Welcome to The Allison Paige!
Hi, I’m Allison Paige Ratkovich. Writer, activist, and political commentator. Sixty-two years old. Living with multiple sclerosis. Writing personal essays about the wildly interesting chaos of aging, chronic illness, and our current political moment, without apology.
Maybe you found this place because something isn’t sitting quite right.
Maybe it’s a news cycle that hasn’t let up in years. Maybe it’s a body that wages war on itself while the rest of the world expects you to keep up. Maybe it’s both at the same time — the particular exhaustion of fighting on two fronts while everyone around you only sees one.
If any of that landed, you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be.
How I got here
I was raised being told, not taught, what to believe. Christian. Republican. Without ever being given the tools to question it, live it honestly, or find my own answers. I stayed politically silent well into my 40s.
Then came the things that broke the dam open.
A multiple sclerosis diagnosis. A beloved uncle, someone I loved like a father, who cut me out of his life three days after that diagnosis over assumed political differences. My daughter was diagnosed with MS at 29, ten months after me.
That’s when silence stopped feeling like an option. That’s when I started writing.
What you’ll find here
Political essays that take a position and don’t apologize for it. I’m not reporting the news. I’m making sense of what it means for people like us, with stakes like ours.
MS truth. I live with multiple sclerosis. My daughter was diagnosed ten months after me. I write about what that actually looks like, in a country where healthcare policy is someone else’s negotiation and our lives are the collateral.
Real talk about building income and a life worth having. When the traditional path closed, you had to make a new one. I use AI as a cognitive prosthetic and an income tool. Not a shortcut. Not a replacement for my voice. An accommodation. The same way someone uses a cane, or medication, or noise-canceling headphones. I embrace it openly, use it ethically, and I sell resources on how to use it to earn money and make life more manageable. Most people hedge on AI. I don’t.
How I fight
I’m a District Activist Leader for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. I volunteer with American Promise, working toward a constitutional amendment to get big money out of politics. I protest within the bounds of MS-daily phone calls, letters to representatives, this Substack, online forums, and advocacy groups. And I practice daily nervous system regulation and mindful meditation, because you cannot fight the fights and meet the moment if you’re running on empty.
Who this is for
Democracy fighters who are exhausted from showing up and refuse to stop anyway.
MS warriors and chronic illness fighters are navigating a medical system that doesn’t believe you, with symptoms nobody can see.
Adults building second acts; new tools, new income, proving that the most important work sometimes comes last.
The thread connecting all three: invisible struggle, economic pressure, and the refusal to be written off.
My why
His name is Isaac. Three years old. Strawberry blonde hair, big blue eyes, a constant smile, and a giggle that sounds like untouched joy. He is the reason I get out of bed on the hard days.
I know an MS cure won’t come in my lifetime. So I fight to see it found in my daughter’s.
Everything I write is for the democracy Isaac will inherit. For a country worth having. So I can look him in the eye one day and tell him I didn’t look away.
I’m his Baba. He is my why.
Subscribe for free. Fight with me.
Hit reply on anything. I read every response. You are not shouting into the void.
Honest Ink. Permanent, unapologetic, worth the fight.
Allison Paige Ratkovich
If this is your kind of thing, subscribe and come hang out! I write several times a week.
If subscribing isn’t right for you at this moment, you can support my work by buying me a yummy cappuccino.
Your generosity makes a difference. Always. 🧡
Take a peek at my Gumroad Store!
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