Wife Wants to Take Me to a Movie — Explaining Tinnitus and Hyperacusis to Family

Hi all.

I’m 3 months in - things are better but still rough. They were so rough in the beginning that I barely slept for a month and told my wife that I want to die. Thankfully I’m in a better headspace now but I’m still struggling. Still have the tinnitus and hyperacusis.

It’s my birthday coming up in a couple of weeks and my wife wants to take me to a movie. I politely declined on account of my ears, but she countered that I cannot shut myself inside all the time. To be clear there is no way in hell I’m going to the movies... you couldn’t pay me to attend. Of course, I didn’t say that. What I see is 90 minutes of pain and potentially more ear damage when I really need to protect my ears. I suggested going somewhere on a quiet outing. Frankly I’m a bit hurt that the cinema was even suggested.

I get the impression people think I’m overreacting and that we can just carry on like before... but it’s not like before. My head screeches and sound = pain. We’re likely talking months or a couple of years of recovery. Worst case scenario is that I’ll never go to the cinema again... I don’t know what the future holds.

I expect this to have an impact on relationships. How do you guys get the message across?

EDIT:

Apologies if that sounds like a bit of a whine. I was feeling frustrated at the time. There appears to be a lot of conflicting information about hyperacusis online. Some reputable places mention that you should not protect your ears around normal sound.

Following from that I do get advice from family in general saying... all good, it’s not that loud... for whatever activity might be suggested. I’m sure that the intentions are good and they’d like me to desensitise.

Unfortunately, what they may not consider loud can be rather uncomfortable for me. I’d prefer to expose myself to sound at my own pace in a way where I can be comfortable. Overall progress has been reasonably good on that front. I just want to set my own pace and hopefully reach for something approximating normal in future.

 

If I were you, I would not go. Just tell your wife how you feel.

People who love you should celebrate your birthday in the way YOU like and feel comfortable. This is tricky to understand sometimes, but it is the same that happens when offering a gift. One buys a gift for another person taking into account what the recipient of the gift likes, even if the person offering the gift does not like that particular item, product or activity.

 

If you look on my posts you will see that I've recovered from hyperacusis, I retrained my sound system - but I remember in 'the dark ages' in my life 14/15 going to the cinema 'never again' - I had cotton wool in my ears and the adverts and the film, ridiculous volume, trying to blow my head off...

 

While I am really glad your symptoms ameliorated considerably for the past months, I must say, explaining hyperacusis or tinnitus to our loved ones may seem quite difficult. People with healthy ears do not understand the sound sensitivity it creates for us.

I agree that you should not be exposed to any loud noise and even more in the recovery process.
I think it would be a good idea if you and your wife could research together about hyperacusis on internet. For instance videos/vlogs of others going through the same thing. Possibly it will change your wife's perspective on this matter. I would also explain that everyone is different. Some have it better and some worse.


About protecting your ears, I can tell you what i do because like you mentioned the informations available online can be contradictory. I will use ear plugs in situations where sound feels too much for my ears. Other than that I do not use them. Your ears will let you know if something is too much for them to handle.
If it doesn't feel comfortable then it's better to avoid it.
I think you have a good plan by setting your own pace.

 

You can't carry on "like before" but you can absolutely go to movies safely if you use earplugs.

Depending on your comfort level with your tinnitus, this might be "fine". I put plugs in but forget about the incessant head noises mostly as soon as the movie starts. It might be "extremely uncomfortable" for someone in the distress/pain state where wearing earplugs just makes the fixation and experience worse.

So, given that you can go to movies safely, but might not enjoy them at all, you have to decide to what extent you're willing and able to basically suck it up and put on a good face and go do stuff with other people in the interests of maintaining those bonds and some semblance of a regular life.

When this all kicked me in the head I definitely radically cut down the amount of time I spent in noisy places, and almost entirely eliminated any such activity for my own sake. I still went to some movies and concerts with my wife, using protection that I believed was better than sufficient, and managed to act like I was having an okay time even if that was not true. This game my wife some "normal dates" and let our relationship bond stay stronger through this. On the other hand, it only works if you can get yourself through it and be reasonably calm, if you're out at a restaurant and spend the whole time making your partner hear about your tinnitus, that's not going to be helpful.

This is where I'm going to get abrasive but: you can and should expect empathy from your family, but it's on you to communicate what's going on in a way that comes across as rational and not panicked. Further, if you actually "get offended" when someone suggests the cinema -- you need to suppress that, and process it, and deal with it. Someone might not get what you're going through, but they are doing their best to include you in their life. If the cinema is literally impossible for you because you don't think you can, right now, handle 90 minutes of earplugs without going insane, fine, but then it's on you to convince your family of the rationality of that. They don't have tinnitus, and you don't exactly want to make yours into their problem, you just need them to understand what you're going through.

The fact that it's your birthday means, to me, find something you want to do, make it about you, and feel good about that. But, be prepared, however many months down the line, for a day that's about someone else who might want you to go to the cinema with them. And you might want to very carefully do the calculus of saying "no", and what that does to that relationship, vs saying "okay I will be there for you on your special day", wearing earplugs, and keeping your discomfort to yourself.

If that sounds harsh, well, life with tinnitus is fucking harsh as hell, and if we're going to maintain functional relationships with people who don't have it, then we have to come up with all sorts of adaptation. Some of that involves educating our loved ones and accepting our limitations, but there is a give and take there. If you want your wife to be sympathetic to your needs, then you need to be sympathetic to hers, and that might mean going to the movies with earplugs sometimes even if you hate it. She probably hates that the person she is married to has tinnitus.

 

Sigh. This post is a case study in why TRT is the devil. I don't care how upset your wife gets, you are at a very critical point in time. Ignore TRT. Ignore the people believing in TRT. It's better to have loved ones looking at you funny, but with your injury healed than risk a life of never-ending torture and suicidal thoughts.

I don't blame this on your wife. I blame it on the unconscionable fact that 100%, fact-free pseudoscience runs the show with hyperacusis. It's sadistic, to be honest. It's like telling someone with a broken leg that they are paranoid for not putting weight on it. What kind of nonsense is this?

Listen to your body. It's that simple. The overprotection myth arose from ONE study, showing that people with normal hearing can become slightly more sensitive, but it is totally reversible. This study has been extrapolated to imply that overprotection and under protection are equally important for hyperacusis. They are not.

Also the 85 dB limit is a myth. One time, I did an experiment where I played music at around 40 dB for 1-2 hours. It was a little difficult, but I wanted to see how much truth there was to the dogma that my tolerance is higher than I think. It ended up making my hyperacusis so much worse. Within days, my LDLs went from around 50 dB to 10 dB. It's been almost a year and I still haven't recovered from it.

Granted, my cause of hyperacusis has nothing to do with noise, but noise certainly can make it worse.

 

Hi and thanks for the replies.

Yeah, I had an extended chat about it and we're going to have to wait on going out to the movies. I understand the frustration. We were already not going out much because of COVID-19. I think we'll settle on something pleasant but quiet.

Congrats. Glad to hear you're feeling back to normal.

Thanks. This is the approach I'm taking.

Not quite yet. I'm still in the relatively early stages of tinnitus and hyperacusis.

I'm attempting to keep my schedule relatively unaltered apart from where it involves uncomfortable noise. I exercise in the morning, work hard during the day week and am happy to go on outings over the weekend. At the moment I'm just avoiding music, cinema and other noisy activities. It's not easy. I've been playing music for most of my life and have also shelved that temporarily. Just so I can have a better chance while my ears are still healing.

Thanks for the honesty. I'll agree that I'm not the best communicator at times and need to work on that. I was feeling offended internally, but I just politely declined and suggested we do something more quiet. At the moment I'm less concerned about being comfortable and more concerned about giving myself a setback and causing long term damage.

In the first month I was talking about my symptoms all the time and everyone was getting rather tired of it (and told me so). I get that. It was tough for all involved. At the moment I'm trying to only talk about it if somebody asks me directly. I was already having trouble watching TV with the volume very low and my hand on the remote (just in case) - and have communicated this. The movie suggestion was just hard to stomach in light of how I can't seem to handle the TV properly. I get the feeling people are losing patience with me and pushing for a faster return to normal life.

That's most likely the case. I think the hyperacusis is causing more of an issue in my case though.

I'm sorry to hear that. It does scare me a bit.

Thanks. I intend to.

 

Just wear hearing protection. I wouldn't go to a death metal concert but I can't imagine a movie would make it worse. I don't have hyperacusis currently but I did and I know it sucks. Point being I can't imagine a movie theater would cause issues. However I am still blown away everyday by some of the shit people post on this forum so I guess it's your call.

 

Fast and hyperacusis do not agree well with each other. Recovery (rare, in cases of true hyperacusis) or getting better over time is slow and setbacks make it a slower process.

@linearb above suggested that you can try going to the cinema with earplugs. This depends on how bad your hyperacusis is. I would not have been able to do that, as sound went through the earplugs just like I wasn't wearing hearing protection.

You can see if you are ok with earplugs, as there are several degrees of hyperacusis, and fortunately not everyone has severe hyperacusis. If you are not ok at the cinema (or any loud place) wearing earplugs, you will know very fast, you will feel the sound go through the earplugs real loud.

For me many situations were very complicated, even at home, stuff like dishes clanking, the vacuum cleaner etc etc, kitchen appliances, all those odd beeps of electronic devices, mobile phone on speaker (a killer), bad low quality speakers... some of this situations got better in time (years in) and mostly due to hearing loss. So my body somehow traded very bad hyperacusis for some hearing loss plus some hyperacusis.

And this is important: people around you will say "oh, you habituated a bit" or "oh, you are getting better" but I know this is not how it works, I know it is not true. I did not improved from hyperacusis or recover from hyperacusis but traded very bad hyperacusis for some hearing loss plus some hyperacusis. So basically my hearing never recovered, meaning I was never able to tolerate sound like in pre-hyperacusis days and perceive sound with the same quality as in pre-hyperacusis days. My hearing just changed, I was not "cured".