Welcome to my FIVE year anniversary blog post

I'm Wendy Spickerman and five years ago today, I was diagnosed with tinnitus and hyperacusis induced vertigo with migraines.

I'm not going to minimize the hell I went through or the difficulties I still struggle with today.

It's a daily struggle! Something I have to work on every day, but it does get easier. Your body learns to adjust, cope, and adapt with time. However, you can only get to this point if you let yourself go through the stages of grief we all feel.

Stage of Grief

• Shock
• Fear
• Sadness
• Concerns
• Anger
• Acceptance
• Hope

It can be quite a SHOCK to go from a normal everyday life to suddenly having a condition that interferes with living life.

The FEAR one faces that we might not get better can be terrifying especially when it comes to conditions that have no known cure like tinnitus and hyperacusis.

We all feel that SADNESS for losing what we enjoyed doing. Allow yourself to feel it, talk about it, write it down. This will help you move forward to acceptance.

There are many CONCERNS we must address. Things like caring for a child, being able to work, losing a job, spouse, a relationship, worries of bills and getting care. 

These are not false concerns. They are all very important. What you can do, to help yourself reduce stress is, make a list of your own personal concerns and talk to your doctor about them.

Go ahead and get angry. ANGER is an emotion we all feel at some point. we hate feeling so helpless, we can't stand it when others don't understand. 

For me, I was angry that my independence was ripped away. I went from doing so many things by myself to needing someone with me, like a child unable to cross the street alone. Not only do I have severe tinnitus, hyperacusis where sounds were now painful and amplified to me, but something happened that screwed up my directional hearing. I couldn't tell what direction sounds were coming from.

It might not happen overnight and some people may need help accepting they have tinnitus or hyperacusis: a number of medical conditions are hard to accept.

But the more you learn about your condition, the more questions you ask, you start to feel a little better, less terrified of the unknown, uncertainty. ACCEPTANCE is key to overcoming.

As you try different things you learn what works for YOU. With every new form of therapy, medication, and knowledge that comes your way HOPE grows within, makes you a little bit stronger to fight the fight another day

So today, I'm here to tell you there is HOPE. You CAN do this. It takes hard work, determination, and a lot of repetitive treatment but you can learn to react differently, adjust, adapt, and cope with your condition.

I'm doing it and you can too. Don't be afraid to reach out for help. Be sure to follow my blog here as I continue to write about my own personal experience Living With Hearing Sensitivity and keep up to date with my new podcast out on Soundcloud.

My next podcast will talk about ways to help you sleep and what got me back to sleeping with the assistance of devices or medication. It's no joke but I warn you it takes hard work on your part because you'll be retraining your brain.

Good Luck to all of you. Keep up the fight!

Wendy Spickerman