I have had a bad week. Last Thursday, after a shower, I dried my ear with a twist of toilet paper and plugged up one ear. I ignored it, and on Friday I increased my SAMe intake from two tablets a day to three, shrugging off the warning of increased agitation.

Saturday morning the ear was still plugged up so I went after it with a Qtip, driving the wax so far into my ear that it triggered feelings of claustrophobia. To distract myself, I went to see “Zero Dark Thirty” about brutal interrogation, waterboarding, and a Seal assault leading to death. I was so overwhelmed with the feeling of suffocation I had to leave the theater three times in the first hour. The feeling of being choked was so strong I actually took off my necklace. Yet I took a third SAMe for the day right after the movie.

Saturday night I felt like I was dying. My mind said, “it’s just earwax. You’re not going to die of earwax.” but my body really ached up the center line from my solar plexus to my heart.
My early-life decision came back: No one would help me. They were going to leave me me die. I had such a strong “felt sense” of being a sick child with plugged ears and a stuffed nose and not being able to breathe. I felt like I was being punished for being bad.

I know that at the age pictured, with two smokers in their early 20s for parents, I had frequent bouts of tonsillitis and upper respiratory congestion. My long hair would get matted when I was sick and I hated having it combed out. In frustration, they may have decided to “just let her cry.”

I kept going outside for walks in the 25-degree night because it was the only time I felt I had enough space or enough air. My mind said, “You don’t breathe through your ears. This is discomfort. You can tolerate it.” I did not wake up my husband because there was nothing he could do to help me. I started to understand what Xanax is for.

Vulnerable means Woundable. Can we try “Receptive”?

I try to fix things myself. I was so frustrated that I could not see into my ear. I knew the Emergency Room on a Sunday in January would be full of people with the flu coughing on me because ear wax would be called last. By mid-morning I realized that a neighbor I sometimes speak to is a retired doctor. I knocked on her door at noon. Nothing.

By mid-afternoon she was back and was happy to rinse out my ear with a dilute solution of hydrogen peroxide. She got it unplugged. I was SOO relieved. Went to the store and got her a $20 bottle of French wine. But I didn’t sleep that night. The agitation was almost as bad, except this time I could hear with both ears. I found a pile of leaves on the sidewalk nearby. Crunching though them at midnight calmed me.

Monday morning it took 2 hours to get a doctor appointment, and they wouldn’t give me one on the same day. Another bad night, but I stayed inside. Tuesday the young doctor scraped the wax off my eardrums and it hurt! “I thought you had suction!” I yelped. But I can hear better now.

What I Learned

As toddlers, we really are helpless, but the “learned helplessness” can be crippling in later life and can become part of the foundation of depression. To climb out of the harmful early leaning, I can learn to look for the Helpers, and to ask for help. I now have tools that I did not have as a pre-schooler, including Reiki, Zen Mind, Compassion and other spiritual and mental tools.

I should let my ears drain naturally, not even a hair dryer, because ear wax is supposed to stay pliable so it doesn’t stick to your eardrum. Lateral jaw action and an occasional, single drop of mineral oil in the ear will help keep it pliable.

I should have started the search for an ear doctor right away. The feeling of dying can be very scary. Three SAMe tablets is too many.