Greetings from the Dominican Republic!

Well we made it down here and vacation is going good! First, the stress of travel and long flights make it worse. Also alcohol makes it go away.... Then return twice as loud for a few hours. But seriously, it was screaming loud after our travel and one glass of red wine and I could barely hear it. Tried it with a mojito too. Much less intense rebound but sure enough it went near completely away. Bizarre.

Anyways the good news is without the stress of work I'm coping DRAMATICALLY better. No panic, only a couple hours here and there where I had high anxiety. And, one day when it was soft I didn't hear it 70% of the day unless I thought about it! I have read two books so far and listened to the ring without freaking out. As I'm writing this it's ringing loud and I'm calm. My brain still isn't very hardened to it yet and I notice I get a little grumpy when I hear it for 4-5 hours of reading but I'm getting there. My sleep is changing too. I fall asleep easy but wake up after 5-6 hrs and then kinda light sleep or something? Less refreshed but manageable. A klonopin before bed fixes that. Maybe when I get on an SNRI/SSRI I'll go back to normal.

On a funny note I woke up this afternoon and heard a second, piercing loud tone. It freaked me out a bit. Then my husband came in the room and said, "what is that horrible noise?" Turns out it was some bug they have here that is super loud and high pitched that had gotten in our room!! They came and got it out of our room...problem solved!

 

Way to go, Nich. A stress free vacation sure can help. You are making amazing progress for being so new with T. Keep it up and hopefully you will be habituating fast.