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Hi everyone

This is a recovery post as I am completely rid of my tinnitus. I've hesitated to even log on to the forums again, as I feel very done with everything tinnitus related... But I knew that when I got well, I wanted to share it - because the rare stories of recovery was what kept me going when I used to have it.

(This is gonna be longer than I thought ... It's the writer in me )
My story:

Tinnitus appeared out of nowhere, maybe due to pressure, extremely loud music and stress in my life. I still have no idea. I lay in bed one night and got this ringing/static noise. I thought nothing of it until the next day on my way to work when it still hadn't gone away. It was difficult to focus at work, and the following weeks I couldn't sleep. I'd doze off by 6 AM for a few minutes and wake up again.

I took a sick leave off work as my mental health began deteriorating. I googled tinnitus and was horrified by the stories. At this time I lived on my own and had no one to turn to. I lay in bed all day and couldn't eat food. It was like I was shutting down out of pure fear. I've NEVER felt this weak, and on this very day I can't recall exactly how I felt back then.

I got fired from my job due to downsizing and couldn't pay my rent. At the age of nearly 30, I had to move back home to mom. I couldn't care less of the transition though, as all I could feel and think of was terror and panic of the tinnitus not going away. I went to different ear specialists, with their main response being: don't worry, at least it's nothing serious. I recall wanting to rather lose a limb than to have tinnitus for the rest of my life. This too terrified me, because I love life, and it felt like it had been taken away from me. It's hard to explain the exact sorrow that came with the tinnitus. Everywhere I read, it said the best thing you could do was get in touch with a cognitive therapist only to learn that even though it's permanent, you can still lead a fulfilling life.

I remember watching a TV show on decorating. There was a woman there who laughed a lot, being carefree. I felt I'd never feel that feeling again, but seeing as she was so happy, I chose to hang on to that as a proof that life can be something good as well. As if she was a source or proof of happiness, and that it can be reached.

Randomly, on my frantic online research, I found an article written by a Norwegian tinnitus researcher, now in her 60's. She meant that tinnitus is a natural thing happening due to all sorts of reasons, that we can habituate to and in the end be rid of entirely. The solution: just focus on something else! I contacted her by text just to tell her that there's no way this thing goes away by focusing on something else. And even if it does help, so what? You'll still have it, even though it lowers from time to time. It's still an eternal prison. She told me to focus on other sounds though, and stay in touch to tell me how it went. She knew plenty of people who'd gotten rid of their tinnitus.

PATH TO RECOVERY
Due to not having a job, I began venturing out at cafés during the day. I got out my pen and paper and got writing. Writing a book is my biggest dream. After some weeks of café visits (not daily) I managed to not hear the tinnitus for about 30 seconds at a time, sometimes a couple of minutes. This was a big deal to me, and I knew that if it stopped for just some minutes, it meant that it could stop all together. I realised that as long as I can have these small moments of happiness, I won't feel like dying 24/7.

I got sleeping pills from my doctor but I'm sceptical of anything pill-related and didn't want to take them. I guess mostly I was just upset that my brain couldn't ever get tired enough to just faint or something. I tried different tinnitus apps and a certain type of hearing phones beneath my pillow to fall asleep but none of that helped.

I focused on the old timepiece we had in the living room at night (I couldn't bring myself to sleep in my bedroom because the silence, and hence the tinnitus, was immense). At some point between the hours of 3 and 4, I had focused so much on the tick-tick-ticks of the clock that it was all I heard. This lasted a few seconds. Again, I saw it as proof that it's possible to hear other sounds only, without the tinnitus. Though this was a dark time overall, and my parents took me to the emergency room the next day because I was fatigued and didn't eat. It's sad to say it, but I was desperate, endlessly sad and overall tired. 29 years old and your parents take you to the emergency room because you're not mentally strong enough to even deal with tinnitus... great.

The doctor was a great one, though. He didn't speak much of the tinnitus, only about things in life and how it can impact us. That most things come and go, even cancer, and that our bodies keep us safe in the strangest, most unknown ways. Also, he was quite handsome, and the fact that I noticed was another sign that life could involve good feelings despite the pit I was in. I took ANY positive as a sign it would get better.

IMPROVEMENT
By the next weeks, I could forget about tinnitus for several minutes during the café visits. Stepping out and hearing the tinnitus would be nerve wrecking each and every time. It meant it was still present. Oddly, reading an article I found one of the forums about the reason of tinnitus, helped relax me a bit. It explained it as a noise coming from the brain and by simply focusing off it it disappears from your awareness even though the noise itself still exists within the brain. This is exactly what the Norwegian researcher had told me, but for some reason the new article felt more explainatory. I needed to personally understand the goings of tinnitus.

This was the first night I managed to get a few hours sleep rather than minutes. The mere explanation of tinnitus helped me relax, and I realised that if I can manage to fall asleep with tinnitus, at least my body and brain will be able to get much needed rest in the midst of it all. I was still anxious every night before bed, but learned that I did fall asleep eventually. In sleep, it was gone.

I began taking the researcher's advice seriously. I distracted the tinnitus all I could. I had the radio on, the TV, I took plenty of showers to drown the sound, stayed longer at cafés, tried taking genuine interest in the conversations I had. I explored pubs in the early evening, as the volume is a bit louder then, but not too loud. Coming home after that, the ringing in my ear would increase as if to compensate for the sudden stillness on my walk home. This was annoying but felt trainable, so I kept visiting pubs in the evening and going home to low radio afterwards. The pub's were never extremely loud, just a bit amped up in volume compared to my radio at home. I didn't overdo it, and was always careful to go after what felt right for me. I wanted my mind to adjust to other things but the tinnitus.


THE HARDEST PART
... is ignoring the tinnitus, because the act of ignoring means there's something to ignore, meaning it's always in the back of your mind. I'd get very defeated by the end of the day when I noticed it hadn't gone away at all. It's like there's no end in sight. Even then, you have to continue. Sometimes I'd get so tired mentally that I'd give up and just hear the tinnitus. But like a muscle, my mental focus grew stronger. This is a beautiful, strange part about the brain. What feels like a struggle becomes a habit you don't even notice.

I'm not sure what exact moment the tinnitus stopped. It could be silent for a few days and then a certain screech off the train station would trigger it for the rest of the day. It all happened gradually. I don't have any tinnitus now what so ever. No ringing, no static noise streaming from the inside of my brain, and it's been like that for a long, long while. I'm sure I can pick it up if I focused intensely on it, such as when writing this post, but why would I? It's seriously not here. It's truly, truly possible for it to be gone!


THE AFTERLIFE
My life now is completely normal. I thought that without tinnitus, life will feel like a brand new paradise, but it's really just back to basics and the everyday activities, lol.

My main points are these:
* Get out of the forums unless you search for success stories

* Ignore tinnitus even when it feels hopeless. Don't stop. Try again every single day.

* To anyone who tells you you'll never get rid of it: that's bullocks. Maybe I could pick it back up with really listening in to it, but why would I. I have heard silence again. I can be in stillness. I have no need to bring it all back.

* It's not a magic trick. Our heads are filled with noise, and it is our awareness of it that helps sustain its connection to our conscious state. That sentence won't mean squat if you have tinnitus as it's all consuming. It's important to realise that with the brain, it doesn't help that you yourself feel it's horrible and that it should stop. The brain learns by direct feedback, meaning that ignoring tinnitus over and over gives the brain a direct answer: "You can stop now, I get it. I've already moved on to completely different things."

I tried acupuncture and reflexology and noticed some relief, but quit after a few times as I didn't have the will or energy to do anything in life at that point. All though these treatments helped, they were in no way the essence of the tinnitus going away. To others it might be. Go do whatever you sense is working!

Tinnitus can have so many origins. Acoustic trauma, medicinal side effects, physical injury, shock, stress, etc. According to the researcher, the cause doesn't really matter. The noise is still coming from the brain. It's still tinnitus. It's still a noise being channeled the "wrong" way. And it's this noise itself that you can train to not be in your awareness. In that sense, the origin of the tinnitus doesn't matter.



The way I felt it, these were the stages of tinnitus:

* First, you ignore the tinnitus and find that it's not working. You try for hours and days and weeks and maybe months. You realise that maybe it will never go away. Cue depression and endless hopelessness. It's important not to stop here. You should still try to ignore the tinnitus by putting on music, going to the cinema, a café, a social gathering, anything.

* Defeat. It still hasn't stopped and you are mentally tired from alle the ignoring. I would be terrified of ending up in a silent room. This is VERY tiring. You are never truly relaxing. It's like running away from something.

* Something changes. This is the hardest part to explain. Ignoring tinnitus felt like so much of a habit that it went on automatic sometimes. I genuinely did not hear the tinnitus, not because I was busy listening to other things, but because I'd actually forgotten there was something to ignore. I would then remember it, and it'd be back again.

* The habit has physically settled somewhere inside you neuron pathways and it stops being an effort. This act in itself can take months or maybe years. Despite having a degree in psychology I've never thought it would be possible for something so strenuous of a mental exercise could actually grow habitual in the end. As in: there's no pretending. There's no trying.


My personal survival points who may be of no interest but meant the world to me:

* The woman on the TV.

* My parents, who despite having had a crap relationship together, joined selflessly to be there by my side when I was at the emergency room, when I needed a place to stay, when I cried my eyes out in a feetus position on the floor by the kitchen table etc.

* One evening my closest family came by to have coffee. They never come as a group so I sensed they'd might be doing it to show they're there for me. I felt a swell of gratitude for the family I'd been born into (despite sitting there with a static ringing in my ears, lol).

* Certain songs would feel like pure beauty (like Philip Glass - Metamorphosis Two).

* Stories. It was like a crutch I leaned onto, and I could mold it whatever way I wanted.

* Driving, taking the bus, the train. Movement. Planes. Getting drunk on occation.

* Cafés. This was when I was in pure survival mode and did barely care about getting rid of the tinnitus; it was more about making it through minute after minute.

* Inner realisations of who I was as a person. Never before have I felt my goals and dreams so vividly as when I felt I couldn't ever have them again. I am more confident now, and I know myself a lot better. I love life and the fact that I'm here on earth to even exist. I feel like everything is more alive, and that time is precious and it's all just a short glimpse anyway.

* Moments of beautiful visions. At 6 AM one morning when I couldn't sleep, I was crying. The sun shone through the window, and outside was a bird chirping. I couldn't believe how precious that bird felt to me, and how beautiful that morning light was, despite my sorrow and fear. It probably didn't matter to my tinnitus, but on a soul level, it was important.


Health/food

* I did quit coffee and alcohol at first because I read somewhere that it's not smart to have during tinnitus. At least I got to know all the great benefits of silver tea on a detailed level And true enough, I had wine on the second week and the tinnitus DID go louder that night. After 3-4 weeks I went back to both coffee and alcohol, and decided not to have a strained relationship with it. Again, it's intuitive and you should try to feel what's best for you. It's not like I have wine everyday anyway.

* As with any unbearable illness, you'll be desperate to try out any solution. My advise is to put it into perspective and not overthink the food/drink situation. I've read about people who did a yeast elimination routine with food and got rid of tinnitus. Or just eating healthier in general, working out, etc. I think that is awesome. There are many different reasons that tinnitus occur, and for those inflamed/yeast induced healthy food is definitely a way to go. My point is that no matter the reason, do what you want to fight it, and remember that for EVERYONE it's a signal coming from inside the brain. Nothing more. Nothing less.