Being Positive in a World That Won’t Stay Still

Living with Ménière’s disease means living with a world that can tilt, spin, roar, or collapse without warning. It’s an invisible illness, one that hides behind ordinary moments and arrives like a storm no one else can see.

I wrote a poem titled, When the Room Lets Go, about this experience and you can find it in an earlier post on this site.

Many people living with Meniere’s struggle with staying positive. It is incredibly difficult because when an attack hits, fear and dread can overwhelm everything else.

The expectation that you should somehow ‘rise above’ the symptoms is unfair. Meniere’s is unpredictable, frightening, and often traumatic. Positivity becomes something you build in the quiet spaces between the storms, rather than during them.

As an ex musician, I liken it to being unable to control when the feedback screeches, yet you can still shape the moments of quiet, the tuning and the recovery.

In my poem I describe the sensations that rise in my ears, how vertigo makes my eyes lose their place in the world while everything spins a thousand miles an hour. The nausea arrives first, followed by exhaustion, brain fog and anxiety. The unpredictability brings its own weight because I never know when it will return, how intense it will be or whether I will ever get any real respite.

What makes it invisible is the chaos that others never witness. They might see someone stumbling or lying in bed trying to sleep, yet the illness can still be active even in those quiet moments.

The fear of the next attack never fully leaves, even when it softens during longer periods of remission. What does remain is the grief of losing stability, the slow erosion of hearing and the constant noise of tinnitus. There is also a deep frustration that comes from being misunderstood. Over time you try to build a quiet resilience, something steady enough to carry you through the uncertainty.

Returning to an earlier point, how you stay positive with the horrors of Meniere’s.

You do not stay positive through the attacks, because that is almost impossible. You stay positive around them. It is not about pretending the illness is small. It is about building a life that can hold the illness without collapsing under it. Positivity becomes something quiet, steady and practical rather than something bright or inspirational.

Imagine waking up one morning and it is there, the fullness in your ear. Not an attack but that familiar warning it might be coming. Instead of forcing yourself into a normal routine, you move into a low impact mode. You choose tasks that keep you steady. Sit while preparing breakfast instead of standing. Move slowly and deliberately, avoiding sudden head turns. Give yourself permission to do less.

You take breaks before you need them, stay hydrated by sipping water rather than gulping it. You keep your mobile close in case you need assistance. You listen to your body instead of fighting it.

This is not defeat, this is strategy.

By doing this, you create a day that can absorb the unpredictability. You reduce the fear because you are prepared. You reduce the anxiety because you are not pretending you are fine. You reduce the dread because you have built a routine that can survive a bad moment.

This is positivity in the real sense, not cheerfulness, but self‑protection.

After an attack, when exhaustion and brain fog settle in, you feel the familiar frustration. You cannot control the spinning, the nausea or the tinnitus. But you can control the recovery space.

If you can, dim the room. You breathe slowly. You open your eyes and try to focus on a single point across the room. You let your thoughts soften. You remind yourself that this moment will pass, even if it feels endless. You choose one small thing that brings comfort: a warm blanket, a familiar sound, a slow rhythm of breath.

This is not dramatic positivity, it is quiet resilience. You are not rising above the illness, you are building a safe place around it.

For anyone out there suffering from this invisible and often horrid disease, I want you to know that you are not imagining it. It is real and it is frightening. Never think you are weak. It takes enormous strength and resilience to endure these attacks. You are not alone. There are many Meniere’s communities and support groups available. Your life still has direction, please do not let the illness take over your sense of purpose. You can still choose to do things, even if not always in the order or pace you would prefer.

Finally, I want to tell you that it is possible to find creative work born from this illness. My own experience shows this clearly. One of my added symptoms from Meniere’s was diplacusis, or double hearing. I had to give up my life as a performing musician because of it, yet it opened a whole new chapter for me. I began writing short stories, poems, songs and eventually this website.

I would like to suggest that you try some of these things. You could write poems, short reflections or even micro essays. You can relate them to your symptoms and sensations and write them during recovery days. You may find that it helps you understand more and gives you some relief. It certainly did for me.

If you would like to discuss anything on this blog, please feel free to contact me at

ian.rootsofarestlessmind@gmail.com