Potty Mouth: A Woman Disabled With Multiple Sclerosis Bravely Meets Life's Challenges With Courage, Wisdom, and a Profane Sense of Humor.

Renae Clare has lived with the symptoms of Multiple Sclerosis including paralysis, depression and fatigue for over 40 years. This deeply personal account, Potty Mouth, was written as a series of essays after each of her psychotherapy sessions. Her therapist, Dr Cinzia LeValds recommended putting them all together into book form feeling that Renae's completely open and brutally honest voice would help a great many people. She has dealt with abuse, with aging, with disability, and with loss. Renae's wickedly profane sense of humor shows her optimistic spirit shining through even under the most depressing and difficult times. This book is gut wrenchingly truthful and yet, at times it is laugh out loud funny. It was written for the purpose of healing and forgiving Renae Clare's past and as such there are many things in Potty Mouth that she had never spoken of before beginning therapy. It is written with the thought of helping not only herself but others to find the inner strength and inner peace needed to get through the obstacles that she has come up against over time. Although she has MS her optimism shines through and she is an inspiration to everyone she meets. Potty Mouth also includes practical guides to finding help for disabled people and how to keep and restore self-confidence and self worth. Renae Clare's book hides nothing.

Motherfucking MS On January 20, 2011, I will have lived fifty-nine years, and I still have so much to think about and so much to do and so much to come to terms with. I don't feel like a woman almost sixty years of age. When I was a kid growing up, I thought sixty was old. My grandparents died in their sixties, and Mom was sixty-six when she passed on. Going to therapy once a week with Dr. Cinzia has given me a taste of optimism and has lessened my fear of this dreadful disease, Multiple Sclerosis, and my fear of losing even more of my powers and control. I had lost sight of my real self by claiming my disability as the totality of who and what I am and as a result, I had become a victim. I had lost sight of the fact that my uncontrollable body is just the house that my spirit lives in and is a vessel for me to learn and grow in. How far I have come in my journey and how very much further I have yet to go! When I first came to Texas, I worked as a receptionist. I was always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the day when I could no longer walk, because I knew my body was weakening, and the MS was getting worse. I tried to hide it, but the stress of hiding it came at a terrible cost. I was exhausted all the time, not just from the MS itself, but from thinking constantly about how to do what I needed to do without anyone knowing how much weaker I was getting physically and how much more stressed I was getting mentally. I fell so many times and had to have coworkers and even customers help me get back on my feet; they had to pick me up and help me steady myself with the cane I was using at the time. I got up with a smile, telling everybody I was okay and acting as though I was taking it all in stride. Many of those times, I would go into the bathroom or into my car and cry from the humiliation of it and the fear of not knowing how much longer I could hold on. Seeing the looks of concern and pity in their eyes was awful, so I got up and moved on, trying to keep my fear and suffering inside. I stuffed it deeper and deeper, never admitting to anyone what I was really feeling or what was really going on. I could not admit my fear and loathed the thought of other people thinking that I was weak and pitiful. I hated the word disabled. I wanted everyone to see me as courageous, as a woman who went on no matter what. But inside, I was drowning; I was devastated. I felt weak and tired from doing my damndest to hide what was really going on. I felt that I was making a fool out of myself over and over again. I remember one time being in the owner's office with my supervisor; we were talking about something or other, and I peed in my pants as I was standing there right in front of them. I was humiliated and just wanted to die because I couldn't stop it. I had no control. I was just thankful I had on dark pants. I don't think they even noticed, but I'm sure I left a wet spot on the carpet. The look on my face must have been a mixture of horror from the possibility that they would notice and disgust with myself for not being able to control my own body. I thereby fumbled my words and probably sounded like a jerk. I slithered out of there as best I could with my cane, my legs shaking and my arms straining with the effort of holding myself up for so long, just hoping that I wouldn't fall right there in the owner's office.. I felt so weak and so terribly ashamed. I went to the bathroom and got myself together before I went back to work at my desk, where I sat pretending that everything was just fine. I've learned so many new ways to handle things along the way that if I'd known then what I know now, I would have saved myself untold horrors and many dreadful, fearful incidences --far too many to count. At one point, I had an intestinal infection that went on for months. I thought it was MS related, but it just kept getting worse and worse. My good friend Keith finally convinced me to see a doctor. After several prescriptions for antibiotics, which caused unbearable nightmares that allowed me very little sleep, I finally got that behind me. However, more traumatizing humiliation that I find it hard to believe I got through followed. I had uncontrollable diarrhea at work. I often had to call for backup to take my place at the reception desk, but sometimes, my replacement would take too long and I would have to shove paper towels into my pants so I wouldn't shit on my office chair. You just never know how MS will affect you from one moment to the next. One morning, as I was driving up to my work building, I became extremely dizzy and I hit the gas pedal instead of the brake and crashed into the metal rail in front of the plate-glass doors. If the steel railing had not been there, I would've gone through the plate-glass doors and right into the building. The rail was bent to hell. My car was a mess, the front bumper in pieces and broken headlight bits all over the place. I hobbled around and picked up as many pieces as I could. I put them in my backseat. I backed up, doing even more damage in the process, and then I tried to drive the car, but I did not get very far. Fortunately, Keith was working nearby, so I called him in a panic, and he came and got me. He helped me get a tow truck to get my car into a body shop. I had a rental for two weeks. I also had to explain to everyone at work how it had happened. The front of the building was a mess. I still can't believe I did that. Everybody was great about it, but my confidence was shattered yet again. Fucking MS.