The circus strikes again

I can't sleep again.  The worry circus has started up, full stop.  I find myself constantly worrying about things that are beyond my control.  During the day, I can keep these thoughts at bay with reason and logic, but at night, that's a different situation.  At night, I'm resting peacefully in bed, snuggled next to a sprawled out baby, when I hear the sounds of the ominous stomping and trumpeting of elephants.

The circus is close by.

I try to brush it off, I'm sure tonight they will pass by me, I am almost asleep, I don't think they'll even notice me.

I can smell the sickly sweet cotton candy and oily popcorn.  So close to sleep, so close.

It is too late.  By the time I turn over to try and hide, shove the pillow over my face, the clowns are already right in front of me, leering and cackling.

You are too old to go back to school!  
The MS will take your ability to walk and think, leaving you useless and unable to do anything!
You are fat and will always be that way!




...and now I'm awake, writing in my blog bog, hoping that this will help me let go by hopefully connecting to others who know what I mean.
Despite the horrible things my mind likes to tell me, I try to look at it with a different perspective.  If it is only at night that these clowns tell me these awful things, when I'm tired and defenseless, than these clowns must be bullies.  How does one defeat bullies?  Laugh it off?  Ignore them?  Cower?
Sure.  I could do those, if they weren't inside my head it'd be easier, but yes, I could do those.  I choose a different route, though.  I choose to understand why they do what they do.
Why does my brain clowns tell me these things?  Well, they're partially true.  I am older, and eventually going back to school.  No one is ever too old to learn.
My MS is unknown territory.  I am fine today, but it is uncertain of tomorrow.  But isn't that how most of life is?  We are never certain of what will happen to any of us in the future, and THAT'S OKAY!  I don't like to think that I will be completely paralyzed, or unable to think, but that is highly unlikely to happen, and the medical community has come a long way.  I have faith that I will be able to overcome it.  They still don't know why MS even happens, so much is a mystery about it.  Why treat it like it is a death sentence?  I can't do that, not anymore.  Life is too cool to make it into a drudgery.
As for the last comment, I am fat.  I am larger than I would like to be.  I also try to be as healthy as possible, not just because of my health problems, but because I would like to set an example for my little boy.  I am active as I can be for the moment, and that is good enough.  Being fat does not mean I have to be afraid of being happy.
Besides my brain clowns being bullies, what use is it to have these thoughts at night?  Nothing good happens late at night, just dreams and nightmares.  In fact, these are exactly like nightmares.
Oh.  An epiphany.
When I have nightmares, I usually tell someone about it, then usually laugh about how silly it is now that I've said it out loud, and go on with my life.  These need to be treated the same way.