One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

Need some support. I was doing fine step by step. But now since a week i notice i am falling back again.
I really don't know why. I began to listen to it again. My head feels full, hear a low humming sound (not all the time) but it realy freaks me out. Start crying. 8.5 Months T right now. Started with a high pitch. The morning are the worst. There are days when i only hear it in listent but still i have this feeling inside of me, cant stop thinking about it. Before that i was able to ignore it most of the time but This week its only on my mind.
I hate it. Why can i not ignore it any more?

Will i be fine in time? Will there be a day that a dont care about it anymore?

 

Feel for you, @sandra72. That day will come sooner than you imagine - you already were doing fine isn't it? So it's normal having this feeling from time to time. It's really possible that here and now your enemy is the anxiety, that changes the perception of your T. Think about talking to a doctor. A big hug

 

Yes you will be fine in time and yes there will be a day when you don't care about it anymore.

The answer is in your post: "I began to listen to it again". Listening is an active process, your unconscious mind hears everything going on around but unless it's of importance, it doesn't inform your conscious mind about it unless it's either asked to: You separate a sound from other sounds so you can pay attention to it or...the sound is deemed so important that the unconscious throws it into the conscious mind; like an explosion or a car horn beeping at you. These sounds have value or emotional salience..they're important.

An interesting example of this is when you're in a busy pub or bar with music playing and lots of people talking yet you can follow a conversation without it being drowned out by noise of equal volume. It's focused attention, this is one of the principles of habituation, the attention creates a zone of inhibition and attenuates other sound processing neurons in your mind. That's why you can't think of two things at the same time.

Solution? Don't think about your Tinnitus. "easier said than done" you're probably thinking...well yes and no.

To get the ball rolling here is the first technique. If you're like me; when I first got T the first thing I would do upon waking up was listen to my T to see how loud it was. Well don't. You're opening up the T pathway to the conscious mind. Distract yourself straight away. The "guards at the gate" of your conscious mind are still groggy and the T invader will build it's "beachhead" for the day to your conscious. If you're going to listen to it then wait until you're operating at maximum cognitive capacity.

This helped me a lot.

However T is sly in that it has a secret tunnel to your conscious mind (but only uses now and then) and that's the path of emotional valence. If something is important or threatening to you then the unconscious will inform the conscious about it. You're ancestors who didn't pay attention to important sounds in their environment quickly had that neural trait exterminated from the gene pool.

Another interesting example of this (taking place in our bar) is what's known as the "cocktail party effect".
What happens is: we're having a conversation, you're engrossed in what I'm saying then all of a sudden at the other side of the room someone mentions your name. Straight away you hear it and your attention shifts to the speaker. Why? There's loads of conversations going on, the band's playing, people are laughing, so why did you hear your name above all that noise? The answer is...your unconscious heard everything, conversations, the band the whole lot. But. When it heard your name that signal was automatically stamped with the word "important" and fast tracked to your conscious. Getting rid of this stamping is the second principle of habituation

You're anxiety is stamping your T with this very word. If you didn't care about it then the sound would be cancelled out just like all the other sounds in the background.

Can you hear the fan on your laptop or PC now? Go on have a listen....Now: has the sound of it been driving you round the bend and making you anxious? Or had you not even noticed it's sound till I pointed it out?

Well the noise from your T is like the noise of your fan except you deem the former important and the later unimportant. It's all to do with labels.

Think of your T as like being junk mail from the unconscious to the conscious.
Myself? My junk mail goes straight in the bin.

PS You forgot about your fan again didn't you?

Regards Silvine

 

Excellent explanation, thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge with us.....and making it easy to understand.

 

Hello Silvine,
Your explanations are really helpful and of high value.
I can say that on some days, I can cope a little bit better. At least I go on with my life and try putting T into the background. But I have no choice ignoring this. The sound is really loud and high-pitched (15 kHz or more). Sounds like those old CRT TVs. But loud and oscillating in my head, not maskable (only by waterfall sounds). It is really difficult, or even impossible giving this a harmless meaning and not seeing as a threat. Oftentimes I think, this T is really too loud to ignore or habituate to it. :-(
But again, thanks for all your explanations here.

 

Does anyone have any good distraction techniques for first thing in am upon waking up?

 

You CAN stop thinking about it. https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/

 

Thanks. But its not only T. When i talk i feel pressure in my ears. The front of heads feels full, mine face hurts. Could this be stress? And how can you not listen for it when you hear it? I am working now and the sound is loud. Sitting in a room with 15 people, radio on but i can still hear it.

 

Can the low humming come from you neck? Somethimes i feel like there is a strap around my neck/head and somewone is pulling hard on it. Still have the low humming, somethimes its loud en when someone is talking to loud or slam the door a feel a vibration in my ear. My ears are clicking when swallow and somethimes i hear my own voice in my ear. Please need support.

 

It sounds as though you've loads of tension in your neck and shoulders which must be contributing to things so it may be a good idea to have some sort of therapy to relax those areas. Sounds to me as though everything you describe is anxiety/tension/stress related and I used to have every one of them. You could try a massage working especially on the neck and shoulders where most people carry tension and see if that helps. I was told that my extreme tension was stopping my eustacian tube functioning correctly and I used to hear my voice and megga loud breathing noises (scary!) but that all went when I sorted out the anxiety. Worth a try. You'll be fine, take it a step at a time and read the success stories.......you WILL get there. Big hug.

 

What about the humming sound? when i am in a
quiet room my whole head is stuffed with the sound.

 

Hi Rube, what I do when I get up in the morning is leave my sound/masking machine on for a little while that I had on during the night. Not for hours of course, but for a little while, until I have to leave the house....... Rich

 

This is one of the best explanations I have ever heard!
I agreee with every word...