Trojan Horse

Tinnitus is a’Trojan Horse.’
When it first appeared on my horizon I recognised it, and disliked it immediately.
I knew it was a foe.
I took it seriously, tried acupuncture, and other nonsense like that, but found it quite useless.
(He put a prick in my ear - so how was that supposed to help?)
Some twenty years later the approaching enemy rumbled ever closer until stealthily it crossed the drawbridge into my consciousness, ensconcing itself in my head, and in my life.
It proved to be the epitomy of the internal saboteur.
It took a wrecking ball to my life, destroying my jazz career of over fifty years, my artistry, my skill, my music, my very way of life.
I won’t go on about that too much - every one of us ‘severe’ suferrers has lost far too much to describe.

Unlike many on here, I flatly refuse to see this entity, this ‘effing’ scumbag, as my little friend, a travelling companion on life’s road, who merely accompanies my journey.

I am a realist - remember - always attempting to put my logic before my wishful thinking.
Miracles went out with fairy-stories, making me an agnostic, on the grounds that nobody actually ‘knows’ nor can know.
All of that ‘religious’ stuff is a total enigma, and will remain so to me, however much time and effort I might spend on it, unless of course, I choose to employ a large chunk of ethereal imagination.

But one thing I have discovered.
Just like the bully in the school playground who, for no apparent reason bloodied our nose, or the seemingly good friend, who put us down behind our back, or the vile tenant who wrecked our trust and our property, even though we had shown them nothing but kindness; we have to try to come past these experiences, put them behind us, and go on living without dwelling on such hateful times.

With Tinnitus this is a very tall order.
Rather like the guy who wrote up the ‘Back to Silence’ method, I have found that my attitude to “T” improves if I recognise that my feelings about it are not necessarily stuck in the same dismal rut of hate - hate - HATE !!

My feelings vary.
Sometimes:
I hear it - I hate it,
I hear it - I want to die,
I hear it - I’m coping,
I hear it - so what,
I hear it - I’m okay.

Daily meditation - just a posh word for relaxation - helps me to feel more at ease:

A lot of the time, I hear it - I’m okay.

Dave x

 

Much love to you, Dave. Try not to let this shit suck the life out of you, stick two fingers up and do the things you love.

Have you ever thought about doing some small jazz gigs again? I’ve noticed since you’ve quit it’s really eaten you up inside. Maybe doing a small gig once a month or something could give you your spark back?

Or maybe, teach kids the art of jazz in a local community centre or in the schools or something. I think you need an outlet for all your jazz knowledge; teaching kids or people who want to learn may really help in this respect.

Pass the torch so to speak. Let your passion live on in other people.

 

You’re a legend Jazzer. We know each other’s suffering so well and I know how much passion you have for life and love you have for your family to soldier on with this bloody awful handicap and find a way to move forward.

As we all know anyone at any stage of their life living with severe tinnitus is the toughest of the tough. Period.

The honest truth no neighbour or doctor or ENT or tinnitus charity will understand or better yet admit, is that it’s a miracle of the human spirit that some of us are still alive, given how brutal and gruelling this is on a daily minute by minute basis without any relief even for a second.

You will never know how much I would love to see you bask in wonderful silence once more.......We’re going to need a very large bucket for all the tears of joy and relief if some clever bastard saves us in the not too distant future.xx

 

@Bam - my dear mate - we have read posts from each other over just a few months - met face to face just once, for perhaps three to four hours - and yet, ironically, we know much more of each other’s true nature and depth of feeling than those that may have known us for a lifetime.
We managed to cry our eyes out, and laugh our socks off, having met up purely because we are both subject to this crock of shit that should remain nameless.

I also know that we can do ‘slightly less than sod all’ to help each other, other than be the kind of company that provides absolute recognition of our joint predicament.

I do know us both to be the ‘ultimate realists’ but can think of no finer dream than to share that bucket with you old sport.

Dave x
Jazzer

 

On today’s menu
I hate tinnitus
I hate that tinnitus has caused depression
and chronic anxiety.
I hate tinnitus with a vengeance.
Maybe tomorrow’s menu may be slightly
different but the main ingredient will
still be there.
Eve
@Jazzer

 

Dear @Nanny chocolate - Bam and I both know where you are, and are reserving a special place round the bucket. xx

 

Wow thanks, what an offer!! X
@Jazzer @Bam

 

@Jazzer,
Any room for me ...
love glynis

 

@glynis - absolutely babe xxx

 

Im in the hear it I want to die camp every minute of my life, I would do anything to get back to any of the other 4. I think I’m loosing it this time around.

 

Oh buddy - have you tried any meditation or deep relaxation ?

 

I must invite one of my special mates
@Greg Sacramento

 

Cheers Ed.
My ‘T’ is ever present, heard above verything else.
I loved my jazz life, I lived on my musical wits, my sound, and my individual concept.
But you know all this stuff eh Ed?

I will not risk putting myself back into further risk of noise damage.

But thanks for your thoughts and concern Ed,

Best always

Dave x
Jazzer

 

Yes, I became very good at this throughout the years, I honestly can not sleep now. In the past I would sleep/relax even if the tinnitus was like a smoke alarm, I could lay and zone out for hours, and sleep well, I just kind of let the tinnitus attack me and went with it.

This go around it’s like it’s all new. I can drift off but hear/feel it in my sleep, wakes me up. I sleep for 10 minutes at a time, that’s it. It seems to build and build while I’m asleep. It’s in every dream I have, I could have sworn in the past, it actually shut off while I slept.

I honestly thought I was good at this, I was coping, but after a recent noise trauma, it’s all new again. I coped with tinnitus better the last time, even at onset, this time it’s beyond what I could have imagined.

I can take benzos or whatever, it doesn’t help, not even a little bit. I can get up to 2 hours of sleep if I get wasted on booze, pass out, but feel awful being up all night following the two hours.

Even if I let it go, feel my body soften, somehow the noise gets painful and I have to move my head around.

I don’t think I have ever once posted in the past about wanting to die, it’s kind of embarrassing, I actually don’t want to, I really don’t want to, I have a lot to live for, I just feel as though I’m being pushed into it by this shit.

You can’t live on this amount of sleep even if you’re healthy, never mind trying to battle through a day with a screaming brain and permanent migraine, it excruciating.

I just had a 5 month battle with shingles, actually I still have it, I couldn’t even wear a shirt at one point, it feels like you have a blow torch on your skin, hard to sleep. that is just absolutely nothing to what I’m going through with tinnitus at the moment, I can’t cope, I’m being pushed out, just not meant to be for me.

I thought I was done with TT, sorry about going on and on on your thread, just desperate and terrified at this point.

 

Right there with you Nanny....

I would add to that.

I hate that tinnitus has made me feel so horribly abnormal. Oh to just be a normal properly functioning human being again.

Nobody but us has any idea how dreadful this is.

 

Well, not nobody. With chronic pain it's been a sadness feeling cut off from normalcy. With that and tinnitus both I'm not sure I'm even human anymore.

 

Totally true Bam. I’m still trying to work part time with my Clients. If only people knew how brave we have to try to be just to get through a day.
Eve in sunny Devon. Well it was today weather wise.
@Bam

 

Jesus wept Telis.
I’m not far from where you are bud.
I’m reluctant to suggest anything because you’ve probably tried it all.
Melatonin (Circadin over here) really does give me longer sleep, but my mood throughout the day varies pretty wildly.
It would be great to feel I’d reached a place of safety, but that seems very illusive.

I long for a situation where all of us severe sufferers can find some true rest, relief and peace.

Love you mate,
Dave x
Jazzer

 

A Trojan Horse indeed.
In the end, Troy fell.

 

You must live near Dave I think Bam? as you are now coffee as well as T buddies.
Nobody would ever guess of your suffering with that wonderful sense of humour
@Bam

 

No none sufferer could possibly believe or understand the pain and the torture.
And yet I long to win through if at all possible.

 

Telis this is the way I feel bud. Today I went out mountain biking with my dog. It was beautiful. We cycled on the downs for hours and stopped for a beer at a lovely pub. It was my idea of a perfect day.

I wanted to enjoy it. I kind of did enjoy it, but I still didn’t feel anything like joy or contentment in my heart.

Because that’s what this does. It takes away all the small but essential pleasures in life and leaves you with just this huge struggle to survive. That’s not a life. It’s a brutal existence.

Like you I have dozens of reasons to live, but the one reason to give up, namely a searing, piercing awful incurable noise in my own head is totally overpowering. So all the blessings have now become like links on a chain holding me in this awful tortured state.

If people truly glimpsed and understood what we go through emotionally with this they would be horrified. But all we get is cold indifference from a world caught up in their own problems, that to us just seem frustratingly trivial now.

We have truly been cast out in to a cold desolate lonely hinterland in the most perplexing and cruel way imaginable.

I deeply understand your suffering and I’m right there with you.....Tinnitus is truly a curse.

 

Thanks Nanny. I suffer like hell and I’ve lost so much to this. More than I could ever have imagined in my worst nightmares. But even if I’m driven to end my own life by this hell I will go out with a little quip to myself I’m sure.

 

Don’t go, please don’t go. Do everything you possibly can to stay with us.
@Bam

 

I will. It seems insane we’re in a position where we’re even having these conversations and there’s no medical help other than bullshit drugs that do nothing to treat the actual thing making us anxious, depressed and suicidal. It’s an almost completely unrecognised tragedy.

 

Why arent all of us with NIHL not pushing on a scheme to try and get some fx322 asap? Like within the next 6 months? Organizing to push frequency, the FDA, along with the ata and bta? This is our best potential chance to be rid of this.

 

Rude to ask and you don’t have to answer BUT how old are you?
I’m 69 but I’ve been told I’m ‘good for my age’. I’d post a photo but don’t want to tip anyone over the edge!! No jumping please.
@Bam

 

Because as you know only too well John the ATA and BTA have their own agenda. And none of it involves curing us. More like ignoring us and focusing on all the people that apparently don’t give a shit about a noise in their own heads and are quite content to have it lodged there. This means less work for them and no major scares for the general public who they seem to be more concerned about.

I presume the Fx322 producers are not going to rush to give us anything as what would they gain?!? If it fails where does that leave them?

 

Not rude. 38. I was hoping my mid life crisis would involve a Harley Davidson and a 24 year old girlfriend......Instead I got this bullshit.

 

Life can deal us a bad hand and I am feeling like the runt off a litter as I have been given all the crap to deal with day and night....
It's one thing after another or all kicking off at once and so worn out fighting on and on .
I have been a little quiet on here but some times I have no choice as it's bloody hard going...
Love glynis x