A 4 Month Update

[Nich]

Hey All! It's been a while so I figured I'd post an update. Around month 3 I had an anxiety set back. It went after a week or so and I'm doing better. I'm reacting to my T so much less than before. It's there. It's doing it's dog-whistle hiss thing but most of the time I'm ok now. If I have bad sleep or a lot of stress it gets worse. More and more I notice that my stress level and mental reserve level dictate how much it bothers me.
I still have bad days. Today is actually a bad one. Dog woke me up at 3am, work started with a big stressor. Regardless, I look back to when this started. On a day where it is as loud as it is today I would have barely been able to concentrate at work. I would have had MASSIVE anxiety. I would have to take a klonopin to survive the day. Today, I get annoyed, have some low-grade anxiety about it and try to train my focus elsewhere (about 50/50 with this but I'm trying). It ain't perfect but it sure is better.
What I'm most proud about are the little things. I started drinking again; moderately. I had such a terrible experience with red wine after the onset that I swore off drinking. Beer..check, gin and tonic...check, white wine...check. Still working up the courage to a red . And, I can finally sit and watch TV again. Sitting idle was the biggest thing I missed and now I can do this some again. I am playing my online game again and being ok. Basically, I can stop being constantly busy and deal with hearing it while I relax. Got a ways to go but I'm getting there.

One of the reasons I post these is because if you are brand new to T I want you to see that it does get better. It's not perfect. Life is not the same as it used to be yet. I'm not habituated. But, every month it's importance in my life seems to diminish a little. Keep living your life like you don't have T. And, at some point I believe you will mostly forget you do. That's my hope!!

And, so here we go!! I recently found that butternut squash soup from Panera makes my T markedly escalate (I know...it's ridiculous). What's the weirdest thing you've found that changes your T (either louder or softer)??

 

[Ilija]

My thing isn't as weird as it's funny in a way.
When I don't sleep enough my T gets bad because I'm tired, so basically my Tinnitus is making me stop being a lazy fat ass.
I'm now playing basketball every day, starting to go to the gym with friends from class but I haven't gotten around to sleeping better that's a hard one.
For the past 2 years? I've been going on maybe 3-4 hours of sleep a day, no naps just 4 hours a day, I know really really bad.
It's hard now because if I go to sleep at 11pm which is the best time as I've heard, I'll be up at 4 am, even being really tired from physical activities doesn't help, as for sleeping pills no way I'm taking any drug.
It's funny how before I hated hospitals, If I had a really bad cold and felt like I was dying I wouldn't go to the hospital I would just stay home and go "it'll sort itself out", funny how I didn't have that mindset about Tinnitus.
Omg I just noticed how low my Tinnitus is WHILE WEARING NOISE CANCELLING HEADPHONES, holly shit it's so low I can barely hear it.
Wow, if I didn't go on about internet searching the shit out of Tinnitus and just went with my "It'll sort itself out" attitude it would probably be gone by now but no I had to go suicidal the very first day, the extreme anxiety probably made it take even more time.
Anyway I'm relatively positive it will go away, right now I'm slowly getting used to the sound sensitivity but as I've noticed a lot of people have it in the beginning only to have it go away in a couple of months to a year, mostly depending on how much a person habituates.
I've been thinking of taking up smoking which is a bad idea but I'm not sure.
I don't know why I would want to smoke.
Today on my way to school I found 2 of my friends, they have just come back from a party, they had some weed so we skipped the first two classes and got high.
What a weird feeling I just started laughing at stuff.
My friend next to me was dying xD cause the blunt sort of exploded and he inhaled it all xD.
He started fiddling with the lighter so I took it from him.
Weed didn't seem to aggravate my Tinnitus.
I was thinking how my Tinnitus isn't really chemically caused.
I got mine because some dude screamed so loud it hurt my ears for as second, that's probably what got me as I don't have any "loud noise abuse" no gigs no concerts no clubs just stereo headphones but they've mostly been at 80 dB.
Do you think if I started smoking if my Tinnitus actually got worse it would get better if I stopped?
I find quitting really easy.
What do you think? even since I was a kid I was fascinated about smoking.