00:00:02:09 - 00:00:31:29
Ashley
My name is Ashley Ratcliff. I was diagnosed with MS in March 2018. I know how isolating MS can be, and I realized that my vulnerability is someone else's validation. Facts about MS that I wish people knew is that it’s a snowflake disease. How it affects me does not reflect how it affects someone else. People like to give anecdotes about loved ones or people that they come across who have lived with MS and say that they had a good go of it or that they had a bad go of it.

00:00:31:29 - 00:00:56:06
Ashley
It’s not encouraging. That experience does not mean that that’s how my disease course will be, so I encourage people to not project or generalize about MS, because it truly is different for everyone. Secondly, MS was thought to be a disease that mostly young, white women got. Research is showing that Black women actually had a 47 percent increased likelihood of getting MS.

00:00:56:18 - 00:01:06:22
Ashley
My fellow MS warriors, do not let MS stop you. You have MS. MS does not have you. So let’s get it, guys. We’re in this together.