For nearly twenty years, Carolyn Collins has been living with Multiple Sclerosis. In that time, she's learned something many people spend a lifetime discovering: stability isn't something you find. It's something you create.
Today, she's known as an advocate, writer, speaker, creator, and founder of MANIFESTINGSTABILITY247. But before she became any of those things, she was a woman trying to understand what was happening to her body.
Carolyn Collins wakes up at 4:30 in the morning. Not because an alarm goes off. Not because she has somewhere to be. She wakes up because her body tells her to. "I have a natural energy in me already," she says. "It's just natural." Multiple Sclerosis complicated that energy in ways she is still learning to navigate. There were periods when she went days without sleeping. Doctors eventually told her that her internal clock was broken. "My body doesn't know when it's time to go to sleep," she says. "That part is broken."
Instead of fighting it, she learned to work with it. The early morning hours became her most productive time. By the time the rest of the world is waking up, she is often ready to rest. She calls it figuring herself out. It's been her project for decades.
Carolyn's MS story began in 1997, though nobody would call it Multiple Sclerosis for another ten years. That year, she fell from a ladder and struck her head on concrete. Within months, things began changing. Her hands tingled constantly. Her left leg would suddenly become heavy and unresponsive. Spasms appeared without warning. Symptoms came and went, often disappearing before anyone could explain them.
At the time, Carolyn was attending school part-time, studying Criminal Justice while continuing to work. One day during a computer class, her fingers began tingling and stiffening. Typing became difficult. Weeks passed, and the problem didn't go away. Eventually, she was forced to withdraw from her classes. "I didn't know what was happening," she says. "I just knew my body wasn't doing what it used to do." The symptoms followed her into every area of her life. While working as a security supervisor, she received a radio call requesting assistance on the third floor. She rushed upstairs, handled the situation, and returned to the front desk.
Moments later, she collapsed where she stood. Nobody connected the dots.
She visited hospital after hospital throughout the Philadelphia area. Einstein. Chestnut Hill. Hahnemann. Drexel. Jefferson. "They all knew CC," she says. Each visit addressed the immediate crisis, but no one could explain why the crises kept happening. The heat made everything worse.
One afternoon while working at Springfield Mall, a headache became so severe she had to call her team to meet her in the parking lot. "My head felt like it wanted to hit the dashboard," she says. "That's how heavy it felt." Years later, she would experience one of the most frightening episodes of her life. Standing outside waiting for a bus with her aide on a hot summer day, Carolyn suddenly knew something was wrong. The temperature was around eighty degrees, but the heat index was much higher.
"I looked at her and told her something wasn't right."
Within moments, her eyes became heavy. Her head began dropping. Then her body stiffened. "It felt like my whole body locked up." An ambulance transported her to the hospital. Of all the symptoms she experienced through the years, it remains one of the scariest. "It taught me that heat wasn't just uncomfortable for me. It could completely shut my body down."
Some of the hardest moments weren't dramatic. They happened quietly.
One morning, Carolyn reached for her toothbrush. She's left-handed and had spent her entire life using her left hand without a second thought. This time, she couldn't grip it. Standing alone in the bathroom, she steadied the toothbrush against the sink, opened the toothpaste with her mouth, and picked everything up with her right hand.
"It felt wrong," she says. "My brain kept saying, 'What are you trying to do?'"
That moment became one of many lessons in adaptation. She began teaching herself how to use her right hand.
• One task at a time.
• One adjustment at a time.
• One day at a time.
In 2007, an episode at Springfield Mall sent her to Crozer Hospital in Delaware County.
She spent a week there. On May 4th, a doctor finally gave a name to what had been happening for a decade.
Multiple Sclerosis.
"May 4, 2007, I was doing this alone," she says. "No mom, no dad, no sister, no brother, nobody." The doctor handed her information about Copaxone, instructed her to inject herself daily, and left the room. For a long time, that was her treatment plan.
She bruised herself badly learning how to administer the injections. Her short-term memory was already affected, making it difficult to remember which injection sites she had used.
"I was already being unseen in my own life," she says. "With this, it makes you feel invisible."
Then she found community. In 2010, she connected with the National MS Society and met women who understood exactly what she was living through. She calls them her MS sisters. "We get it," she says. And for the first time, she wasn't carrying the journey alone.
In 2016, after surgery, Carolyn was referred to occupational therapy for her hands. The exercises bored her.
So she went to Walmart and purchased string and large-hole beads. What started as therapy became creativity. The creativity became jewelry. The jewelry became purpose. Today she creates bracelets, cups, shirts, hats, wristbands, and inspirational items. She shares them at events, fundraisers, and MS walks. She also created a new phrase for herself.
"God told me to change Multiple Sclerosis into Manifesting Stability," she says. The phrase became more than a name. It became a mindset.
MS changed Carolyn's life.
• It changed her mobility.
• Her strength.
• Her energy.
• Her sleep.
• Her memory.
There were days she couldn't roll over in bed, brush her teeth normally, or trust her body to cooperate. But over time, she realized something important. She couldn't always control what MS would do. She could control how she responded.
Little by little, she changed the way she thought. She stopped focusing only on what she had lost and started recognizing what remained. Her faith deepened. Her gratitude grew. She found purpose in writing, creating, mentoring, encouraging others, and sharing her story.
Today, she often describes herself as blessed. Not because life has been easy. But because she has learned to recognize the invisible gifts hidden within difficult seasons. "The disease changed my body," she says. "But it also changed the way I see life. I learned to appreciate people. I learned to appreciate moments. I learned that joy is a choice. I learned that God can bring purpose out of pain."
She's stronger than she's ever been. Not despite everything she's been through. Because of it. And if she could leave one message for someone newly diagnosed, it would be simple:
• Close your eyes.
• Breathe.
• Build a medical team that understands MS.
• Find your support system and never underestimate the power of changing your mindset.
She spent years building her life back piece by piece. Now she spends her time helping others do the same. "If I can reach one person," she says, "to help them understand not only about me, but about themselves, then it was worth it. You can do it."
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