Annoyed by Sounds

Hi to all,

I have a mild T easily maskable by nature sounds, white noise or radio but what I noticed any sounds just irritates me. Be it masking sounds, radio or my T, no difference.

I don't have H but it is as if my irritation related to T was moved to irritation by sounds in general. Sounds never bothered me in the past before T, I listened to music a lot, went to noisy places, almost always had radio or TV on and this was natural to me. In general I was never obsessed about being in silent environment.

Now it looks as if my desire to hear silence, which I can't experience, is subconciously so strong that I am not really relieved by masking. I don't understand that, our auditory system was created to hear sounds not silence therefore my irritation is somehow against common sense.

In this context I wonder how can I really habituate and not be bothered by my tinnitus sound if my brain tries to reject sounds in general? Did anyone experience the same and managed to overcome this? Maybe it's my subconsciousness does not want to accept T and does not accept masking as well?

Help please.

 

Hi @Mentos . Exactly how I would describe it too! Assume you have acoustic trauma injury like me from a loud concert hence your comments. I certainly relate to them! Irritated in silence as well as with masking sounds/music. I also believe I experience hearing fatigue with general noise levels.

 

Yeah, mine is from bloody concert as well. I try some classical music now, Mozart or Bach. Damn I liked music very much but now when I feel kind of "forced" to listed to it it's not fun anymore. I feel like I have a life sentence to listen to music... Still I think I prefer music other masking with crickets, white noise, rain. At least music is more diverse, you really can get bored and tired with masking sounds. I would have never thought in my life that music can be irritating...

 

These comcerts sure have a lot to answer for.

 

Sam does this mean you experience the same annoyance as myself and Dave or you managed to overcome this? I see you also relate yout tinnitus to load music.

 

Hi Mentos. Other sounds don't annoy me no. I am however very annoyed about the lack of awareness at concert venues, it is insane to think a night of fun can lead to this, and theres no warning.

 

Sam, do you usually mask your tinnitus or you're so used to it that you don't care? And if you mask doesn't masking sounds irritate you? I wish to reach a state of mind when masking would be normal for me and not being irritating.

 

Sam are you fully at peace with your T? Do you have moment when you deep inside reject its presence and don't want to accept it, or you managed to fully come to terms with it? I have sometimes hours when I'm not stressed or irritated by T and I think I fully came to terms with it and accepted, and than I sometimes get thoughts like" why me, it's unfair, I don't want this etc. and than anxiety start to overwhelm me. It's like a rollercoster for me which is quite exhausting long term. For instance now I'm working, listening to music, feel relaxed and could say quite happy. And may well be this positive mood will last for a whole day and I would say yeah, suffering is over. And than I wake up the next day with a first thought: damn, I'm screwed with this T thing for a whole life...

 

Dave sometimes I benefit from in-ear maskers with white noise, when I feel irritated they calm me down and help to distract my thoughts from T sound. But in general I need to change masking strategies during the day. I go couple of hours with in-ear maskers only, when they start to irritate me I change to nature sounds or radio. But the real relief for sure comes from natural masking like traffic noise, cricket sounds in my garden etc. In these cases I feel less disabled, when I mask artifically I always remember it's "not real" sound but created by me.