People always think they know how it feels when you lose something that you love, but you never will until it happens to you. My passion is swimming. Swimming is my favorite thing to do, I swim 5 hours a day 6 days a week. It helps calm me down and get rid of my anxiety and negative feelings. It is the one thing in my life that comforts me and helps me physically and mentally. When I was 12 years old I started experiencing dizzy spells whenever I moved. It was nothing severe, it would last about 1-2 seconds. When it happened, everything would go blurry, my head would pound like a sledgehammer pounding cement, and I would lose my balance. I didn’t think anything of it when it started but, it got worse and worse as time went on. One day during school I felt like I was about to faint. I asked if I could go to the nurse and I definitely was not expecting what was about to come. The nurse then told my mom to have an EKG (electrocardiography) done on me. The next day I went down to Kissimmee to have this test done. It wasn’t complicated at all, and people said this normally shows if something was wrong. So I thought my journey would end there but, after my test, nothing showed. This was in February 2018 between then and April I had over 20 different doctors appointments and tests done. I was told I was dehydrated, that I was not eating enough, that nothing was happening I was just imagining it. Then suddenly all of my dizziness stopped, I thought it was gone for good.

I was finally dropping time on my races and events. I was about to make states until my dizziness came back 10 times worse than before. I could barely do a somersault in the water. I couldn’t move my head without being disoriented, or swim a lap in the pool without almost fainting. Every time I moved I felt like daggers were piercing my eyes, and hundreds of bees stinging the inside of my head. My body would go numb, my legs would collapse beneath me like a falling bridge. I couldn’t even take a shower and almost be knocked unconscious.

I realized during practice that I couldn’t bear this pain anymore. Which meant I couldn’t swim. I told my coach what was happening and he said I needed to take a break. I went home that day I cried for a long time. Days passed and I still wasn’t feeling better, then weeks passed and then a month. I went back to the doctor a few days later. I was sitting in the waiting room with stiff grey chairs, that made you feel like something was wrong, and the plain grey walls and fake plants. I never minded the doctor’s office before but now, I hated going there. I always had that feeling of “oh let me give it one more try” and every time I got the same result, nothing. This is why I hated the doctor’s office time after time again I always got nothing.

I was told I needed an MRI and other testing done. The MRI didn’t work because of my braces, I was starting to get really frustrated with everything. It got to the point where I would go home after school and cry every day. I always felt nervous, anxious, and empty. I felt alone and sad when I had so many people around me all of the time. I had stopped smiling as much at school I barely laughed anymore, it was difficult. I was fed up with people telling me that everything was going to be ok, that I had nothing to worry about. I was starting to suffer from an extreme amount of anxiety to the point of it affecting my day to day life. I had lost all interest in things I loved before like watching movies, playing games, and swimming. I could never sleep, I would cry for hours all alone asking why me. I suffered from fatigue and stress, to add to the problems I was starting to have social issues at school. I was put on medication but it didn’t work then more medication after that which didn’t work. Nothing ever worked at all it was all just one big mystery.

My swim coach called me onto the deck in the morning and he sat me down and we talked. He had gone through a similar thing to what I was experiencing when he was in college. So he understood better than anyone how I felt. He talked to me about how people loved me, that I shouldn’t try to be all of these things at once, and how I needed someone who I could talk to about how I felt. So by the end of our talk, I was in tears because he had said every little thing that was happening and how I felt. It was that day that I realized I needed to change my point of view.
I started adapting to what was happening with my head, so after I had adapted to all of these things I was finally able to swim again. Not like I used to but I could still swim. I was so happy for a little bit, then I became more frustrated with myself. I couldn’t swim as I had before, I was weak. I fell back into the cycle of mental breakdowns, anxiety, and emptiness. I then had another talk with my coach. He said, “You will never swim again if you hold yourself to your old expectations.” When he said this I was shocked because I realized how true it was. I just needed to find that sense of wonder and fun like had as a kid.
Now I feel a little better about everything I don’t go home and cry, or have a panic attack. I swim not like before but, I still get to do the things I love. My doctors still haven’t figured out what’s going on, with my head but I have hope that they will one day. I have learned how to have hope, patience, and find the positive side of things. I know that when this dizziness goes away I will come back stronger than ever.