The Positivity Thread

Good job CB stay strong bro

 

Yesterday, I visited The New Forest National Park newforestnpa.gov.uk in Hampshire, England. I realise a lot of TT members live outside the UK so you may not know which area I am referring to. It is a very beautful, unspoilt area that has an abundance of wildlife. While I was there I visited Bucklers Hard http://www.bucklershard.co.uk/ which is a maritime museum. I pulled into the carpark and when I'd parked up, I got out to find the car next to me was advertising the New Forest Tinnitus Group which I did not even know existed! I must admit to being a tad surprised that there would be enough people in such a sparsely populated area to warrant such a group! It is such a peaceful place that I can only assume people only discover they have Tinnitus when they move to the area! http://www.newforesttinnitus.org.uk/

 

It's a beautiful place, I love the fact that the animals wander freely around and that cars feel like intruders.

 

Yes @Steve that's definitely it's main attraction.

 

I slept the last two nights a full nights sleep WITHOUT any meds!! First time that's happened since I developed T two months ago. That's a big positive.

 

Music, sex, good food, flowers blooming, as yet discovered surprises of the world around us. There's life beyond Tinnitus.

 

Finally, the penny has dropped!! The more you focus on negative symptoms and look for answers on this website, the more you give up control and fail to habituate. Stop looking for a 'cure' and learn to live with the tinnitus. Those of us who, fortunately, have managed to habituate, will tell you that we still hear the tinnnits but we just accept it for what it is - background noise, and we have some 'bad' days. Of course, you have to address the anxiety, poor sleep and learn more positive behaviors. Just remember, it could be worse - it could be hemorrhoids !!!

 

I have one of the loudest T days today. Must be bad sleep last night. But the heck with the scream. I don't give a dime to it now. It has lost its tyranny over me. I suffered enough, paid my due, and now my new motto is to live life abundantly to compensate T suffering (if any). Too much fun and meaningful things to do to worry about T. So I start the day helping my sweetheart by sweeping and wet mopping the the tiled floor. So nice to see it cleaned and disinfected. Then I folded the laundry for her so she can rest more with her chronic asthma. Emptied the trash and took out kitchen waste to the compost box. Took a look at the garden. It is time to start the garden.

It is coming spring time in Vancouver. Had the day off so time to clean up & get the spring garden ready. The peas and spring veggies have been sown. The spring flowers that I planted a month ago are breaking ground with their shoots. Lovely and so nice. Oh, glorious time of spring flowers will soon come to Vancouver with a sea of cherry blossom all over the city waiting in the wing. Spring rain washes away any pollutants in the air. The air is cool and refreshing indeed. In the afternoon spent time at the lake for trout. Nice to have fresh fish for dinner. The loud T is screaming the whole time to get my attention but honestly I live life abundantly to bury it and wasn't aware of it much. Now that I am sitting down to write this. I hear it screaming high pitch shrill. But it is ok. Life goes on and there is so much in life besides T. Time to stop writing and get my guitar out to practice for an upcoming church sponsored talent show. I am going to play some tunes of Peter Paul & Mary with my wife and a friend who is a bit bald, and we call our band 'Better Bald Than Hairy'. LOL. 'Puff the Magic Dragon" and "Blowing in the Wind", here we come. Have got to enjoy life regardless of screaming T. Have a great time to welcome spring everyone (at least in Vancouver, haha). Cheers.

 

I really admire your attitude and hope I can achieve it some day. I had a screaming day yesterday and tho I try to stay calm and focus on the positive, it is very difficult for me. The good news is I haven't actually cried about it for a few weeks! How long did it take you to reach the "I don't care about it" stage?

 

I honestly didn't keep track with the progress of my T habituation. It is, as suggested by the world 'progress', really a progressive thing. I went through months of total horror, ultra high pitch loud T + severe hyperacusis. Because I suffered on-and-off anxiety & panic disorders for decades prior to T & H, my brain and nerve just had no chance against them and would cave into relentless panic attacks on auto mode daily & hourly. It was a dark, dark time of my life. I had to depend on meds to survive. This lasted for probably 6 months or so. Then I found a former support board where I learned so much (thanks God) from Dr. Nagler & Rob x 2. These two gentlemen's wisdom about living with T saved my life.

I followed the advice of Dr. Nagler's 'Letter to A Tinnitus Sufferer' to the tee. It taught me that the intrusiveness of my T is based on my reaction to it and that if I don't react somehow to my T, it is no longer intrusive, even for loud T. I put my faith on not just an expert of T, but one who had suffered awfully with it too. He has hand-on experience on what he is talking about. So I just wanted to copy success. I thought why reinvent the wheel. I just followed the advice in the letter to the tee, which ended with requesting the reader to often confront & challenge our distorted thoughts (called cognitive distortions) with more realistic & positive ones. This has worked wonder to stop perpetuating unrealistic & often catastrophic fear about T. I also followed Rob's advice as he had H besides T. He advocates giving T no time and therefore no fire to continue its tyranny, even if the T bully is throwing 'flowers' towards me to get my attention. LOL. You get the idea. Don't react to T and don't give it time & attention. I just tried to practice this. Living life again and enjoy it abundantly will help to not give T any time nor reaction. That is just one way to not care about T.

From these two gentlemen, I learned to slowly go back to living my life, facing and challenging the irrational phobia for T. I added on my own ways to help myself, such as playing blind & handicap at times, such as using the analogy of people working in loud, loud jobs for life for wages, or mine drillers working 1000+ ft underground etc. (as explained in my success story post). These approaches combined to slowly heal and reduce the anxiety about T. I would think it took me another 6 months to begin having fun in my life again by enjoying all those things I used to do. But there are inevitable setbacks. Just being normal. In about 2 years, I think my reaction to T is under control. It probably took longer than it should but I am someone who was anxiety/panic prone for decades before T. So I am happy about my progress.

Thing takes time to heal & get better. Even the toughest T veterans had paid their due of suffering, some taking years. Time is a magic wand, nevertheless. But time alone is not enough. You need to adopt a good approach too to help speed up the recovery, and there is no better one to me than following what is written in Dr. Nagler's 'Letter to a Tinnitus Suffer'. Just copy success with what works. So be patient with your recovery. Each person has his/her own time frame due to different background, character etc. It is not necessary to use anyone's time as your own gauge for progress. Doing so will give undue anxiety and may prolong your recovery. It is more important to make sure you have adopted a good approach. Then just give it time while you focus on living again. All the best to you, Deb.

 

Thanks, Billie. You and the other veterans on this forum are tremendously helpful; you really help me cope while giving me hope!

 

You are most welcome Deb. We are here to help people new to T to hopefully reduce their suffering and speed up their recovery with a good approach. You will get there. Be positive and believe it. Just think this way, if you know you are going to be ok in a few years, why worry so much on temporary setbacks? Think of yourself as being a toddler of T learning to walk like a toddler. It will take many falls before a toddler will learn steady steps. So are the setbacks along the way of habituation to T. If you know you will be ok given time, don't even worry about the 'falls' along the way. Accept them as a part of the process towards eventual habituation. Relax and rest your heart. You will be just fine. May the loving God speed your recovery.

 

I've decided to live in the positivity thread until some clever researcher deveops an implantable chip for suppressing the neural madness causing the noise in my head. The back and forth of the treatment and clinical trials threads is a frustrating experience for me.
Like a blind or deaf person who learns to navigate the world with other senses, the perceptions are paramount in our survival, especially the perceptions of pleasure. The Dalai Lama, in his book, "The Art of Happiness," states that the goal of life is to be happy. I could't agree more.
In an earlier post I stated that music, sex, good food, and the wonders of the world are the experiences beyond tinnitus. So, I'll offer a few of my favorites.

Music has been both a comfort and a mood elevator. My most recent discovery is a beautiful, intelligent sing, songwriter, instrumentalist: Sarah Jarosz. Her website has samples, but you'll need 'Spotify' to hear them. Sarahjarosz.com. Enjoy.

 

I was going to post this at a later date but I just discovered that Shiyani Ngcobo, an amazing South African musician, died in 2011. He was a Maskanda master. His music can be found on Youtube.

 

Had a good day today, did some runnin with my ducks the ducks love the exercise but ya gotta watch out you dont step on em 1 wrong step and youllstomp em flat.

 

Billie48, I love you. Where you live would be a beautiful place to be.

 

Thanks sgal. Vancouver is lovely in spring time. Here is what we will look like in April - a sea of pink. Let's enjoy the beauty of the visible world. There is so much more beauty in life than tinnitus. It is just a small piece of the puzzle (be it an annoying one) among hundred of pieces of life, pieces like family, love, beauty, friends, music, sports, creativity, discovery, intelligence, outdoors, faith, charity, compassion, service, dance, hobbies, travels, nature, great foods of the earth etc. etc and you can add more to my list. Let's learn to bury T by minimizing it while maximizing all the other pieces in our life. No more All or Nothing. There is much to life than T. We can have some imperfections in life and yet still enjoy life as much as we can. Cheers to all from spring time Vancouver.

 

Hey guys I watch a lot of Ted Talks videos and the have some good ones that I think people here can relate to. Now the guy in the video does not have T, but he has overcome some difficult situations. Hope others on here will take some time watch the video and draw inspiration from this guy the way I do.

Overcoming hopelessness | Nick Vujicic |...

 

LOOK AT YOURSELF AFTER WATCHING THIS.mp4

These videos are not meant to belittle people with T. Just to show that tough situations can have happy endings.

 

Thanks for the positive message. A big part of T suffering is mental. How we react to our T can decide how intrusive T is to our life. Winning the mind game will only help us living with T. It doesn't get any better to see how positivity has greatly enriched the life of Nick Vujicic. He could have turned soured and caved in to negativity by focussing on the bad and starting the blaming & self-pity game. Yet he decides to focus on the positive and lives his life abundantly, thereby becoming an inspiration of positivity for millions around the world.

 

As of late I've been swimming 2-3 times a week, something I haven't done for the past 10 years and something both mind and body needs (especially body as I have pain 24/7 which exceeds the presence of t by far). T was surely the tip of the weightscale, something I wouldnt mind being without, something I wouldnt mind only to have had instead of many other issues, lastly an opportunity I most likely wouldnt have been able to present myself to, a forced choice of a proactive attempt to deal with my problems, it's now or never

 

Hey Tenna!

So sorry to hear about your pain!! T is bad enough!!

Good for you though being proactive and taking up swimming again!! Great exercise and good therapy. I surf and it is my one place of refuge from my T!! I hope your swimming brings you some relief and joy!!

Be well!

 

I'm glad to hear swimming and surfing help with your tinnitus.
Preparing and eating food is a great, feel-good activity for me. I'm an organic grower and my companion is a chef and we come together in the kitchen to create and enjoy.
I love Crostini with different spreads. Here's quick recipe:
White Bean, Veggie Sausage and Rosemary

Olive oil
2 veggie sausage that have been crumbled and fried in olive oil
11/2tsp rosemary. chopped small
4 cloves of garlic ...chopped fine and cooked last two minutes with sausage
1 15 oz. can cannellini beans
1/2 tsp lemon juice
Red pepper flakes
S and P
Finely chopped parsley

Sauté sausage, rosemary...last two minute add garlic
Add beans and s and p to taste
Mash beans..leave chunks
cook for 5 minutes slow

Top crostini with beans mash
Sprinkle with Parmesan

 

I surfed in ventura and santa barbara counties until I had a brain hemorrhage in 2008 just after exiting the water. Affected my balance. I do miss being in the water.

 

Wow Ralph, that sucks! I actually live in Santa Barbara for a few years and serve Ventura Oxnard and Santa Barbara. Some great surf spots up there! I'm sorry that you're out of the water now! But glad that you found cooking! Thanks for the recipe I'm going to give it a try.next time I paddle out I'll catch a wave for you!

 

Actually I do go in the ocean when I'm crabbing for my catfish (ventura pier near C Street). Thanks for the wave.

 

Hey guys. Some good news.

My tinnitus has been gone for 3 days. I have no idea why. Today I was 6 hours in a shopping mall. Did not even get a temporary spike or earpain.

It's been good weather in Norway this week and the spring have just started. Maybe this have done something with my mood that have affected my tinnitus.

 

Weeeee

 

Hope it stays gone for you man!

 

Thats awsomeeee!! Hope it stays far far awayyy!!!!