When Trauma Becomes Evident in Ways You Couldn't Imagine...

I was really unsure what section of the forum to use for this post, but I decided to avoid the support section this time. While it is related to tinnitus, it's not directly about the noise this time.

I need to talk about something that has happened to me in the last 2-3 days. It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever experienced, at the same time one of the most revealing and wonderful things, it's hard to describe, it's good and bad and everything in between. I imagine this will be quite long but I'll try to keep it as short as I can.

My days are mostly spent playing video games as I work hard to suppress my annoyance with the sound. I play low music from Spotify all day, although sometimes I grow tired of that and put on some ASMR instead. Because of my autism I'm capable of a "hyper-focus", so when I combo the game with the music I'm able to get a bit less distressed by the noise on the good to medium days if I'm really into something. Whatever I can to keep the mind busy. I would much rather have a job or work on my books, but that's not possible now.

I'm pretty all-you-can eat when it comes to music except for a few things. Metal is my main genre that I know the best, but I listen to all kinds of things. Sometimes I just put on the Spotify "radio" and let it play random stuff. About 3 days ago, a song came on the radio that I hadn't heard before. It's a contemporary pop song by a very, very famous artist. A kind of club beat thing. I'll reveal the song later. I had no idea what was about to happen to me, that this one song would transform me in this way. The song uses a sample of another tune that I heard a lot in the mid-90's, which made the song familiar and pleasurable. It didn't take long until I was thinking "this is the best stuff I've ever heard from contemporary pop music". I usually don't care about that stuff but this was affecting me in ways I've never felt before. The song started to remind me of my earlier days, way way before I even knew anything about tinnitus. High school days, when my biggest problem was that some girl I was interested in didn't show interest back. When trying to figure out what you want to study next year is a "problem" (not really a problem). When life was a breeze, it was good to be young, I had my health, my hair, my future held infinite possibilities, ambition was high and I felt really good about life in general. And most importantly, it reminded me of the heat between a boy and a girl that can manifest on the dance floor in that special moment. It reminded me of what it feels like to feel good about being in love, to be close to someone and feel like you're on the top of the mountains. A bit like Leo in Titanic - "I'm the king of the world!".

I felt so damn good listening to that song I put it on repeat and I think I heard it at least 50 times in a row at first. Literally. Then I started realizing something else was going on. Because I started thinking about how all of this is now probably lost to me for all time and I'm just stuck in my apartment with horrible health and no future. I started clinging to these thoughts I had, I started clinging to the "universe in my mind" that I had created around this song. I wanted to go back in time, undo all the bad shit that had happened and just exist in a dance club instead of this bleak existence. Feel good about life and have hope. It started to become a manic thing. Eventually I understood what was going on. It was a profound psychological change.

You see, me playing video games and listening to music is not just about suppressing the sound. It's also about me suppressing all bad emotion I have tied to getting tinnitus in the first place plus all the other bad shit I endured before. It's about suppressing the enormous trauma I have from being a 37-year old who is single, on social services with no future and no hope in sight. I have built a wall of numbness for this over the last 4 years in order to keep my shit together.

When I was a kid, my emotions was all over the place and always very strong - overpowering me. It allowed me enormous capability to feel the strongest feelings a human can have, it was like a drug really. Imagine the first time you hear classic rock songs and your brain gives you the equivalent of all the best trips in the world, without taking a single drug. At the same time, it made me very tiresome for other people and I often got called out, asked to take a "chill pill" and so on. I was volatile and unpredictable. Anger and tears would often switch places, often at a whim. As an adult I have learned to control this, in fact, I took it a bit too far. I'm now often seen as unfeeling, too rational, the most logical person in the room. My passion is still there, but usually not brought forward unless I'm by myself.

This song has completely destroyed that wall, because of all the memories and wishful thinking it brought forth. I have now listened to that song at least 2000 times - literally - in the last 3 days. It's something completely manic about this, something that has proven to me that not only does the human brain work in ways we often cannot predict, but that even I, a "reasonable person" has enormous misgivings and untreated trauma that I simply wasn't able to suppress when it was subjected to this tsunami of memories.

Now I'm sure you're all wondering, "WHAT IS THAT SONG!?!".

The song is named "On the floor" by Jennifer Lopez. I'm still listening to it as I write this. I'm actually scared to turn it off. Yesterday I broke down sobbing like a little girl as I was consumed by all the fear, sadness, deep melancholy and loneliness this fucking condition is giving me on top of everything else. I would never in 500 million years have imagined a pop song by J Lo would do this to me, but here we are.

I think almost everyone on the forum who has been here for 1 year+ can relate, because this condition takes your soul. But I felt it was right to talk about it this time. I hope I will be able to dance with a girl in a club again one time, but I have my doubts.

 

Yesterday I swam in the sea for the first time in ages. After about 3 minutes swimming alone I unexpectedly began to laugh. Quite softly at first but increasingly frenetic. At one point, with feet kicking the water the laughter almost turned to tears.

I did begin to think of all the stuff this cruel affliction has done to me. But in that moment of open sea and sunshine I genuinely felt free of it all. There is and always will be, something beyond tinnitus.

 

It's great that you found something that let you experience the ease and buoyancy of your youth once again. I listened to On the Floor and I immediately knew the song it reminded you of As far as the music genre goes, it isn't really my cup of tea but like you I also felt transported back to a time where life was far more happy and easy going.

Music is such a powerful mood booster / enhancer it's a tragedy so many of us have to do without its positive effects because of our tinnitus and or hyperacusis, so I'm really happy for you that got to experience the high that comes from a song that speaks to your heart once again!

 

Hi @Lurius -- Very interesting post. Not sure what kind of feedback you may be looking for, but your use of the word "manic" makes me wonder whether you may want to consider finding a way to break out of this "mania" (if you haven't already). It doesn't seem to be in your interest to puruse this longer term. -- Wishing you the very best!

 

Thank you @Leila and @Lane for your kind words.

The thing is that because I have autism, I'm prone to some mannerisms that most people are not going to understand, or at least not fully see the matrix grid on. On surface level perhaps, but the deep brain stuff is more complicated. Autism is a lot like tinnitus in the way that it's widely misunderstood and the massive majority of the population knows next to nothing about it.

One of the things that's quite common is extremely repetitive behaviour, something I do quite a lot. It's very typical for me and other autists to have that and when you've been doing it for a while you stop thinking that it's bad or that you should stop doing it - it's a coping strategy and something we do to handle stress. Going back to that thing that comforts us over and over is not something we mind, if we really like that "thing". So when I say that this was manic, I mean by autistic standards and that means that by neurotypical standards, it's probably way, way worse than that.

I'm sure you've heard about escapism, a psychological strategy used to avoid having to deal with your problems. The opposite is called endurism, which is what I've been doing for 4 years now. Autistic people are especially hardy and I would say in some extreme cases (like me) almost built for isolation, which unfortunately can make them not realize that the situation needs to be addressed in a different manner. It can make them stay in a bad situation much longer than they should. Isolating from COVID-19 was fine, but getting back to socializing again has been very, very difficult for me. I didn't realize it was going to be this tough. I feel completely cut off from the world and I'm having enormous problems reconnecting.

I have so much health problems now, they have to be addressed immediately or I'm going to get some other chronic nightmare soon.

I just hope that Dr. Shore's device will work for me, because nothing happens when I touch my face.

 

Lights by Ellie Goulding kinda does the same for me but out of nostalgia. I remember hearing it for the first time in years and I almost cried because of how nostalgic it was for me. Something about it made me completely forget about tinnitus.