I have always been an anxious type. Although I do not believe in star signs, this does correlate with me being a Gemini. When the Lilliputians were born, this anxiety manifested into full-blown postnatal depression, which is something that I am planning to discuss at a later stage. This post, however, is about the link between my hearing loss and the anxiety it caused and still causes. It also suggests a few things which help me cope with anxiety. Please note that this post is not based on researched medical scientific facts, but instead on my personal experience. I am planning to do some research on it, and will also post those findings when they are available.
My hearing loss was caused by a virus (varicella-zoster) that caused nerve damage. The virus, however, is one of those fun ones that hang around in your system for a long time and re-emerges when you are stressed or your immune system is having a tough time… or in most cases both. I therefore had shingles more than once and in each case, it caused a little more damage. Together with this damage came vestibular issues, which, like the hearing loss, were only identified later, simply because it was not something that we were looking for at the time. Bigger fish to fry, so to speak.
The saying goes, that hindsight is always twenty-twenty, and that is also true in my case. It is now easy for me to explain that that whole feeling of being out of control and never catching up was because everything was not working as it should. It was because some senses were compensating for others to make me do simple every day things like walk upright, and it was, of course, because I could not hear.
It is however much more difficult to address anxiety when you cannot pinpoint the cause. And that in itself causes anxiety. What a tangled web we weave!
The following, in no particular order of importance, were things that have helped me deal with my anxiety, and most of these will be discussed in separate posts.
Give it a name
I had to identify that what I was feeling was something that I needed to address.
Calling in the professionals
In my case the professionals were numerous and I am grateful for all of them:
- Medical specialists and a fantastic ENT
- A physiotherapist
- A audiologist
- Psychologist and a
- Psychiatrist
What feeds your soul?
A big element that I have unfortunately only come to define in my 30s, was to figure out who I am and what I truly enjoy, what gets me excited and what sparks my interests. It was important to make a list (which is also one of the items J) of the things that feed my soul. NOT the things that I think are supposed to feed my soul, or the things that I think others would be impressed with, but the actual things. For me, it was also important to realise that as we grow and as we reposition ourselves in our various roles, this list also changes. So this is an adventure and not just map. I think that these various items will also find their way into this blog, so watch this space.
Just as a little side note here, I have realised that it is the things that feed your soul that I will be good at, at the end of the day and not the other way around.
What makes me feel like a grownup?
To manage my anxiety I had to make friends with it, and realise that it is always going to be part of my life. I had to however, make a plan to address it in the everyday things and that includes being a grownup: a mother, a colleague, a wife, a friend, a daughter, a sister, a Christian and a human being able to get out of bed in the morning and be accountable for themselves and their actions. In broad terms what I identified here was structure, and this is also something that I will drag into this conversation from time to time, as I have become a bit of a planner geek.
Mindfulness
I have realised in the last year, that this specific element, is something that so many people neglect, and perhaps now that I type here… it is something that pulls all of the above together. For me, mindfulness indicates a few simple things. A good example is that I should know that if I have too much wine, I am going to not only be hung over but also be disappointed in myself. Another is that I have learnt that I am extremely brave in text and cowardly in actual conversations. I can be blunt and insulting on a text message and say things that I will never ever say in real life.
This chat is a very early post of this blog, and I hope that it would grow from here. I still have a lot to learn about the process and many things that I want to do, but I am just leaving this here, for now.