The More I Think About It, the More I Think About It

I'm two weeks into a mild case of tinnitus and hyperacusis caused by listening to music too long with headphones. I've accepted that it may last my whole life, the fight or flight response has passed for the most part. Things are getting better, it's rarely painful anymore.

The main problem now is I need to stop thinking about it. Obviously when it's bad I'm going to be reminded of it. But even when the tinnitus is nice and low, I'll think "Hey my tinnitus is low!" Then I'm thinking about tinnitus again and sometimes that will make it come back.

I'm trying to spend less time thinking about it/browsing this forum.

The more I think about it, the more I think about it.

How do I stop this feedback loop? Does anyone have suggestions?

 

I honestly think that forcing yourself to not think about it, makes you think about it all the more. Before you can ignore something, you need to recognize it. It's great thay you've been able to get past the fight or flight response and the correlative anxiety.

Now you have to dissociate the sound from any negative meaning. As soon as you can do that, I think you will have increased episodes of 'not noticing it'.

One thing this whole T story will teach us or has taught us, is that we need to have patience. Forcing things will only reaffirm our current (and sometimes irrational) beliefs. Easier said than done, I'm sure, but those are my two cents. I have a long way to go myself.

 

You are doing very well, especially since T is very new to you at two weeks.

We cannot stop our thoughts, we can only change the way that we respond to them. I was advised that when I hear my T, to say to myself, "Tinnitus is present". By doing this, we avoid assigning a value to it, such as "This is really bad today", or "It's milder today than yesterday". As your responses become more and more neutral to the sounds, your mind will eventually lose interest, thoughts about tinnitus will decrease and become calmer, and the awareness of it will start to filter out of your consciousness.

 

I agree telling yourself not to think about it only makes you think about it more. This is probably bad advice but you're new to t (like me) and it's natural to think about it. In time you'll get better at not thinking about it by not thinking about it not by telling yourself to not think about it. Imagine sitting in a restaurant with a friend and your friend says, "Don't look over there." What do you naturally do?

If you haven't learned about masking that's the best way to not think about t in the short term. You play a nature sound like rain, the ocean, or a stream slightly below the level of your t. It teaches your brain not to focus on your t. Search for one of @Michael Leigh 's posts on masking and try that. Masking saved, and continues to save, my sanity.

 

This post summarises it

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/tinnitus-after-syringing-ears.27770/page-2#post-332872