I found that when I was journeying along with my vestibular something (vestibular neuritis + vestibular migraines), it was one thing to slap a label on it, and a completely other thing to truly talk about how it felt. It was easy for a doctor to tell me I was experiencing dizziness, but that wasn't a fair description of it. I felt like I was floating 24/7 and that my world was off-kilter for months and months. Dizziness hardly summed up the complexity of how it felt.

I feel the need to emphasize the absurdity of what it felt like because I know that there are so many people out there trying to make sense of the madness.  I receive messages from people relating to how I felt and in search of answers.  It made me feel foolish trying to put words to it.  I was fighting to stay connected to my life when the darkness was creeping in.  The only thing I know now about the beginning is that I was putting one foot in front of the other.  I was showing up.  When I didn’t think I could, I showed up.  When it took every ounce of my mental and physical willpower to be present, I showed up.  I put on a happy face on the outside, and I fell to pieces behind closed doors.  I was in a state of panic but in so many ways I couldn’t even admit it in the moment.  I was afraid to look it in the eye.  I didn’t even like looking at myself in the mirror feeling like a shadow of myself. 

I’m on the other side now and I’m in a safe place to explore the darkness, once again, because I know there’s a way out.  
​It always starts with a rush of unease, an assault to my system that hits without warning. 

I’ve had vestibular migraine spells happen while eating at a restaurant, mid-conversations, on vacation, while driving (luckily that only happened once, and I pulled over quickly) and various other scenarios.  Interestingly, some of my first memories of these episodes date back to my twenties; although, they were so brief that I never thought more about them or connected the dots.  It’s only in hindsight that I can see how they were a preview of what would hit years later.  There was a period of a few weeks in my mid-twenties when I remember feeling very disconnected from my body.  At the time I was newly vegan and wondered if it was from the transition, so I played around with my diet.  I now know that I was experiencing a cycle of silent migraines (no pain) with the awful symptom of derealization.  I also remember coming through the fog.  I went to bed one night and felt a little bit more present and knew I was coming through the haze.  {except from Uncovering Bliss}