ve learned to treat my body like a moody teenager rather than a permanent enemy.

On difficult sensory days, I use ways to adapt that are small, gentle, and personal:

• I reduce friction (literally and metaphorically): softer clothing, fewer commitments, quieter surroundings.
• I use routine as a friendly rail, not a cage.
• I pause before I catastrophise.
• I take the present moment seriously — because it’s the only one I can actually live in.

When failing vision joins the party, I keep my world simple and readable — and if you’re curious about that side of my foggy circus, you can wander through Through the Fog: Fading Vision and the bright-strange glow of Optic Neuritis: Lamp Forgot Glow.

And when fatigue arrives like a slow animal with heavy paws, I treat it with respect — not drama — as I’ve tried to capture in MS Fatigue: The Tortoise Teacup.

None of this is a prescription. It’s just one person’s lived method for staying steady when the body starts improvising.

Through a dysesthesia tale of dismal dame, everyday life is re-imagined as something navigable, even when sensations turn unpredictable.

Conclusion

If you’ve walked with me this far, let me gather the lantern-light in one place. This whole post is a dysesthesia tale of dismal dame, and if you prefer your phrasing a bit different, it’s also the dysesthesia tale of the dismal dame, a dysesthesia tale of a dismal dame, dysesthesia: the tale of a dismal dame, and the tale of the dismal dame with dysesthesia.

I’m living with multiple sclerosis, doing my best to find ways to adapt without turning life into a medical seminar. Some days I manage with grace; other days I manage with nonsense; and occasionally I manage with both — which, honestly, feels like winning.

This dysesthesia tale of dismal dame reflects how creativity and calm can coexist with sensations that refuse to follow the rules.

People say ‘you look well’ because MS learned camouflage early.
Stephenism

🎵 Soul from the Solo Blogger — Tunes from Túrail.