About mid-March something happened while I was diving in the Philippines. If you’re an avid reader of my blogs you may already know to what I am alluding, but if you are not, worry not, I will fill you in as we go. I sustained a small, yet meaningful injury while out in Bohol that ended up altering the course of my trip as well as the weeks & months following it & for the last two months I’ve treated said injury like it was nothing, like it was healed or a thing in the past, which for all intents & medical purposes, it is. But I came to the realization this week that I don’t think I’ve psychologically healed from it.
Back in March I perforated my left ear drum. I’m not entirely sure if it was done while diving or when I had two o-rings pop on scuba tanks right next to the ear ear in question, but I am starting to feel it was a combination of the the two with the latter being the inceptive event.
I went to a doctor in the Philippines for the injury as well as two separate otolaryngologists here in The States that assured me that the hole was there initially & that it was sealed up & in the process of being healed. I noticed the injury going forward mostly within the first month of having it. Loud noises would cause it to buzz uncomfortably, almost like the feeling of a high pitched dental drill, but without the sound, & it also kept me awake at night. My eustachian tube would crackle & pop all throughout the night, adjusting to the pressure within & without the mending drum. Other than that, I had no physical pain or wonky discomfort & by all measures of medicine, I was healing.
I came to the realization earlier this week that I hadn’t had my ears underwater since being diagnosed with the perforation in the Philippines. Yes, I take showers & cleaned my ears, but I hadn’t taken a bath or gone swimming which for someone like me who craves the water & being submersed there in, is incredibly strange. I realized that for two whole months I hadn’t stuck my head underwater, which medically is probably wise since a perforation can take a total of 3-4 months to fully heal, but psychologically I found myself getting very anxious at the sheer thought of submerging my whole being back in water which is something that has never happened for me.
The body keeps score, whether we as people want to acknowledge that we’ve been through something traumatic or not, the body knows & often times the latent affects of that take a while to make their way up through the grey matter of our subconscious into the forefront of our thinking, conscious brain. For some of us that never happens & we end up living out lives unaware of the trauma that we are storing in certain parts of our body & the physical manifestations therefrom. The more I thought & thought about submersion, the more anxious it made me, & the more angry I found myself getting that I would be anxious over something I thought so trivial & stupid. I’ve been swimming as long as I can remember, bodies of water, especially oceans, are my calming, safe place, my retreat when I need to stop feeling like I’m drying out. To an extent that all felt kind of ripped away from me even though I knew there were ways of going forward in life had the perforation continued to exist. It didn’t take me long to decide that I needed to reclaim my strength & fortitude & try dealing with my trauma head on so that hopefully, it too will start to heal.
I guess the powers that be kind of forced my hand too as Evan & I had to have birds removed from our walls & the only way the retrieval crew could get to them was through the ceiling of our shower, which I have since patched with drywall & fixed. However, while our shower has been out of commission, I was forced to take baths to get clean.
I spent a relatively long time in the bath the other evening. Our tub is fairly large & allows for a person to lay down comfortably in it at least majority submerged, so I spent my time there preparing for the inevitability of having to dunk my whole head to get clean. When the time finally came & felt myself having to overly prepare for it mentally, like stepping into a cold shower or an ice bath. Once my head was finally under I found myself having to fight to regulate my heart rate.
I did this a process a few more times, each time trying my best to calmly navigate my way through it, osculating my head back & forth to make sure to get the water in my ear. At a certain point I got comfortable enough to set with it & fortunately, by the end of it, my ear didn't end up having it feel wonky or uncomfortable.
I found my anxiety continuing even after the conclusion of my bath. I sat in bed mentally checking to see if anything felt off physically with the ear or if I felt it had been a mistake to carry out my trial, but the more time I sat & thought about it, the more anxious I became. I decided to put it out of my mind for the night & see if the morning bore any different results from those of the evening.
Morning came & went & nothing came of the fears that still lived within me. I took another bath that evening & allowed myself to go through the trials of the ear drum once again, drying it thoroughly afterwards just to be safe & using medicated drops to make sure the moisture wouldn’t become trapped & result in an infection. Still I felt uneasy about it all.
I realized I was trying to rush my healing. I wanted to force & mold something delicate & tender with sheer brute force & will power & I had to realize that, as with all things, healing takes time, especially when it comes to healing the mind. I have to give myself & my body the space & patience they need to come back together on the same page, in a place where I am able to submerge without becoming anxious or fearful that my ear drum is going to just fly back open. Just like my body didn’t physically heal over night, my mind can't & shouldn’t be expected to do the same.
I’ll be alright, I know I will. I know there will come a time down the road where I won’t thing twice about fully entering the water & that is worth waiting for & it is worth putting in the effort to heal along the way.
I hope you all have a fabulous weekend or whatever point of the week this blog finds you & remember to extend a little patience & grace your own way!
As Always, Much Love,
-C