How Is Counselling Supposed to Help Someone Who Is Depressed Due to Their Tinnitus?

To me it just seems like another thing to fob us off with because they can't find an actual cure or treatment.

I mean, the tinnitus is what is causing me to be unhappy, depressed and suicidal at times, nothing else, I am not mentally ill, if I am it is due to the tinnitus nothing much else.

I know all of the coping strategies, I have lived with tinnitus for so many years, I just don't know how they can help me, what needs to be done is for my tinnitus to be treated to make it noticeably less noisy.

I know how too reduce stress but it just seems to me that it is just the Doctors fobbing me off because they have not many other avenues.

 

@meeb
I understand the distress that the tinnitus causes you but the facts are this: Nineteen of of twenty medical condtions cannot be cured. At the moment tinnitus is one of them. This condtion has been around for many thousands of years and goes back to the Egyptian times where the treatments were quite bizarre compared with what help there is today. Please read my post: Tinnitus, in my "started threads" to see what treatment was available then up to present day.

Tinnitus counselling and sound therapy can be very helpful. Tinnitus counselling helps a person to look at the condtion differently and this takes time. Through regular counselling the negative thinking that a person has about the condition, is reduced and demistified and a more postive approach to life is achieved. You have to want to try and help yourself because going into therapy thinking that it won't work then it won't. Read my article: Tinnitus, A Personal View, in my started threads. There are also other posts on tinnitus counselling.

Michael

 

Hi meeb,
I was in a dark place with Menieres,sever tinnitus and under the sever asthma unit.
Life felt such a battle to get through each day and a noisy one at that day in day out and so tired I even clossed my eyes when our side walking holding my hubby's hand as could not keep my eyes open.
I was a pale withdrawn person looking back at myself in the mirror crying for help and felt so alone and easier to give up on life of it wasn't for my children and family.
I was at the bottom of a ladder and in a black whole called depression.
It does get better with counselling working on self worth and confidence with medication and action plans in place to get me back out in the wide world and not withdrawn in my self and drowning in my own emotional termoil....
Well you can see me now and I'm proof life does go on and gets better as we learn our own coping skills with people trained to take your heavy load off you and bit by bit you become a better and stronger person with coping skills you can use for the rest of your life....
Keep your chin up .....Love glynis

 

Hi
Read your note and can only agree with what you have written.
If they had the knowledge to treat tinnitus I'm sure we would get the benefit but until they do, you just need patience.
I take each day as it comes. Keep it simple. Focus here & now.
I've on my second set of masker's, white noise to distract your mind from tinnitus.
I've had many sessions with a shrink, just to talk about my feelings. Near the end of the sessions he explained to me that if you keep thinking a thought in your mind, (how crazy l was going with the constant alarm clock in my head!!!) that it was the same as having a scab on my knee and always picking on it - you're never going to get better if you can't let go.

Some positive actions that have helors me out the last couple of years:

Mindfulness - get some sessions, it'll only help. Focus here & now.
CBT - keep the brain positive & focussed on anything but your t.
Yoga - breath & focus away from your mind.
Physical activity - again focus on your goal.
Acupuncture - release tension stored.

As l said, day to day, until hopefully someone has a Eureka! moment & can salvage everyone who is being tormented by this invisible menace.
Remember we're all the same but we all think differently, we're all individual's. Hopefully someone can find a solution.

You've got to think positive to be positive.

 

CBT might help for some people. But It won't lower the volume.
I am not convinced about any treatment yet, for my stage of t and h.
Have you tried any other thing to get some relief ?

 

@meeb counselling helps more then you will ever know. Ive been in it for 4 years due to my anxiety and depression. I remember thinking in the beginning how in the world is this suppose to help me? Just sitting here talking about my problems. I mean its not like they can fix it, right? And the answer is...no they can't. Honestly, only you can. And don't think for a second that you have to have some sort of problem just to go to therapy. Even the most healthy people still have their own problems. My own therapist told me she doesn't follow her own advice sometimes. You see, it wasn't until a year of therapy that I realized, just exactly why I am in it and why don't I just stop going. It's because it actually helps. What therapy does is it forces you to ask yourself how are you feeling. With a simple, "How was your week?" You sit down and talk about everything that happened to you. As humans we get so caught up in our everyday life's and struggle we fail to keep track of the actual good days we have. You begin to realize that you've had more good days than not. And that you are getting better with a simple question of, "So how are you doing now?" Therapy made me feel better, after every session I would come out with a smile, not because my problem was fixed but because I was able to talk to someone and get things off my chest. I was able to feel less stressed and pent up. I'm pretty sure you don't want to annoy someone with the complaints of your tinnitus every week so you find a website like this one where you can talk about it all day, everyday just like a form of therapy. It's good to get some stress off your shoulders especially with T. Also they can be very helpful in helping you get a handle on things that T has taken from you. Like if for instance you stopping listen to music because of T. Or maybe get back to things you are neglecting because of it.

As for the depression and Anxiety, I deal with it on a daily and here are techniques I use. Here read this and try it @MJv you say you aren't convinced about any treatment, but it doesn't hurt to try now does it? You read this too.
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/thread...om-anxiety-tinnitus-associated-anxiety.22257/


This is the only thing that had genuinely has helped me aside from medication.

 

@ i have t and h for over two years. So I've tried a couple of things. Also cbt, well I know more about psychology then most of those psychlogists who don't have a clue about t.
Thevquestion of @meeb is: how will cbt reduce the noise? In my experience and having read studies about it, the noise won't lower. So cbt is a waste of time and money if you think it will lower the t.
Off course every person should decide what to do, but I am not convinced by your theory.

 

Hey, its not about lowering the T at all, its about lowering the anxiety associated with it. My T is still going away 24/7 seven days a week, but i am no longer having panic attacks, or worried so much over it. Meanwhile I am still trying to figure out causes.

Believe me, when dealing with my anxiety and depression, I knew so much of the psychology i practicely diagnosed my self, and my psychiatrist was surprised. And i knew the medication i should take.

As far as my theory goes its not about believing in it or not, but trying something to get some sort of relief. I always say try it for a month and see.

 

The thread is about how to lower the noise. Not about less anxiety.
Like I said I've done counseling. Maybe @meeb can give it a try, but if you read his opening thread he can manage his stress very well. So what's the point in trying CBT?

 

The one thing I've learned is that it's impossible to fully articulate how things like therapy can help; once you do it, you'll understand.

 

I've done therapy in the past (not for t) and know exactly how it works. It has helped me a bit with some things.
But here we are talking about CBT especially for T and lower the volume

 

Exactly. @Paul10

 

@Paul10
Have you done cbt?

 

I only meant if his anxiety or stress or depression is bothering him, which if hes trying to figure out ways to lower the noise, it is bothering him to some degree. The point of trying is just to try, theres nothing to lose, and he may just find a better technique to cope. And i was trying to answer his title question, but I digress. Take care.

 

He could give it a try. He doesn't respond yet though to our comments

 

i went for 2 counselling sessions and it only made me feel worse. I don't know if that is the fault of the psychiatrist or the fact that i need to sit in a quiet room listening to my T while talking about how horrible T makes me feel.
I'm guessing the latter.

 

I made me feel worse too. Did your counselor know anything about t?

 

Counselling is best done with a Hearing Therapist or Audiologist who is trained in the management of tinnitus. Often, these health professionals were either born with tinnitus or acquired it at some time in their life. A psychiatrist can help a person that is suffering from depression, stress and anxiety for instance, that may have come about through domestic or other related problems. I believe, counselling someone with tinnitus in the hope to make them habituate or cope with the condition better, won't help unless they have had experience of tinnitus and most of these doctors haven't. I have corresponded with quite a few people that have been referred to a psychiatrist for treatment, and the first thing they are told by the doctor: I know nothing about tinnitus.

Michael.
PS: counselling for tinnitus requires regular sessions, similar to people that have TRT and CBT treatment.

 

@Michael Leigh
I agree with you.

A lot of people are referred to a psychologist or psychiatric because they think T is treatable like anxiety or depression. But it ain't like that at all

 

Exactly. It is for this reason I believe counselling for tinnitus is best done by someone that has it. My Hearing Therapist was born with tinnitus and is an excellent tinnitus counsellor. When I was having TRT treatment back I 2008. It was the way she spoke to me I just knew this person understood everything that I was going through. So I said: " Your description of tinnitus and the way it can make a person feel, you really understand". She replied: "I was born with tinnitus". She didn't know she had it until she asked her friends one day. "How do you cope with the ringing in the ears"? The look on their faces was quite strange she said.

 

@Michael Leigh
But I am still not convinced that CBT will help reducing the volume

 

How is TRT different than CBT? Or are they essentially the same but TRT adds in sound therapy? Are TRT counselors typically audiologists?

I see a therapist who specializes in CBT. She does not have tinnitus, but she said we would approach it similar to chronic pain. She personally has chronic pain and treats patients with it too. There are a lot of parallels: not all cases are relieved with medication, can get worse or even fluctuate, stress can exasperate it, it interferes with daily life and personal relationships, can lead to anxiety and/or depression, disrupts sleep, etc. For some reason, thinking of tinnitus as chronic pain is helpful to me. Maybe because I personally know people living with chronic pain.

We work on changing my response to the sound. Helping me cope with the emotional loss of my hearing and my fears for the future. And quite a few other things.

But it's not going to decrease the sound. I have hearing loss. Nothing is going to decrease the sound, all I can do is habituate to it.

 

@MJv Try not to think CBT or TRT will not reduce the volume of the tinnitus because that isn't the case. Counselling will help to reduce your perception of the tinnitus making it less noticeable. Going into these kinds of treatments thinking they will not work, you have convinced yourself that no progress can be made which isn't a good idea.
Michael

 

The problem is to find good therapists with experience on T. In my case, I looked for a while in my area, and I did not find anybody with experience on this condition. I took a regular psychologist, and the results were very underwhelming. It feels good to talk to somebody about your problems, but there were not new tools or real new exercises. She was very surprised that T could get so intrusive, and she was very concerned how all this was affecting the relationship with my significant other. At the end, just another way to kill time and waste money with this ugly condition.
CBT will not lower noise, it will just modify your response to the noise to make it more manageable. Most people that are habituated say that the noise is the same or louder than it was at onset, just they do not care about it anymore. I believe that it is possible, but there are personality factors that can make it more difficult. In my case, I have been always a perfectionist, and T is poison for this personality type.

 

@Michael Leigh
I am not going to do any of these treatments. I was commenting on the thread.
He is asking how counseling could help. And I am not talking about perception

 

Fair enough.