Visual snow syndrome (VSS) recovery, & the importance of redirecting your attention - UK therapist.

A former visual snow "sufferer" therapist; here's my story. www.instagram.com/ferne.therapy My VS first onset a few years ago following a stressful period of my life, & landed me in Manchester Eye Hospital. All of the necessary tests and MRI's were done, & I was told that my issue was neurological and indeed VSS. I felt lost and debilitated; I also learned that I had been suffering with panic attacks, ocd, and severe anxiety undiagnosed my whole life. The more I researched about panic, OCD, and VSS- I realised that there was a strong link: fixating on visual disturbances was a symptom of sensorimotor obsessive compulsive disorder- which is defined as being continuously preoccupied by physical sensations or bodily functions. The unfortunate paradox with sensorimotor OCD is that the more attention you place on your obsession, eg, VS, the more worry and anxiety is experienced, therefore the more intense your symptoms will be and "demand your attention" as the brain believes it is something to be afraid of and needs to monitor, and so the cycle continues. VSS is not the problem- the relationship you have with anxious symptoms is. Recovery involves accepting anxious symptoms, wilfully tolerating them being there, and living your life as you used to thus teaching the brain that it is nothing to be scared of and that you don't need to monitor it. Lo and behold, my panic and anxiety finally started to melt away the more my life returned to normal, I found myself obsessing about my VSS less and less - a process called "habituation". I no longer obsess about my visual disturbances, and my VS is only there if I remember it and find myself looking for it. I'm sure I still also get eye floaters, trailing images, and all the rest of it- but again, I only notice it if I ever look for it and this feels like freedom.