Hello! A Few Questions

Hello everybody—long time listener, first time caller.

I've been trying to figure out the best ways of coping with tinnitus and thought I'd reach out. So a little background...I would say objectively my tinnitus is relatively low in volume. It's not terrible frequent that I can actually hear it. However, I am extremely bothered by it. This has included panic attacks, thoughts of suicide, crying, the whole deal. I'd like to get a handle on it and be as healthy as possible about it, but there are a few questions I do have.

First, I have a very bad habit of always "checking in" to the tinnitus and getting frustrated when it's there (what do I expect to find?) does anyone else have this obsessive habit? Why do you think this is? Has anyone learned to stop the cycle?

Another thing I often wonder is with habituation (the goal) should you stop occasionally and actually listen to it and realize it's nothing harmful? I often will go from headphones to the noise machine to the fan, whatever I can do to block it out. I'm wondering if I am preventing myself from habituation by doing this.

The times of actually hearing tinnitus really aren't super frequent. My thoughts about it, however, are. I'll notice myself being scared of hearing it when there is no background music and completely freak out. Now, I have always been the kind of person listening to music and podcasts so being in silence hasn't always been something I've ever done.

Another question: I'm visiting tt semi frequently and there's no shortage of doom and gloom around (which I understand because I think venting about tinnitus helps), how do you thing this affects our attitude of tinnitus? How many people do you speculate have T and aren't bothered by it? I think sometimes I get a warped view of it from TT because it's only going to be a narrow chuck of suffers (of which I am one) to seek out communities like this. I wonder about this because I find myself adopting other people's attitude about it. I hear people talk about being suicidal because of tinnitus and I myself feel like I almost should be as well.

I do have a history of anxiety and depression and I speculate there's a little OCD in there as well but I've never had that confirmed. Those things do not mix well with tinnitus.

I look forward to this discussion. And again, hello everybody. Hugs and fist bumps all around

 

Hi @boldaslove24 ,

Welcome!

In your first month or so it's normal to feel as you do. It's also normal to keep listening for it, but as you've said yourself this is a bad habit that you have to make a real effort not to do. You can try to put in some kind of mental block, what helped me was sometimes when thinking about my tinnitus volume like "Hmm my T is..." then I'd abruptly put in "...not to be measured!" and stop myself, try to move onto something else. It is difficult, it won't stop you doing it completely, but every little helps in a situation like this.

The other thing you need to do is keep busy and distracted. Do things (hobbies) or just go out places, walking, or being with friends as much as you can. You don't hear your tinnitus often which is a really, really good sign. You are probably bothering yourself about it more than the noise bothers you. This is what's going to help your anxiety and bad feelings, which helps your tinnitus! You just need to try keeping your mind off of it for as much as possible, and the better your mental state I'm sure you will recover soon.

With habituation, there's no clear 100% answer anyone can give as a fact. My experience with it is that yes, to get used to it you need to hear it sometimes. People need to mask the sound when it particularly bothers them or they need to sleep. A lot of people find that if you mask it all the time, when you stop masking it, it's even louder. But in the end, different things happen and work for different people.

Don't worry too much about the doom and gloom here. If you are rarely hearing it already, I have a feeling you won't be using this forum for very long. From what I've read and seen, an overwhelming amount of people are not bothered by their tinnitus. If you read all the posts on here, you are really reading the worst of the worst cases. Yours is nothing like that. Most people don't need ongoing support and endless searches for a cure or even good treatment.

Be positive, tell yourself that it's going to be OK, and good luck with it.

Regards,
Daniel

 

I have had menieres for 32 years one of symptoms besides extreme vertigo, nausea etc is tinnitus, I have struggled to cope for years until one day I was exhausted, lay down and tried to sleep, as I relaxed rather that fight noises they started to quieten down and I drifted off to sleep, stressing makes noises louder