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I think it might be a loss of perspective to wonder why God allows specific terrible things to happen. After all, every single one of us will be obliterated from the material world. All of us! It doesn't get more terrible than that. That's a much stronger challenge to God being loving. This can...

You're right, I would. And that made me cautious about saying this stuff for a while. It really is the strangest feeling when your thinking lines up perfectly with what you would like to be true, and you spend a lot of time checking whether you're just fooling yourself. I'm usually a cynic and...

Well, of course I have to say that this forum mostly functions as a group of people pulling themselves deeper and deeper into despair and losing perspective. With a lot of exceptions. I've noticed that even a lot of positive stories on this forum contain within them ways of thinking that will...

It doesn't need to be "fear". "Aversion" is a good word for it. And as I said, I believe studies back me up. Or at least Dr Nagler does. Sometimes you need to consider what an alien would think of your predicament. Imagine trying to explain to the alien what your problem is. "One of my sensory...

Tinnitus led me to start believing in God. Or rather, after seeking out and being convinced by arguments for God's existence and properties, I remembered that I always knew that God is real, and I was just pretending to not know. My reaction to tinnitus is the worst thing that has ever happened...

I can't understand that. If that is true, then my theory is just wrong. In fact I believe that studies support my idea that there is no correlation between the mental fate of a person with tinnitus, and how loud their tinnitus is.

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...

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...

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...

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...

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.

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...

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'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...

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...

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...

Okay, here is another way to try to explain it. Imagine you have an old-fashioned set of bathroom scales. Over time, if people treat them badly, the scales can get knocked out of alignment. So when there is no weight on them, the scales point to 0.05 instead of 0. Now you would never say that...

I've spoken to many people about my tinnitus, some professionals, some not. They all told me obvious true things about my tinnitus, but it was helpful to maintain that grounding in reality and not get paranoid. When you ask "is the sound lowered", that's a very interesting question. What I came...

I am having a very strange experience today. I usually take until the early afternoon to get rid of my negative tinnitus thoughts. Today, I got rid of them within 2 minutes of waking up! I have the whole day to myself now. I didn't want to go on this forum, but I made a promise to myself that I...

It makes sense to me, and gives me a new theory about my own tinnitus obsession. "Unfortunately", your experiment on yourself will fail to prove anything at all, because all of the things you listed are great ideas that would improve anyone's anxiety problems, and thus reduce the frequency of...

This maxim gives me some relief from blaming myself (when I remember to do it): "Be a determinist about the past, but a libertarian about the future." This is some philosophy jargon, but basically it relates to the "free will" issue. As human beings we are torn between the objective conclusion...

Thought experiment: if you believed this, would you be happy that you had tinnitus? Further thought experiment: is it possible to choose to believe something for personal gain?

Here is a thought experiment that I have often considered: Imagine that one day, everything you see is slightly shaded red. You go to the doctor, and he tells you that there is no cure, that everything you see will be just a little bit more red-shaded than it should be, for the rest of your...

My theory is that all of that is backwards. Everything for me is the exact opposite of the standard way of describing tinnitus. In fact, since it's an "exact opposite", maybe it ends up meaning the same thing. ;) I would say that I have to "unhabituate". The habit is to constantly move...

I don't believe that is true in my case. That theory makes perfect sense, and it seems that very intelligent people believe it and use it as the basis of medical advice. I guess I am now officially a crackpot. But I don't believe that my brain is worried about the sound, at all. My brain wants...

Now, I'm sure that this theory isn't original, and I'm also sure that every smartass who gets tinnitus comes up with some Grand Theory of Tinnitus that will lead to a solution. But I've thought for a long time about how I think about tinnitus. I've noticed how I think about tinnitus with and...

Thank you for the information, but it's not when I'm asleep. It's just that sometimes I "switch" to thinking about it, which overwhelms me and so I stop doing anything (including breathing!) This isn't actually dangerous, it's more like when something surprises you so you catch your breath.

My girlfriend has been helping me with my tinnitus, but until yesterday she didn't even know that's what she was doing. Lying in a quiet room, I sometimes suddenly stop breathing, and whenever she sees me doing this, she says "breathe!" in a joking voice, which snaps me out of it. Yesterday I...

I'd cry a lot. I'd probably be manic for a few months. But in the end, I'd still have the anxiety that causes me to focus on my tinnitus. Tinnitus interacts badly with the personality type I already had.

I wouldn't call it "negativity". I know the value of optimism, but there's a catch. The catch is that you can be "positive" about two contradictory things. I can be "positive" about my current goals, and I can also be "positive" about finding different goals now that I have tinnitus. I have no...

I need to know whether my IQ is in freefall, because it will determine my career path. Thinking positive seems silly to me. Better to think "how can I find out whether it's worth being positive"? I am going to throw myself into my work, and see how I do. I won't be on this forum for a while...

I am on the same wavelength as you. I have always defined myself as a smart person who is supposed to achieve something. I am currently working on a maths doctoral thesis, but it has been massively delayed by my thoughts that I am becoming less intelligent because of my tinnitus. I used to be a...

Yes! I have exactly this problem, but the person I resent is myself. Ironically the thing I resent most is that I might have given myself tinnitus. When I think about that, it causes the biggest tinnitus spike possible. I often have daydreams about rewinding time back to my first day of...

I just realised that I was making a mistake in dealing with my T. I have come to the conclusion that my only problem is my BELIEFS. Obsessing over my T would be no different from being blind in one eye and always "looking" at the empty space where my sight should be. I have been telling myself...

Wow, it really is interesting how different people are from each other. I thrive on overcoming obstacles that aren't my fault, but when I consider the ways I have sabotaged myself that are my fault, I can become very emotionally unstable. My mum always described me as a "self-sabotager", and...

Hello all! I am a doctoral student and I have had tinnitus in my right ear for a few years now. It horrifies me sometimes, and often makes me want to die when I consider my future. But most of all, it annoys me because I don't understand it. I don't know why I perceive it, and there are so many...