Multiple Sclerosis: The Diagnosis That Changed Everything

I never wanted to become the woman who had a story about surviving something.

But here I am.

In 2014, two words changed the direction of my life.

Multiple Sclerosis.

There is a particular kind of grief that comes with a diagnosis like that. You’re still here. Still breathing. Still looking like yourself. But suddenly, the future you imagined feels like it belongs to someone else.

I remember wondering what my body would take from me next.

My independence? My ability to work? My energy? The life I had built?

And perhaps the hardest part was realizing that I could do everything right and still not control what happened next.

Fear has a way of making your world very small.

But somewhere in the middle of all that uncertainty, something in me refused to accept that my diagnosis would become my entire identity.

I couldn’t control everything happening inside my body. But I could become fiercely intentional about what I put into it, what I put onto it, and how I chose to live in it.

I began questioning things I had never questioned before.

Ingredients. Food. Skincare. The products we trust. The promises we believe. The things we’ve been conditioned to accept as normal.

And the more I learned, the more I realized how much I wanted to do differently.

Love + Be Well was born from that awakening.

Not from a business plan. Not from a desire to enter the beauty industry. And certainly not because I imagined myself spending the next decade making skincare.

It began because my life had changed, and I could no longer look at caring for myself the same way.

What started as a deeply personal need became something I never could have imagined.

A company. A community. Thousands of women trusting something that began in one of the most frightening chapters of my life.

And here’s what I want you to understand.

I am not a woman who defeated MS and went on to build a skincare company.

I am a woman who still lives with MS.

I still have difficult days. I still face uncertainty. I still have moments when my body reminds me that determination alone cannot change everything.

But I have built a beautiful life alongside it.

And that distinction matters.

Because I don’t want my story to suggest that if you eat the right foods, use natural products, or live intentionally enough, you can somehow outrun disease.

You can’t always.

But you can reclaim parts of yourself that fear convinced you were gone.

You can create something meaningful from something devastating.

You can build a life that is bigger than the thing you never asked to carry.

Twelve years later, I look at what Mitch and I have built, and I know one thing with absolute certainty.

I would never have chosen the diagnosis.

But I am incredibly proud of the woman who emerged from it.

And every jar, every bottle, every recipe that leaves our studio carries a piece of that journey.

This was never just about skincare.

It was about taking my life back.

And somewhere along the way, it became a way to help other women care for theirs.

With love,
Natalie

Founder, Love + Be Well