Is there anyone here that just suffers from T and not anxiety?
I think that I might be on my own here. I can not believe how many people with tinnitus suffer from anxiety, what is the conection?
Do you ACTUALLY suffer from REAL tinnitus or are you just freaking out? Is most of it just in your anxious mind? Maybe a light ringing and you loose it, you think that it's a big deal because you have heard scary stories then get a panick attack or something?
How much of T is real, and how much is panick and overreaction?
People keep telling me to try not to be anxious over my hearing issues, that is THE standard advise that I get. My reply is that I don't have anxiety, I just have shity ear issues for f//k sake.
And then you get the success stories from people with a history of anxiety. Like did you overcome T or just your anxiety? You say that you had bad T and H but that could have just been the anxiety talking (making something out of nothing) and not your tinnitus.
I am very skeptical to believe any kind of success story handed out by those idividuals that blow things out of proportion and freak out to begin with. I mean, sure it's real to them, but really, is it? It could just be the mental illness talking and not really tinnitus. As soon as someone tells me that they have overcome tinnitus and that they have a history of anxiety I write it off completely. Am I wrong?
Any opinions on this ?
Ps-absolutely nothing against anyone with anxiety here, it's just another health issue, no big deal! I hope that no one takes offense to my post, that is definately not My intention.
I think you have a point here... I have high anxiety due to tinnitus... I freaked out in the beginning...I am major OCD and I do think my brain made it bigger in the beginning.
My T could not be masked....fact!.....but.....my whole body was focused on it ......my whole nervoussystem went overboard. Nobody could help me and the fear of having this for ever made me suicidle. So yes I completely freaked out to the upmost. I think I got the depression from it also. Being severe OCD does not really help if you want to fix things always right away and T was not to be fixed.
You know I have sensorimotor-OCD which is a story on itself to deal with...I have this for almost a year now, but the moment that my S-OCD is raging my T is almost a non-issue because my brain is focussing 100% on some stupid sensorimotor activity which "normal" people never focus on.
So in that regard I now anxiety is for me the main issue T is present. When i do not feel anxious my T is much lower.,.....or like we say here the perception of it is much lower.
I do think there are different types of T....the ones that just are not anxiety related and like you say are just "bad ears" or "bad brains". With this type of T advice from people with "anxiety T" does not really help.
The degree of suffering I would not know, because we all suffer different. In the beginning my ears did hurt...I even posted here on TT if anybody else had the same symptom that when he/she is in a silent room and T is very loud your ears start to hurt. Well I almost received no replies. Or I got messages saying..."No i just hear eeee or shhhhhhhhhhh, but my ears do not hurt". So I thought I had special T. This hurting of my ear in a silentroom went slowly away but the H is still there...not as bad as in the beginning but it is not gone.
What I do believe is that you CAN have bad T and H and anxiety is fuelling it after the onset. If you do not give it fuel it will run out of gas ....sort of. So those successtories are more common.
I went in total panick mode for 2 years straight monitoring my T 10000x times a day...sticking my fingers in my ears 100x a day to listen to it...which made matter worse...but i could not stop.
Until the depression kicked in......that is total different story....I know the difference between anxiety(disorder) and a depression now.... because I had/have both.
So the suffering if anxiety fuels it or not can still be the same, but TRT is mainly working for the anxiety T (i think).
The T that is always there no matter what you do or how you feel needs perhaps another approach. Perhaps more in regards of chronicpain and using the treatments for that on T.
Was/is my tinnitus real? Hell yeah it is... if I can hear it it is real. Is it fuelled by anxiety and panick.....Hell yeah it is ...that is the total T package for me.... That is my REAL T....which I will hate till the day I die. It does not make your T more real or mine less....it just a different type of T.
Perhaps you do not even have T but something totally different where there is not a name for yet. Sure your T started of mild, but due to meds and other things you did your T became worse, but perhaps it induced something else which effected your hearing in a bad way. Tinnitus is just a word we give for ringing in the ears.
Ringing....my ears do not ring...there is no word for what I hear. I say eeeeeee but I do not know really ....just a sound from hell would be a better description...there are so many tones in my head. But I start learning to ignore them more and more.
Some people take Trobalt, others benzos, others do Mindfullness, acupuncture , massagetherapy etc etc.....we all need to find our own way to get some relieve. What works for one does not mean it works for the other.
Also I do not know what loud ringing if i compare it to others. My T on this level now I can perhaps accept, but if this was my first experience with T and I hear what I hear now I would freak out again in the same magnitude, because it is something that does not belong in my body. Sure it is way less loud and I am happy it is not what it was back in 2013,but now I can compare because I do not want that old sound back.
Due to the fact I can compare my T with a previous state I can accept it better....or my brain can do that better

The new lower T is the new standard of live where I perhaps can operate on, ....but do not forget i have S-OCD...so what happend before....one symptom leaves and from one second on the other my T with the lower sound can be the biggest horror story in my life again. It happend before and can happen again.
I do not find your post offending in any way and it is a relevant question you ask regarding anxiety and T & H.
I know there are more people on this board who do not have anxiety and only T bugs them so I hope they can speak their mind also.
Best
Rico