How do I start my personal experience off with Visual Snow?
Well it’s a long story but I am going to give you the jist of it. It was 2020 when covid first hit and everyone was unsure if they should be scared or what they should do.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about it but I was trying to avoid falling into fear. However, a family member had a ENT doctor who invited us for a meeting to “educate” us on it.
Honestly, it felt like I had unknowingly stepped into a trap and one of the biggest regrets of my life. He scared all of us and I ended up using a nose rinse he had recommended that ended up causing me painful nerve damage.
I suffered multiple panic attacks, trips to the hospital and sleepless nights. As I could not lay down or rest my head on anything because the pain would so bad and would increase if I dared to lay down.
I was referred to a neurologist and shortly after starting Gabapentin the pain was starting to subside but then I started seeing flashes of light. Terrified I stopped the medication and my anxiety increased. Panic attacks increased and I started seeing static.
I will never know if it was the nerve medication that did it to me or the anxiety. But here I was already traumatized and in pain from this nose specialist I then endured more trauma with having my vision now affected.
The mental emotional repair time has been ongoing for me. The ways I have coped with dealing with. VS has been therapy, EMDR therapy, my faith in God that he’s got me and that I can trust Him with my vision and life and my new love for working out and lifting weights at the gym.
I am now studying to become a personal trainer because I have felt emotionally, mentally and physically from being at the gym. It calms my heart and mind and body and I feel so much better when I go to my happy place at the gym. Listening to my music and pushing my body to change and grow in a healthy way.
I also love painting and I have been growing in my art as well.
If VS has taught me anything it’s that life is too short to waste it sitting on a couch all the time and not going after your dreams. Get up and keep moving even when you don’t feel like it or it hurts. You will feel that much better if you don’t give up and you make choices and take action towards the things you love in life. Find things that make you laugh and being you joy. Because everything in your life can change so quickly.
Sometimes good and sometimes bad. Although I still experience grief and anxiety with dealing with visual snow I thank God I can still see. I can still move my body and I’m still here moving forward in life.
I’m a mom and giving up isn’t an option. My son means the world to me and I want him to learn from me that no matter what he can get back up when life knocks him down and he can keep going too.
