How Depressed/Anxious Does Tinnitus Make You?

Folks: Polling is tough because it's not all inclusive and this is my first shot a polling on this website.
When you respond, would you state how long you're in a depressed and/or anxious state - all day, part of the day, all the time, etc.? I'm not differentiating between the two because I can't get a valid differentiation from a psychologist ...

 

I had to vote first to ensure the poll works as created. I really couldn't get an answer as to whether I'm
depressed or anxious. The whatever it is I get lasts for anywhere from
a few minutes to some hours. I spend most of my time looking at other things to do to take my brain off
the noise.

 

I've had periods of months where this didn't seem to bother me too much at all and I could have answered zero honestly; now I'm in a period where I'm pretty miserable all the time.

 

Understood. When I walked away from the computer and posting this thread, I wondered where my good days were in the last several weeks. I managed to come up with one and that's accurate. I started keeping a log and stopped because the overwhelming majority had high tinnitus and little peaceful sleep. Bad days to me also don't always equate to being depressed/anxious. It's just something bad that I have to fight through. I won two card games yesterday, so some of my thinking is okay and I think it just comes off as being slow.

 

Are we talking poker? I've gotten (back) into playing Magic: The Gathering over the past year. It's basically poker, with wizards and overly expensive cards to buy (my friends and I actually call it "wizard poker"). I also played last night, very badly

 

Poker could be really interesting because I haven't played it in years. Nope, our card game is Spite and Malice. I should see how my Scrabble game is doing, though. I try playing it on my old Windows laptop and keep quitting these days. That would be "my tell." Your poker sounds a lot more fun than the poker games I used to play.

* * * * *
RicoS, my heart goes out to you. Boy, that's bad. I'm so sorry.

 

Anxious because I see my girlfriend play with our son and enjoys it and when I am playing with him T is also on my mind so I cannot fully enjoy it.... I hate that because I know I can be a better father than this ....
It's my first child and I imagined a whole different time with him than this.
I love him so much but at the same time it hurts so much because I cannot enjoy it to the fullest......so that makes me depressed and anxious

 

I feel exactly the same way. I tears my heart out..

 

Ditto for me too. I have two boys in a shared care arrangement after their mum took off to be with a younger man. I was doing a great job with them but now as I am in survival mode and I am not the fun, thoughtful, interesting, energetic father I once was pre T. Absolutely destroys me knowing that the most important thing in my life (my kids) was sabotaged by attending a single rock concert. If I only I had any idea of the possibility tinnitus I would have been no where near any amplified music apart where I had control over the volume . I feel I've let them down let alone me. I am 40. What a waste of my life now

 

I have two boys. I did the best I could but there was no joy, just try to get thru each day so I can go to bed and hopefully sleep to escape the noise and hope and pray that I'll have a low day. I don't do the hoping and praying anymore, there is no point. It is all very sad and yet you know T is no big deal we're told to "learn to live with it". Live, I guess that depends on your definition, if living is just doing what is absolutely necessary and hoping for sleep, well then I guess I have learned to live with it. I have chronic pain, trust me that was MUCH easier to live with than this mental torture.

 

I don't know or understand anxiety and depression, all I know is that I'm going crazy 99 percent of the day, and a lot of the night. I would say mental overload and exhaustion are my biggest concerns. I find it very hard to go about doing anything, even concentrating on a stupid TV show, cleaning up around the house, posting at TT...anything really.

 

@Telis : For me when I got a depression it started with weird symptoms. Parts of my body felt not my own anymore. My feelings turned off....really off...I felt no more love for my wife and son.... I felt like I was in a big black hole and I wanted to climb out I shout for help but I knew I was the only one left on the planet. I had suicidal thoughts. I had panick-attacks 24/7 .... it just did not stop. I could not do anything anymore...my body just shut down.
T was not relevant anymore in that worst time...I could not care anymore about T....because my body and mind had given up on life itself. Slowly.....very slowly I got out of it and a big anxiety disorder stayed and T went all over the place.....than suddenly from on day upon the other.....I hated my T again...my focus was back on T. As if my body said...."Well we cannot irritate you with the depression anymore...so now we go back to T"
In my most bad times I did not even think about my T anymore...and BAM just like that it was on my mind again.
If you do not understand anxiety and depression (like I did not understand it).
Well let me tell you this....when people told me somebody had a depression I always thought "Well get over it ...I feel depressed too.... Everybody has a bad day ones in a while".....until the depression hit me like a rocket.
I now understand that a depression is not a feeling...it is an illness. Something a lot of people do not understand.
It can happen to everybody......As you know I'm a strong guy...doing MMA and all kind of mixedmartial arts all my life
https://instagram.com/amicimma/ I'm the guy showing the techniques

I always had to fight for everything in my life...had a bad youth....and so on ...got severe eyefloaters 10 years back....and all kinds of stuff...than T came...and I kept on fighting....but at one point....your body and mind have enough and just cannot take it anymore. Your will to fight is taken away from you..... and than you are empty.....

I'm doing better now.....and I'm happy I feel the love for my family again....I'm following a book from Julian Cowan Hill to lower my T by getting my anxiety down. During my depression I got pulsating T and brain zaps besides my normal T and by getting my anxiety down those symptoms are going away. Also the reason why I did not post to much anymore.....I have to let my T go and I did not have any energy left do focus on something else. I'm doing the tVNS now from tinnitustreatmentcentre.com and I hope that works.

I still have some weird symptoms from the depression, but I know they are caused by anxiety so I just sit it out. Is my T bad at the moment? Well I guess my T is the same as always (my base T) but my perception is less of it. Sometimes it is all over the place, but when plugging my ears it sounds almost always the same....
In silence...my T goes bananas ...... I just cannot sit in complete silence...my T is just to loud to sit in silence (fills my whole head)...but the weird thing is that it can be masked when not in silence. The difference is enormous.

But I have the energy to have hope again....I hope tVNS lowers my T a bit so I can sit in silence. Do I fear my T...I do not really know.....I guess sometimes...because of T I am afraid of silent places..... Not because of my T but because it is so damn loud in silence. If it was a bit softer I could sit in a waiting room at the GP for instance....but I always need some sound with me....can be very soft...I think other people would not even notice it if I have it on.
Also in silence my left ear becomes warm and starting to hurt....so yes I think I have an anxiety disorder about that now.

But all in all..... a depression can out itself in many different forms but it is something you first want to find a explanation for. Well I did...I thought something was wrong with me and I had some weird disease.
I thought this would pass in a view weeks. Well it stayed with me till this day.....I'm still recovering. But I know that I make progress day by day....and the bad days are becoming less and less.

I changed as a person...like most of us do having T which bothers you. I'm not me anymore...but I will show all the love I have for my son and wife whenever I can.....

To understand a depression you most of the time are to late and you or on the end of your widths. I could not think rational anymore...I just did not understand what was happening to me. Bottom line they said I had a severe depression.... I came out of it without meds...because I was to scared my T became worse and I have a lot of friends who work with AD...and they said to me it is bad stuff so I did not take it.

Sorry for the long read.... I know where you are coming from @Telis and I have the utmost respect for you how you handle yourself. You can have a minor depression and do not notice it yourself. But with a major depression.....all alarm will go inside you. You can read a lot about it on www.anxietycentre.com it helped me a lot.

Hope you all get some relief.... Like I said I will keep everybody posted about the tVMS treatment.....and I will read some stuff here from time to time...but I have to fix myself first to be more supportive and post on this forum again. But you are all in my heart and mind!

 

I so agree about deep depression. I never understood it either and was a "pick yourself up by the bootstraps" type. Depression is such a dark, dark place and there really are no bootstraps. I am much more understanding about mental illness now. When my friend says "I'm so depressed" because her dress is the wrong color or some such nonsense I think "if only you knew real depression you'd select a different word to describe a down day"

 

Every time I hear my T I burst into tears, and then can't stop crying for a good 20 minutes. I am not living a life anymore. I have never been so depressed and hopeless and lonely before.

 

Rico, thanks for sharing man, you are a real character guy, I don't know how else to describe you, character guy is just what comes to mind when I think of you. You have been here a while and are always so supportive to everyone despite your own suffering. Very commendable.

I don't know if I'm depressed, anxious, angry, sad...to be honest I feel dead inside. It's like T and H have consumed me, now I walk around like a zombie. I feel like I have no energy to deal with anything else, I don't know, it's a strange thing. I don't even know me anymore, I'm confused, lost and feel very little of anything. It's hard to really give a crap about anything when you are in survival mode, it's like the rest of me has totally shut down.

I would love to sit down and work on my thoughts and feeling, work on me but it's tough while I'm taking a constant beat down from T and H. My feelings don't really seem to matter with this physical problem. I don't know man, I just dont know.