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Do you ever talk trash to your MS? 

The reality is that I have been talking trash to my MS from Day One — Feb. 14, 2000, to be exact. Cursing at it. Downgrading it. Insulting it. Challenging it. Undermining it. Ridiculing it.

I have found it actually helps to empower me in my competition with MS, similar to the ways it fires up athletes when they trash talk their opponents.

It turns out I’m not off base in verbally sparring with this disease. 

In a recent episode of his ReThinking Podcast, host Adam Grant has a thought-provoking conversation with journalist Rafi Kohan about the ways trash talking can fuel the performance of athletes. Kohan’s latest book, Trash Talk: The Only Book About Destroying Your Rivals That Isn’t Total Garbage, delves into the art and history of talking smack to your competition.

I’m not going to turn this into an extended narrative that dissects the classic competitive banter between sports legends such as Magic Johnson vs. Larry Bird, teams such as The Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Michigan Wolverines, or current WNBA rookies Angel Reese vs. Caitlin Clark.

However, I am going to use the ReThinking Podcast conversation and my more than 25 years of experience dissing MS to make the case for why there are motivational qualities to vocally disparaging this stupid disease.

I get it. MS can't talk. But its actions speak louder than any words it ever could say. 

When it zaps the energy in my legs to the point that I fall. Limits the amount of water I drink because it has weakened my bladder. Makes me too tired to go out for dinner on a Friday night. Numbs my fingers to the point I can’t simply seal the zipper on a sandwich bag.  

These kinds of actions, which I take as MS insulting me, gets to the core of comments Kohan made to Grant about the power of trash talking in competition. He said this kind of jabber essentially is challenging your opponent and indirectly asking, “Can you handle this? Can you raise your game?” 

Yes, I feel quite defeated each time things such as these happen. But only for a brief moment. I quickly become angry and mutter something like, “Is that the best you got, MS? Let me know when you think you’re going to actually challenge me. It. Is. On!”

So I dig in, put on my game face, and push myself even harder to try and keep MS from getting the best of me.

Something Kohan said that really stuck with me regarding trash talking and competition was that, “A rival will push you further than you can go on your own.”

Does that strength come in trash talking and MS pushing us further then we can go on our own? Yes and no. Because even when things seem to be at their worst, none of us are in this competition alone. We each have family, friends, healthcare providers, in-person and online community members, and countless other people to join us in our competitions with MS.

Some days we win. Some days we lose. But we always find the strength in ourselves and support from the people surrounding us to come back and compete (and trash talk) another day.