MS inspired me to write supernatural thrillers

From poetry to photography, many people find a creative outlet can help them make sense of MS. Emma Warhurst, diagnosed with MS five years ago, writes supernatural thrillers and uses her MS symptoms as inspiration! She shares her story. 

I was diagnosed with relapsing remitting MS around five years ago, but was having symptoms for around a year before I was diagnosed. I started feeling horribly fatigued and generally unwell when I was in my late twenties. I was also experiencing other symptoms like numbness/tingling, and a feeling of crawling on one side of my face. When I spoke to friends and family about what was happening, they would try to reassure me by saying "Everyone gets tired" or "You're probably just run down," and even though I was sure that there was something wrong with me that was very different to the normal feeling of being tired or run down, I started to doubt myself and wonder if I was imagining my symptoms.

I had never has an interest in writing, but during this time I had an idea for a story that kept coming into my mind. The story was about a girl who was living in a haunted apartment, but felt she couldn't tell anyone what was happening because they wouldn't believe it, and she wasn't sure she believed it herself. That idea kept coming back to me, so I eventually put it down on paper, and it became my first novella, The Last Six Days.

After self-publishing The Last Six Days on Amazon, I decided to write a longer novel. By this time I had been diagnosed with relapsing MS and had a few relapses, including optic neuritis, so I offered friends the chance to have characters in the novel named after them in return for making a donation to MS research, raising around £150. 

I don't think I will ever run out of new symptoms to inspire my books. I also love writing because there are so many things I feel I can't do now, so I'm really pleased to have found a creative hobby that isn't made more difficult by having MS, and where having MS actually helps inspire me.

The second book, The Mark of Death, is about people being killed by a cursed tattoo. I used some of my own experiences of MS symptoms, but in the book they are symptoms of being cursed. I feel like having MS makes me unable to trust my senses - there are so many everyday things I am just used to now, like phantom sunburn where my skin feels sore for no reason, or when I feel like someone is pulling my hair even though I know nobody is there. That translates really well to the characters, because they can't rely on their senses either, but it is a ghost playing tricks on them rather than their own body. I take Tecfidera and sometimes experience itching as a side effect - in the book, the characters with cursed tattoos are constantly scratching their neck and forearms because they have inexplicable itching. I like being able to make sense of my own experiences by putting them into my writing, and the weird and unexpected symptoms of MS seem to fit really well in supernatural stories.

I am planning to keep writing, and I don't think I will ever run out of new symptoms to inspire my books. I also love writing because there are so many things I feel I can't do now, so I'm really pleased to have found a creative hobby that isn't made more difficult by having MS, and where having MS actually helps inspire me.

I hope my story encourages other people with MS to start writing too.