Tinnitus Suffering as a Phobia

It's been a while since I had a moment of habituation, and I've been different ever since that moment. I've become very interested in tinnitus in a philosophical sort of way, instead of as a "sufferer". I've actually learned a lot of interesting things about perception by thinking carefully about tinnitus.

I now believe I know the Truth About Tinnitus, which probably makes me a very irritating person. My beliefs could be very offensive to some people on this board, but I'm going to say what they are. You might not want to read them if you know they're going to offend you. I'm not joking or being condescending by saying that. You really don't have to engage with me, I understand why you might not want to.

So here's my irritating belief: tinnitus sufferers have a phobia. Now a phobia is a real problem. And tinnitus phobia is one of the worst ones, because it's a phobia of something that is always with you. It's like having a phobia of your own nose.

I came to this conclusion in a surprising way. I have always had eye floaters. They have never bothered me. One day I stumbled on an internet forum for people with eye floaters. It's the same community as this one. The same types of people. The same arguments. You could just use find-and-replace.

The lesson was immediately obvious. No matter how obvious I thought it was that tinnitus is a life-changing disease, it was obviously false. I had been worked up into a frenzy.

 

I don't want to write a life-long paragraph yet I find this quite interesting. But a quick question I got to ask:

Does eye floaters keep one person awake at night?

 

I have a fairly severe case, a large X-shaped one very close to my retina, and I can tell you they don't.

 

I'm so sorry you have this condition. I hope one day they can fix it.

As we can see, these two conditions are very different by nature. Tinnitus is something life changer. You can't get enough sleep, you can't focus on your work, you can't and you can't if you have it severe. Do not get me wrong, I do believe eye floaters are also from hell and there should be a cure for it also but tinnitus IS more than a phobia.

Just my opinion of course.

 

Good post Off-Kilter, but I'd have to disagree with it being a phobia. There are underlying mechanisms to our auditory system that are damaged silently or in most cases, the victim recognizes a ringing sensation after a situation where noise exceeded the normal decibel volume for safe listening/sound processing.

Our brains love information. What makes that information even more special is if it's brought into the brain through bountiful amounts of neurotransmissions through neurons. I have not read a document of article online mentioning that our hearing is probably one of the most influential elements to ones emotional processing in this world, but it has got to be. But from the looks of it, it seems like not everyone enjoys music and playing an instrument like those out there in this world do and they seem to be getting by in life just fine. Could it be due to one's genes, dna, brains development from birth that causes one to be able to emotionally process sound at a higher level than others?

I was watching a video posted on the website of informational music program "Fuse" about why we love music so much. The video featured the scientist Bill Nye (which made the video 100x better) who was asked the question by a young teen who played guitar. Bill Nye responded with how music features certain octaves, rhythmic patterns, melodies, scales, etc. that appeal to us. What made me so ecstatic at the end of the video was what he quoted here, "I don't why, (meaning why music is so powerful) but it's just got to be just ultimately based on attracting a mate....what's down there". That statement at the end, even if it can be thought of as unintelligent and goofy, is pure gold. It's the reason why we are on this earth. We are all intentionally here to reproduce. It's the hidden needle in the hay stack.

What I'm trying to get to is that the emotional information our hearing allows us to bring in is intended to be there for a reason. There is a reason why a ringing sensation develops, there is a reason why one's mood/ability to handle life/and cognitive processing changes, and there is a reason why, like you're saying, one develops a phobia to sound. I can balantly say it's because what was once there to allow that subject's brain to receive emotional information, is not there anymore or much of what was there is gone.

A study has shown that what we call Tinnitus and Pain flow side by side in the same regions of the brain. I have to say, Tinnitus is not just over-excited neurons of the brain, but locations of the brain that were interconnected through a system that allowed emotional transmissions to take place. It has to all relay back to one specific sensory input. Where it all starts. The base of one's brain who emotionally process information through their hearing.

Our ability to emotionally hear sound when damaged is like the base of a building structure. When the half of or some of the base has been destroyed, the building will not be as sturdy. The sturdiness is referring to the unbalanced emotions or "nuerotransmitted chemicals" in our brain. Those born with the ability to emotionally process sound through their hearing, when all the specific nerves of their auditory system have been damaged overtime, will cause a slow crumbling of the brain because their brains were meant to receive their information through one of the most emotionally influential areas of the sensory system. No ability to emotionally process information through their hearing is like having no base to a building structure. In real time, the building will completely topple over. The brain is like the building, but it's process of falling over is dramatically slower. Years. Decades.

 

I think this is subjective; during the onset of my visual snow problems, it absolutely did keep me awake at night. Now, despite often being fixated on/distressed by my tinnitus for large chunks of the day, it definitely does not keep me awake at night... and I sleep without using a fan or any other masking stuff. Given that I live in a thick, well-insulated building, the incessant 14khz whine is generally the loudest noise in the environment. It's a drag, but "I don't lose sleep over it".

As long as you feel like you're physically safe and secure, and you're exhausted and free from stimulants, you will fall asleep and sleep soundly. So the question of whether or not tinnitus, or visual snow, or floaters keep us awake at night seems to be largely related to the question of whether or not these problems make us feel like we're in danger.

@Off-Kilter I don't find your post offensive, and I'm sympathetic to your view, but one thing to keep in mind is that your tinnitus isn't my tinnitus, and my tinnitus isn't someone else's. Some people have tinnitus which is so faint that they can only detect it in very quiet rooms, at which point I suppose you just turn on a small fan and move on with your life (which is exactly what I did for the first decade). Some people have tinnitus which is so loud that it prevents them from being able to hear the dialog on a TV show at a high volume. Because they symptom is extremely individual, so must the reaction and coping mechanisms be.

This is a tautology that has nothing to do with tinnitus. Your brain and body are in the process of falling apart and failing you. That's how it works.

 

Na, not true. Enough noise and no it's not a phobia. The CIA uses noise to torture prisoners called acoustic beatings. These beatings are relatively tame (79 db white noise 24 7) compared to some what some people experience with their T.

You don't know the truth about tinnitus, you know the truth about your tinnitus. You are kind of being narrow minded and ignorant to make generalized statements and to think that all tinnitus is the same.

For many many people, T is definitely a phobia (like yours) brought on by having a anxious type personality and going into a "frenzy" over a little ear ringing. For others though, is a legit problem, not just some bad thoughts that fade with time and a little relaxation.

 

@Off-Kilter ,
My left ear went suddenly and profoundly deaf in 2013. My tinnitus is a direct result of sudden sensorineural hearing loss. I have ear fullness and pain, along with constant noise. These symptoms are caused by some sort of physical injury to my auditory system. I do not fear my condition though. I do my best to cope with it.

 

I would imagine that the main reason this works is framing, and the selection of sounds that are culturally noxious to the victim. On both counts, it actually works because of the intentional creation of an irrational aversion to the sound.

The trouble is that the objective loudness of tinnitus is an idea that can't exist. Can we ever distinguish between a severe reaction to a mild T, and a mild reaction to a severe T? We can ask a person to compare their tinnitus to an objective sound's loudness, but the perceived loudness of sounds is affected by how much we care about them in the first place.

 

I think the fear of t at least for noise induced causes is that it's is permanent , no cure , no control or relief and it may get worse with more noise .
If at least we could handle this as a temporary state then perhaps the reaction would be different

But yes the phobia angle is interesting and perhaps another way of dealing with this

 

I reckon I could give it a go.

I used to suffer from mild tinnitus. I was aware it was there, but since it never bothered me, I never did anything about it.

Now I have a more severe form of tinnitus, almost certainly brought about because I didn't heed the warning signs of my much milder case.

The difference between the two is like chalk and cheese. One was something I occasionally noticed right before I fell asleep, while the other is something I notice almost every waking moment of the day because nothing can mask it.

It's not a phobia, it has nothing to do with a positive mental attitude and no amount of wishful thinking will make it go away.

It's a symptom of hearing loss. And some people suffer the symptoms worse than others.

 

I feel like entering this discussion to address this comment. How, oh how, can it be said that this is an "irrational" aversion?!??!?!??!?!??!!!!!

It is NOT irrational to be averse to a noxious input! It is NOT irrational to be pained, emotionally and physically and mentally, to an upsetting stimulus that was never the norm (nor intended to be the norm, else we'd all be born with tinnitus.).

People may cope with it, and learn to do beautifully despite it (and they deserve accolades!).

But it is NOT irrational. Despite our ability to adapt, to greater or lesser extents, we are human beings, not robots.

The use of the term "irrational" lacks -->>compassion and insight<<--. Maybe you didn't intend it that way, but it spurred me to make a rare, contrary post. Suffering people are reading that term. And they are not irrational.

 

I'm sorry, but it is. I'm not saying it will be easy, or even possible, for a particular person to stop being averse to their tinnitus. But it is irrational to be averse to it, after you know what it is.

Tinnitus is pretty well understood in general terms, even though the specifics are open questions. It's a phantom input that has no meaning except that something is abnormal about the auditory system. If it isn't a sign of a condition that might be harmful (such as a brain tumour), then there's nothing bad about it. Being averse to something that isn't bad, is irrational.

Now hearing loss is objectively bad. And hearing loss and tinnitus are often comorbid, which I believe is that main fact that has led to all this madness. The medical profession (although careful to describe tinnitus as a "symptom") have associated it with objectively bad things in our minds.

In some older mystic traditions, people with tinnitus are happy, because they think it represents some mystical insight. That's irrational too, but those people really exist! It's possible to be overjoyed on the day that you first get tinnitus.

Everything is reaction. Even the inability to get to sleep. I've gotten to sleep with loud machines running nearby before. There wasn't even a problem. "Oh, that's just that machine."

 

I think it is presumptuous to decide what each individual defines as "bad."

If YOU don't define an aberrant noise in your head as "bad," then it WOULD be irrational for YOU to get upset about it.

If I DO define an aberrant noise in my head as "bad," then it is NOT irrational for me to get upset about it (or in my case, to do whatever I can to help it lessen or abate).

I don't think anyone can judge for anyone else. If you want to be a happy mystic with tinnitus, then go for it. If you want to say that your tinnitus is bad because you are a person who highly values beautiful, golden silence in which to think your thoughts, then you get to say that.

Let's not label either one as "irrational." Let us not JUDGE.

 

But even if we look at it that way, doesn't it seem very odd? Why would you define an aberrant noise in your head as "bad"? Are you saying that you chose to be unhappy instead of happy? Or are you saying that this definition was somehow chosen for you? Who chose it?

 

I have never said once that I am unhappy!!!

If you knew me, you would know that I am one of the most full-of-sunshine, happy, exuberant people on this planet, with or without tinnitus!!!

But yes, I DO define this aberrant noise in my head as BAD.

That does not mean that I am not coping beautifully with its presence (what choice do I currently have?)

But is it BAD? Yes! It is bad, bad, bad! It does not belong here. It is freaking annoying. Yes, I can find the silver lining in most anything and have all my life. But that does not mean that I suddenly say, "Oh, wonderful, here is the silver lining, and therefore tinnitus is not bad." It IS bad. My life can be rich and wonderful and good, whether or not I have tinnitus, whether or not I am coping well with tinnitus. My garden can be beautiful whether or not there is a bag of trash in the middle of it. The flowers are still gorgeous.

But if I could pick up the bag of trash and throw it where it belongs (OUT!), then that is what I am going to do with it.

And just because tinnitus is "merely" aberrant signaling and is not a tumor, that doesn't make it NEUTRAL.

The question of coping is completely different. We've got to cope.

But let's call the spade the spade. Let me ask you this question: If tomorrow, you got to wake up and ask the universe to assign you a case of tinnitus that is 100 times worse than the one you have now, would you? No??? Because why? Because that would be ... bad.

 

Are you saying that tinnitus objectively makes it harder to concentrate and think? Because if that were true, then it would indeed destroy my argument.

Now this is what I used to believe as well. And it's what drove me to despair, because thinking is key to my life and career prospects. So I paid close attention to how tinnitus affects my thinking.

What I found, is that there is no better way to destroy the perception of tinnitus, than to do maths. In fact, I would almost say that doing maths is a wonder drug for tinnitus. I've read many other testimonies, that when a person really is in the depth of thinking about something or working on something, tinnitus is the last thing on their mind.

After taking a survey of my life (trying to be as objective as possible), I discovered that my mathematical skill or ability to concentrate hadn't changed at all. The difference was that during gaps in concentration (which would happen anyway), I switched my focus to my tinnitus because I had a phobia of it.

 

Actually it's because it would make me think about tinnitus more, and I still have a mild phobia of my tinnitus sometimes. In other words, I wouldn't do it because I know that I am often irrational. I'm counting on it. But noticing I am irrational is a method that slowly fixes me.

 

Hey, I'm not trying to say anything down about you or the way you cope with your particular case. I'm not even arguing about your own individual and helpful philosophical viewpoint about your tinnitus and your approach to it. I believe we are each on a journey to cope creatively in the ways that best resonate with us. Yours is working for you.

And mine is working for me. I see this as a challenge on many fronts for me and my life. Those silver (or even golden) linings. Improvements in diet. Tai chi and focus. Depths of compassion. Strength of character. Commitment. Personal triumph. Etc. I am doing all of that.

What I have the most difficulty with in that post I first quoted of yours, above, is the use of the term "irrational." It assigns a stigma in a blanket kind of way to people. There IS no one "rational" in this gray world of ours. Well, yes, there can be in some broad areas (do not harm, thou shalt not kill, etc.) though there can even be endless debates on moral gray areas.

What I'm saying is, just because this has become your personal philosophy (and I have enjoyed many of your personal views and approaches and they're interesting and have merit), it cannot be generalized. Many people find this bad (and not in a "perpetuate my suffering" way - but just because "noxious" IS bad, to them). We can't go labeling their view irrational. It's too across-the-board.

 

I do wish you continued success with your own creative way to cope! It is vital for each of us to find what works and develop it. At the end of the day, what makes YOU feel better is GOOD. <<-- Am I allowed to label it that way? Just kidding with ya! Peace! And all the best going forward!!!

 

I never worry about who I might be giving ammunition to. It always struck me as pointless to worry about, you can never track your intellectual influence.

I would say that everyone is irrational sometimes. But you're never going to fix tinnitus aversion (or any phobia) without clear thinking. Tinnitus is nothing. It's a phantom input. Once you know what it is, you know that its only meaning is that your auditory system is abnormal. It doesn't mean anything about your plans for today.

One of the main things I noticed on my tinnitus journey was how many problems of human life are just phantom problems caused by not aligning emotions with reason. Tinnitus aversion is just the tip of the iceberg, it's all around me (and in my own head).

 

Well, put that way, it makes a better statement. That kind of viewpoint, in your post above, is like the value of good preparation of the walls before you paint. If you do it right, first you sand them, fill in holes, etc., then use a good primer coat, THEN do the real painting. This gets you the most beautiful finish, if you take the time to do it.

In the same manner, your idea about "knowing that tinnitus is an abnormal auditory input" (to paraphrase you) is a key feature in helping to calm the hyper-emotional thought processes that surround and exacerbate the condition.

So it's a helpful component in the overall coping strategies we need to develop.

Yes, people in all sorts of situations in general daily life can and do often inflame "problems" from molehills into mountains. So learning to see clearly can be a big assist.

Tinnitus is more complex and for many people, requires lots more than simply learning that it's not going to kill you.

Life, as a journey, is full of the rational, the irrational, the simple, the complex, the meaningless, the meaningful, the ordinary, the extraordinary, the mundane, the exciting, the factual, the poetic, the reasonable, the unreasonable, the scientific, and the artistic. And it may contain mathematical and scientific underpinnings, but I believe the universe, at heart, runs on the current of love.

Define THAT.

And I leave you with my favorite quote, by novelist Shirley Hazzard:

"Sometimes, surely, truth is closer to imagination - or to intelligence, to love - than to fact. To be accurate is not to be right."

(Even Einstein said this, in his own way.)

 

I think this contains two false ideas about how to solve tinnitus aversion. In fact I think these are the two ideas that get people stuck. They certainly got me stuck.

The first is the idea suddenly. People who suffer from tinnitus aversion sometimes get greedy. They can think that if a person has more good days in a month than they used to, that doesn't prove anything, tinnitus is still Satan. I remember I used to think that people like I am now were just fooling themselves, because they said that tinnitus still "sometimes annoys them".

The unfortunate fact about tinnitus aversion is that although it can appear suddenly, you have to spend a long time unwinding it. But really, how is that different from most things in life? Slow progress over months is the basis of every improvement in every aspect of mental health.

The second is the idea of silver lining. If you go looking for the "silver lining" of tinnitus, you're just getting deeper into the hole. To get out of the hole, you need to remind yourself that tinnitus is not a dark cloud. What's "dark" about tinnitus? It's a sound that has no meaning, often comorbid with actual dark clouds such as hearing loss and brain tumours.

 

@Off-Kilter
May I ask how loud is your t?
Wires are getting crossed here so maybe the loudness level would explain why we see things differently!

 

I'm really iffy about ideas related to the loudness of such an unmeasurable sound. I can hear it over the top of an action movie in the cinema. It's a high-pitched squeal in my right ear. But the one time I can never hear it is in the shower (probably because the sound of a shower is so complicated).

Even if my tinnitus is somehow objectively mild, I can tell you that when I first noticed it, I went straight down to hell for a year. It's a good thing I happened to get a girlfriend around that time, or else there's a very good chance I wouldn't be alive.

I suspended my thesis work in despair over the idea that I couldn't concentrate anymore. I sent crazy emails to a few people that I had to later explain. I definitely don't have the worst sob story, but my life has been changed more by tinnitus than any other event.

 

This thread presumes that reason rules our lives. In my opinion we simply use reason to rationalise thoughts and actions after we think or do them. Whatever reaction we have to tinnitus we will rationalise it as the correct reaction.

 

There is only one type of reason. It's possible to come up with something that looks like reason to support a false statement, but in the end, there will be a problem with either the reasoning or the premises.

I don't think reason totally rules our lives. But when we remind ourselves of a totally solid piece of reasoning over and over again, it changes us. We know that reason is more reliable than we are, even if sometimes it takes us a while to admit it.

Tinnitus is an odd case where reason is on our side. It almost seems unbelievable that pure logic is against tinnitus aversion, not for it. With a lot of medical conditions, pure reason will tell you that things are actually worse than you want to believe. With tinnitus, pure reason tells you that things are perfectly fine. This is an amazing lifeline, and it has practical results if you think it through, over and over again.

 

To the extent that the aversion does nothing but increase the rumination and suffering, how is it rational?

People in a state of suffering or distress clearly are irrational... that's practically what the term means.

You're ascribing some negative value to the word, for some reason. Judgements themselves are usually irrational.

Rationality is an ideal, more or less. Animals are fundamentally irrational, and humans are definitely animals...

 

I think what I objected to was the use of the word "irrational" to describe the overall response a person has to tinnitus.

Meaning, if you have dwelt for 40 years, let's say, with normal ambient silence in your ears, and then, "eeeeeeeeeeee" arrives and doesn't leave, well, then, it would not be irrational to be averse to that!

At that point, you hate it, you are fraught with horror (many are), you want it OVER. Same (minor example, not to compare to tinnitus) as if you are sleeping in a room, all cozy in your bed, and ready to settle down, exhausted, and ... mosquito in the room!

If you COULD, you would probably choose to go sleep in another room for that evening. Because ... you were averse to the mosquito. And in that and many other cases in life, aversion serves the function of getting us away from something unpleasant. (Heck, there's even a neurologically built-in aversion response: the spinal reflex, i.e. - removing your finger from a hot stove without the process ever having to be decided in your brain.).

Nothing wrong with aversion (which I see defined as: "a reaction against a noxious stimulus").

I'd also be averse to someone sticking a pin in me, stepping on my toe, slapping me, etc.

Now if you are talking about a modified situation, which I now see is what the original poster was positing, then that would be: person who has tinnitus, has had it for a while, is beyond the initial shock and horror, and is trying to learn to cope with it better. Person understands that it is "just" a sound, and wants to work with that idea, as a means of coping. Therefore, person decides to give up the earlier "aversion" response, accept the sound as a matter of choice, and then work to improve their overall experience of life by not dwelling in an averse state. And yes, THAT would be a rational response in that case.

Gee, that just felt like a college essay response. Haven't done that in a while. And was never averse to it, either!

 

Phonophobia, misophonia...its all well documented. Hardly a revelation. No less real for that either. Those of us who have hyperacusis along for the ride...just a phobia too?