It was around 11pm on a Wednesday night, my boyfriend was holding me up to keep me from hitting the ground, my dads glare was piercing through him.
The back street of my house was whirling around me and the only thing that my eye’s kept landing on was my dad!
My only thoughts were, did he believe me? That I did nothing? That I took nothing? Yet everything was spinning around me at an uncontrollable speed and I had no idea why.
2003
I was in college and had just started getting to know people.
I had a friend over watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S and eating snacks….. it started happening again, I was so embarrassed!
As the room slowly slammed to the right of my vision, It was like the whole room was moving, like it was not me, it was the room doing it. Like the frame of a movie falling off the side of the picture.
I told my friend that I was falling asleep and that I had to go to bed.
It was abrupt and probably really odd but I wasn’t lying, I was falling, falling into a spinning hole of everything around me. I could not keep my vision straight. That night like the year before I slept on the bathroom floor while the insane spinning and vomiting lasted for 8 hours.
Two separate incidents, separate years, different activities, different people, different countries. I tried to connect the dots but I came out with nothing.
Fast Forward 2005
You know how they say everything is bigger in America, well it is true!
I’m laying on the ground, on the corner a road. The dusty sidewalk with little stones pricking me and the sun is beating down on my entire body and it’s too fast this time and I can’t handle it.
It’s a terrorist in my own body that is tearing through me. I had to go to hospital, It wasn’t the same as the last two times, it was more angry, more violent.
10 hours later I could start to see straight again. The hospital had no idea what I had, they proposed it could be a brain tumor? I decided to save the thousands of dollars to get an MRI and wait till i was back home.
My summer in Colorado was nearly over and I had made the most wonderful friends who were with me from College and I didn’t want it to end.
The next day after being in the hospital I thought to myself would I get this same “attack” next year? Is it just a yearly thing?
I just wondered where I would be the following year when it happened again.
Unfortunately for me it wasn’t the next year when it happened again, it was two days later and about 3 to 4 times a week, EVERY WEEK, for the next 2 years.
After Colorado It took about 2 months for a proper diagnosis.
I had absolutely no idea what I had until that point.
I would make plans and a few hours before heading out the heavy head would come, the whooshing of the blood flowing through my head would get louder and louder, and the piercing ringing in my ear would scream at me! Each attack was usually 8 – 10 hours of the violent spinning, the vomiting and having absolutely no control over my body.
I tried so many times to talk my body out of it but I guess my negotiating skills were not yielding the desired results. My friends at college were amazing, I know they got frustrated at times that I cancelled things at the last minute and wasn’t around as much as I once was but they all seen it and somehow understood me so well.
My diagnosis was Ménière’s disease.
I was told that there was no cure, being hurled into a spinning state of no control and vomiting would now be my life.
Three times a week on average it was happening. My hearing was and is slowly deteriorating and eventually I will be completely deaf in my left ear. The medication I was prescribed did not do much and with the list of side affects each drug had I couldn’t believe it was the only option available to me at that time.
You can only imagine the walls I built around myself! The many situations where I was stuck in public places left throwing up in the nearest trash can.
Denied to fly, held back on holidays, nights out, job opportunities, weekends away.
I have walked passed some of my good friends not even saying hello so as to concentrate on the steps in front of me so I could make it to a safe place where my mum or dad could rush to get me before I spent the next 8 hours in a bathroom.
I never explained why I did it. I was too embarrassed, who has an illness of being dizzy?! It was so much easier for them to hate me, it was impossible to explain at the time, I had to concentrate on my steps and getting out of wherever I was.
As my hearing started to deteriorate, friends would say hello and I would walk pass, truly not hearing them and within days their distance was felt. Sometimes I heard through gossip that they called me a bitch for not saying hello; I never explained, I was too embarrassed. Who suddenly becomes deaf in 1 year?
I feel lucky that the extreme repetition of the illness only lasted for 2 years.
As I got stronger and as the years passed the “attacks” lessoned and the only real side effect I was left with was anxiety.
I hid it from almost everyone and pretended it didn’t exist, that the fear of it taking over again didn’t exist and that putting up a wall was the best thing for me.
That way I never had to explain to anyone and It was so much easier letting them judge me however they liked. The lost friendships were collateral damage. Looking back I should have said something and if you know someone suffering from anything share this with them because what I did was wrong.
I know I made mistakes with how I handled things. It’s so hard to be vulnerable in today’s world and I write this to show my mistakes and maybe others won’t be afraid to explain their suffering.
I also write this as a way of healing from it all.
Maybe by looking back and seeing my mistakes others will have the courage to speak up and know they are not alone, the right people will be there for you.
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well worn path; and that will make all the difference.”
I have connected the dots and I have fiercely followed my path. It wasn't always easy but if i can do it so can you!
My lessons have made me who I am today, they have put me on a path I am so grateful for and wouldn’t change a thing.
PS. I can not write this without mentioning my sister.
