Dr. Yonit Arthur, AuD, Board-Certified Audiologist and founder of The Steady Coach
You had largely gotten your life back. Things were going well. Then something enormous happened, and the unsteadiness came back.
The question I get, almost every time, is some version of this: does this mean I can’t ever fully recover? Will it always be like this? Will I ever be able to handle stress? Did I do something wrong? What do I do now?
You already know what to do. This is not special or unusual.
It may feel different because you're thinking, obviously I did something wrong if this happened. No. Having a dip when you're under extreme stress is perfectly reasonable during reco very. If you have PPPD, vestibular migraine, MdDS, or another form of neural circuit dizziness, and you were doing well until a huge life event knocked you sideways, this is for you.
Key Takeaways
A dip during an extraordinary life stress, even after substantial progress, is one of the most ordinary things that happens with neural circuit dizziness.
You already know what to do. Nothing about what your recovery needs has changed.
Lasting recovery is a resilient stress bucket. Fully recovered people handle huge stressors without symptoms. That is the goal. If you are still building toward it, a dip during something life-altering is expected.
Two things feed the cycle: how you respond to the sensations, and everything else that already has your system on edge.
Once you are out of the freak-out, look at why this particular stress hit so hard. It is often what the stress means to your nervous system, not only how intense it was.
This Is Not Surprising
I hope that sounds reassuring and not dismissive. I don't mean to downplay what you're going through. A dip in the middle of a life-altering event is exactly what a still-sensitized nervous system does.
Becoming a parenting is a good example of this, and not only because of the sleep. This is not a small event. Your life will never be the same. You are responsible for a small person. Your relationship with your partner has changed. Your whole orientation toward yourself has changed. Your nervous system knows that, even if you are not fully aware of it yet.
Why would it not react?
And if you're reading that and thinking, so I'll never get through a hard period without symptoms again, that's not what I mean either.
When people are fully recovered, they have what I call a robust stress bucket. That is the actual goal of recovery. Lasting recovery means a resilient system. Those people go through all kinds of wild life stressors and they don't get symptoms. You'll hear those stories if you spend any time around people who have gotten to the other side.
But when you are still working toward that, maybe you're in the tail end, and then something this large happens — a baby, a death, a job loss, a serious illness in the family — a dip is the expected response. This is the most neural-circuit thing there is. It is the least surprising thing I hear.
You Already Know What to Do
Nothing about what your recovery needs has changed.
The first priority is the same as it was the first time: how you respond to the sensations. Stay moving. Keep doing your exposures. Don't treat this as something your old tools can't touch. You've already done this. Put those things back in place.
I always tell people that there are two things that feed the cycle of symptoms and sensitization. There are the responses to the symptoms themselves, and there are things other than symptoms that cause your stress bucket, or your system, to be reactive.
A slightly silly example I use a lot:
If you've had a really bad day, and you're sitting on your couch minding your own business, and someone slams the door behind you, you're going to jump a foot in the air. Your system is already on edge. It's more sensitive because you've been under stress.
If you've had a wonderful day, maybe you just had a massage, and someone slams that same door, you barely move. Same sound. Different system.
A stressor like this puts your system on alert the way the bad day does.
So yes, your bucket is in temporary overflow. Practice the exact same things you practiced before. Once you are out of the freak-out stage, then you can ask a different question.
The Slammed Door
After a bad day, the same sound lands differently. A system already on edge jumps. A relaxed one barely moves.
Why This Stress, Specifically
Once the dip is over, and you’re no longer freaking out about symptoms, you can ask yourself: “Why did this particular stressor hit so hard?”
It is not just a capacity thing. Life is stressful. You're going to go through stress. Only certain kinds of it hit people hard, and that's often because of what the nervous system takes the stress to mean, not because of the intensity of it.
Sleep matters. Stress load matters. I'm not pretending they don't. But what often makes an event like this feel so much heavier is deeper than the schedule.
Back to our example from earlier, becoming a parent: that is an identity-level change. It also has a tendency to drag up your own childhood, whether you want it to or not. Anyone who grew up in a situation that was less than ideal, which I assume is more or less everyone, can find that old material coming back. Sometimes it's "I don't want my kid to go through what I went through." Sometimes you find yourself unconsciously playing a role your own parents played, and old wounds come with it.
There are a lot of things that can come up this way, and parenting is just one example. You may not be in a position to look at any of it on day three of a dip. That's fine. Break the fear cycle around the symptoms first. Get solid again on somatic tracking, on responding to sensations differently, on your exposures. Then ask: what's my "bad day"? What is making my system jump out of its chair?
I don't mean the event itself is bad. I mean: what about this is putting me on high alert?
A More Resilient System
Lasting recovery is not a life without stress. It is a system that can go through real life without going into overflow.
Once You Put Things Back in Place
What you're experiencing is extremely normal.
Once you put things back in place, you'll usually get out of the fear cycle more quickly than you did the first time. Then you can look at the rest.
You already know what you're doing.
About the Author
Dr. Yonit Arthur, AuD, is a board-certified audiologist and coach who specializes in guiding those with chronic dizziness and persistent vestibular symptoms. She coined the term Neural Circuit Dizziness (NCD) and developed The Steady Framework, a training program that teaches clinicians and health coaches to bridge the gap between clinical pathology and behavioral recovery. Dr. Arthur holds advanced certifications in vestibular rehabilitation, concussion treatment, and strength coaching, and is trained in experiential counseling modalities including IFS and coherence therapy. With a dedicated YouTube community of over 60,000 subscribers, she has guided thousands to recovery and mentored many professionals. Often known as “Dr. Yo,” she has been a featured speaker at conferences for the Stress Illness Recovery Practitioners Association (SIRPA) and the Association for the Treatment of Neuroplastic Symptoms (ATNS). Dr. Arthur is passionate about equipping practitioners with the tools to help people who standard care often leaves behind. Learn more about her practitioner-focused training at thesteadycoach.com/practitioners.