How Do You Maintain a Career with Moderate and Severe Tinnitus?

I could have written this myself. I also keep a diary and write a page a day on my almost hourly changing tinnitus. I get one better morning and think I've turned a corner only to be back up to a 7/10 by 3pm.

No help here either and I am also in Australia. My GP assures me this will go away though because she has never heard of it lasting more than a few days. Where do they do their medical training?

 

I had an ENT tell me 5 months ago it would definitely be gone in a few months. They just have no idea to be honest.

 

I work for the state government and even we're switching over to permanent WFH. Pretty amazing how stuck in its ways the government usually is, but they're enticed by the savings in not having to lease buildings and renting out space in the buildings they own.

 

Interesting! Just out of curiosity, how do professional trading firms make sure there will not be any issues with internet connections or connectivity in general when working from home? What happens if there is a power outage, or if the Internet connection fails?

 

When working from home it’s common to have a good quality mobile wireless backup for internet in addition to cable. Many desks have at least two traders watching the same flow at a given time - if one trader has tech issues then another can keep the ball rolling. Broad power outages could be an issue. A lot of effort and money goes into ensuring continuity of service. What if the tech stack falls over? If you’re an investment fund with a smaller number of chunky orders you can get on the phone and place orders manually. If you’re a bank then clients are encouraged to trade away with a competitor. If you’re an exchange then trading is halted and the rest of the market waits for you.

 

I agree with you. I work for an asset manager with just shy of 1T AUM and ~4000 employees globally, and management has been saying by every metric, front/middle/back office, we have been as productive as ever. I don't think there's a need to be in the office unless you are in a relationship-driven space like sales or IB - I guess sell-side basically.

 

What do you think of the markets being so high? Do you think there will be a deep recession and subsequently a bear market? Or indexes will continue going up and breaking new records?

 

I was living in a metro area before bad tinnitus hit and already hated it and wanted to move back to the woods.

When tinnitus got real bad in 2010, I had the presence of mind to recognize that I was already working in a field that I could use to become a remote worker, if I played my cards right.

I spent 2010-2015 suffering a lot, trying every treatment under the sun, and slowly trying to achieve "escape velocity" from the city. During this time I managed to go into normal-volume HVAC-and-fire-alarm having offices nearly every day, 40-50 hours a week. It wasn't fun.

In late 2015 I had gotten permission to become a remote worker; in fall of 2016 we moved to rural Vermont. In fall of 2017 we bought a house that is uniquely positioned to be on top of a small mountain, dead center of 5 mile grid for state roads (so no state road noise that doesn't come through minimum 2.5 miles of trees), with gigabit internet.

Within two years of moving to a much quieter place, I was handling my condition much better, and professionally things were pretty fine, but my tinnitus was still enough of a drag on my family life, and I had put so much effort into learning how helpful meditation / yoga is, but also where the limits of that seem to be, that I elected to go back on benzos, drugs I had been on ~a decade plus ago for a number of years. I wouldn't recommend that path if you can avoid it. I will say that since being on benzos I've done two job switches under stressful circumstances, taking on more responsibility in each case. I am not confident that I would have risen to the challenges involved in both cases if medication wasn't a crutch that was making my broken leg (ears) easier to hobble around with.

I'd say I basically enjoy life most of the time, at this point, given my current state of disability and treatment.

 

Agree 100%.

 

Apparently in the USA some with severe debilitating tinnitus have been successful applying for SSI, especially with hearing loss and other comorbidities (major depression, OCD, bipolar, obesity, etc).

 

I have worked with 35 people in an open office for 4 years with tinnitus. I moved my desk to a quiet spot. I made it work. I work in finance. I take little breaks. And I use a radio, fans. I make it work.

 

That's great to hear; however, as you know everyone experiences tinnitus differently and at different levels of intensity.

Some people simply can't make it work when it's catastrophic tinnitus.

Hence the suicide rate.

 

I'm working full time now, but my productivity rate is probably around 50% of my pre tinnitus self.

My tinnitus started in late May and I started a new job in the summer. I worked for approximately 4 months and that was horrible. I'd say 10% of my pre tinnitus capacity. I was eventually sent on a sick leave as I just couldn't work at all. I was sleeping 3 hours nights and had nervous breakdowns and suicidal ideation every single day. I attempted a few times as well, that was scary.

I was literally just reading this forum every minute of the day, at work or not. I'm still doing it now.

I'm now having a nervous breakdown every 4 days or so. Some days I can kind of concentrate, some days I'm a mess.

I'm terrified at the thought of going back to the office after the lockdown. When working from home I can have my breakdowns and no one will see it...

Given all that, before tinnitus I was a very chilled out guy, never cried and my mood was quite stable. It's devastating what this cursed condition does to people...