One Year Anniversary

This post is targeted to myself year ago. Or someone thats is going as crazy as I was at that time.

I would say its a success because I'm still alive and I had couple good moments, which is better than having no good moments ever for rest of my life.

I'm extremely worried even writing I had minor success with tinnitus or anything thats positive will bring some magical wrath of non existing force to just mess up with me and increase volume just to show me that I can't deal with it or something.

I don't know what messed me up, maybe I had bad syringing done, maybe it was middle ear infection or maybe it was antibiotics I took. I blamed myself for long time now, I probably still do to some degree.

OCD and fear and lack of sleep and all panic thoughts in my mind were nightmare for couple of months. I couldn't enjoy anything or focus on anything else than tinnitus. Tv, games, work - nothing was possible.

I definitely think volume decreased steadily over year. Maybe it was because I took corticosteroids in first month, maybe because it was supposed to. I literally have no idea. I don't even know if sugar, salt, alcohol are spiking me.

At first it wasn't possible to mask T sounds (because I have multiplie) with crickets track and pink noise playing at 60 to 70db - it was just so damn loud. Right now I can go to shop and its quiet hissing. When I'm hiking I hear it clearly in forest but it isn't overwhelming anymore to point that I couldn't even focus on what was anyone talking to me. I basically hear it anyway always, at least one tone out of 3-4 I have.

On normal days I maybe not think about tinnitus (its audible always) for 5-10 minutes at a time. When working maybe an hour if I get super busy. I think my all time record was 3-4 hours and only thought about it like 20-30 times a day (out of which 80% was during morning/evening). I would estimate I think about tinnitus at least 100 times daily.

I got super cautious with not exposing myself again to loud sounds. Went once to loud concert in closed arena with earplugs and I still experienced additional fantom noise and diminished hearing for days. I moved near mountains and nature to a quiet flat and I can chill and be calm without being attacked from all the sides by how loud large cities are - previously lived in top 10 largest city in my country.

I got back some parts of old myself again. I can play games, I can watch tv series and I can go hiking. I can't however "let it go" and go swimming without fear or infection in future, I can't go to weddings and I will try to pass on every opportunity to hang with my family at large gatherings. I just can't deal with how terrifying this is to know it can get worse if I just let my guard down and try to live like normal person.

Probably one of worst parts is knowing that I could start taking AD or other meds for psyche to easier "deal with it" but there is too large risk involved with making it worse so I just have to toughen it up on my own and somehow go through days.

It's probably very negative post for "success story" but in my opinion even slightest win over "this" is something amazing.

I could dedicate this post to my girlfriend to which I owe most of my success. She kept me in check. We fought over how my life, how "our" life changed. With time she started to understood I had to get through to her with various techniques and make her understand what it means to be "me". She didn't gave up on me because I never gave up on myself.