A few days after the new year I came down with a cold. As far as colds go, it hasn’t been that bad. I’ve even been able to breathe through my nose the whole time. The bitch of it is that when I catch a cold, I’m extremely prone to inner ear infections. And since the inner ear is where your balance mechanism is, when it gets infected and inflamed, the result is vertigo.
Thanks to Alfred Hitchcock, many people now associate vertigo with fear of heights. The two are actually completely unrelated; vertigo is a balance disorder, resulting in feelings of dizziness and fatigue. Granted, when you’re feeling dizzy and tired, the last thing you probably want to do is climb a high ladder. But the nasty thing about vertigo is that the ground doesn’t stay in one place while you’re standing on it. Or sitting on the couch. Or lying in bed.
One legacy of growing up with undiagnosed LD is a deep-seated fear my problems aren’t “real”. I was repeatedly told by every available authority figure that I wasn’t “trying hard enough” and that I could succeed if I “really wanted to”. Of course, I was sure I was “trying”, but when every single grown-up around me was telling me otherwise, I soon internalized the message that I was lazy and flawed — and worse, simply unqualified to interpret reality.
When I’m sick with a viral inner ear infection, this fear is always lurking in the background. I don’t look sick, you see. Nor do I sound sick. Nor do I have any symptoms of illness that can be externally validated, like a fever or a cough or even a runny nose. I’m just dizzy and exhausted. If I go to the doctor, they’ll take a look at my ears and tell me everything looks normal. “Just go home and rest”, they’ll say. Great. Rest. I’m bored with resting, and besides … I want proof that I’m sick. Then I could reassure myself that this is real — that I’m not just malingering, making up symptoms for a vague and unverifiable illness, and believing in them because I’m just that neurotic.
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