Are People Who Get Tinnitus Generally Unhappy About Their Life?

[Paromita]

Hello,

Just wondering if most of you here who are facing Tinnitus (specially long term) are generally unhappy or complaining kind if people about life...?

Please dont get offended, I am time and again reminded that I am a complaining kind of person who is constantly unhappy about something or the other and thus resulted in Tinnitus in my ear...

so wondering if T comes to people who are generally more depressive or angry or unsatisfied with their life ?

Thanks, Mita

 

[Path Maker]

I am full of joy. I have and have had a hard life in many respects but I've always been outgoing, upbeat, and handle things well. I do have that kind of personality that is always going/always thinking/"on" and by nature, I am acutely tuned into things and notice every little detail/am environmentally sensitive. And that's the scoop.

 

[The Red Viper]

Not at all. Honestly I think the whole anxiety/stress thing is a giant cop out.

 

[Paromita]

@Path Maker @The Red Viper

Thanks guys, have been feeling really down from last two days. Spoke to my family in India and some of them are going on a vacation. How I wish I would take it easy and travel a bit myself. But things are not easy...
my partner has been unemployed for 8 years now, so I have been solely working and somehow managing to survive...
last year my elder one graduated and took a good job, but on the first instance she packed her bags and left to live her "happy" life....leaving us behind or as much as any offer to help.
To make things worse, my younger daughter, whom I love so so much came down with LPR, silent reflux. She cant eat stuff, and had become a different person...I feel fear whenever I look in her face.

Some days are really hard....and I dont see much point in living or to life. Its hard to see the blue sky and feel happy.
All my dreams about any future have died. Life was about work before but with this Tinnitus, its uncertain and I have lost all interest in my work as well. God seems to be shutting all doors on my face, not sure what I did.

When I talk about this to my partner, he gets upset at times and says I am a all gloom and doom person.

But I can't see much in the future to be honest.....maybe its my depression...feeling quite blue today...

 

[Vaba]

I was slightly unhappy before, I developed large floaters as a child and I was excluded a little socially, so I took a very low dose of antidepressants.

I was fine for years, but one day I suddenly developed "normal," single-tone buzz T that you can hear ONLY in a quiet room. Then, I woke up one day and my left ear felt pressurized and full, and my right ear makes this demonic whistle that is both low and high pitched constantly.

Now, with gradually progressing vitreous degeneration and unexplained T, I can say I'm pretty unhappy (completely disabled)

 

[glynis]

Hi Mita,
I'm quite a bubbly person and positive but I do have to push hard during down times with health issues.
I'm very blessed with a wonderful family and friends.....lots of love glynis

 

[Mario martz]

Well i was very depressed and in a bad place when tinnitus first appeared,
but i have always been a very positive and easy going person.
now 5 months after onset, i can say im 75% back to normal
just like you said "All my dreams about any future have died", i totally feel the same way about it.
my dreams involve music, touring, etc.. and those are the things i need to step away, and also im a very social person,
you can imagine how difficult has been to avoid parties and clubs, and how hard is to turned down invitations from all my friends...
but
life is so much bigger than we think, right now im focusing in art wich is something i love the most, im making more money at my job, going to new quiet places with my friends, planning a road trip, taking care of my pet, and enjoying my family, im not saying it has been easy, but you need to put all your heart to feel good again, understanding that this is the new normal is hard, but not impossible.
there will always be bad days, but the good days makes everything so much worth it.
im not gonna stop being the funny, social, and creative person i have always been just because of this.

hang in there Paromita!

 

[Mentos]

Hello,

Just wondering if most of you here who are facing Tinnitus (specially long term) are generally unhappy or complaining kind if people about life...?
Thanks, Mita

Hi Mita,
Before T I was never a complaining kind of person, always very positive, full of energy and ready for challenges in my life. Well, T turned that upside down, even though it's mild. I'm depressed and all the energy and positive attitude I used to have is consumed by managing T. I would say I manage T in a way that it does not interfere with daily activities, but I'm not a happy and carefree person I used to be.

 

[Paromita]

Well i was very depressed and in a bad place when tinnitus first appeared,
but i have always been a very positive and easy going person.
now 5 months after onset, i can say im 75% back to normal
just like you said "All my dreams about any future have died", i totally feel the same way about it.
my dreams involve music, touring, etc.. and those are the things i need to step away, and also im a very social person,
you can imagine how difficult has been to avoid parties and clubs, and how hard is to turned down invitations from all my friends...
but
life is so much bigger than we think, right now im focusing in art wich is something i love the most, im making more money at my job, going to new quiet places with my friends, planning a road trip, taking care of my pet, and enjoying my family, im not saying it has been easy, but you need to put all your heart to feel good again, understanding that this is the new normal is hard, but not impossible.
there will always be bad days, but the good days makes everything so much worth it.
im not gonna stop being the funny, social, and creative person i have always been just because of this.

hang in there Paromita!

Hi Mario, Thanks, I think what happened to my daughter was like a double dip of bad luck....

Hi Mita,
I'm quite a bubbly person and positive but I do have to push hard during down times with health issues.
I'm very blessed with a wonderful family and friends.....lots of love glynis

Hi Glynis,

Thanks, yes are very very cheerful, one can sense it through your communication though I think life has not been fair to you.....but I guess thats what happens to many of us....life is not fair to us...it does not matter whether we are good or bad or ethical or not ethical....sometimes I wonder if God is there....seems to be like hes blind.

But you spread lot of cheer and I see all your messages in all the threads and its a blessing to have you with us...

Lots of love, Mita

 

[bill 112]

When I first got T I got through it and came out the other side a happier stronger person.

It then worsened in 2012 for about 6 months and again I got through it full of happiness and joy and a strong will to live a happy life.

Then the Impulse noise happened in 2014 giving me slightly louder T for about 6 months but also H that resolved about 80% within a year or so.


But then yet again I was screwed over by noise,not even loud noise not even to me and I had H!

I'm in agony all day everyday and for someone so in love with life regardless of all the shit I had been through I can say that I look forward to death now,I look at it as an escape as there's nothing really here for me now only pain and suffering.The only thing however that keeps me alive is hope,the hope that Stemcells can treat me enough to have a nice quality of life again,if that hope dies I die with it.

It's sad but that's my honest feelings at this point,I don't fear death,I embrace it.

 

[GregCA]

The answer is no.

 

[Dominic1955]

I never had anxiety or depression till my hearing loss withT H, lucky my anxiety stopped after 6 weeks! My T is just as loud but it' s annoying but it's not causing anxiety

 

[Path Maker]

The answer is no.

I agree - I believe that it's a combination of factors (acoustic, physiological, etc.) that are often discussed here, as well as possibly a genetic/endogenous predisposition toward having those factors manifest as tinnitus.

I also do believe that in addition to any inborn predisposition, that yes, being in a state of aggravated stress can add to the likelihood that some incidents "trip the lever" and allow tinnitus to take hold, in certain cases. A body that is holding a continued state of stress IS in a deleterious physiological state which could translate to being more susceptible.

In everyday life, this can be seen when you are able to either resist or not resist a cold virus you've been exposed to, based on whether you've had good or bad sleep, diet, stressful emotions, etc. Sometimes you "catch" the cold and sometimes it bounces right off you.

I will say that my experience of the beginning of tinnitus "just happened" ??? to land right smack in the midst of the most emotionally stressful time of my entire life. There was acoustic trauma that set it off, though. Whether these were coincidental or whether my state was ripe for "catching" the tinnitus, who knows?

But as to the main question posed by this thread, I don't think that it only hits people who are unhappy with life. Not in my case, anyway. I'm a deep appreciator of life, however it happens.

 

[Telis]

No. I was beyond happy prior to this, now I'm suffering.

 

[Alue]

I wasn't happy before I got tinnitus, but I wasn't really depressed either. I have other permanent things I have to deal with every day that affect my quality of life, some of them were caused by others. I just got to the point were I was numb but comfortable. Not happy, but not really suffering. This loud tinnitus and H has taken what little I had left that I could enjoy. I never thought some idiot could take peace and quiet away from me permanently. I just can't get over that and how I was treated after my injury, not when I have a constant screaming reminder 24/7.

Then the Impulse noise happened in 2014 giving me slightly louder T for about 6 months but also H that resolved about 80% within a year or so.

But then yet again I was screwed over by noise,not even loud noise not even to me and I had H!

I'm in agony all day everyday and for someone so in love with life regardless of all the shit I had been through I can say that I look forward to death now,I look at it as an escape as there's nothing really here for me now only pain and suffering.The only thing however that keeps me alive is hope,the hope that Stemcells can treat me enough to have a nice quality of life again,if that hope dies I die with it.

It's sad but that's my honest feelings at this point,I don't fear death,I embrace it.

You may have mentioned this before, but what was the impulse noise that gave you H?

I hear you with looking forward to death. I'm alone, live alone and that's not going to change. I don't get any enjoyment out of life, that was true before tinnitus as I had anhedonia, now it's just suffering every day. Only thing keeping me here is my family mostly my parents, but how much must someone endure just so they don't cause pain to others?

 

[jeannie]

I have suffered with depression,anxiety,panic attacks since I was 16 .was under alot of stress right before I got tinnitus,a also had a cosmetic procedure right before tinnitus and worked in a factory for 23 years,before tinnitus started,also had a ear infection..I wore hearing protection at work but who knows what caused mine?? I wasn't sad before tinnitus started.a after I got it everything got worse,anxiey,depression,panic attacks...had to quit job...so I just try to get through each day now.

 

[linearb]

I think that a tendency towards anxiety and or depression is probably correlated with higher tinnitus distress for obvious reasons, but not correlated with overall tinnitus risk.

 

[Nick Pyzik]

When I first got T I got through it and came out the other side a happier stronger person.

It then worsened in 2012 for about 6 months and again I got through it full of happiness and joy and a strong will to live a happy life.

Then the Impulse noise happened in 2014 giving me slightly louder T for about 6 months but also H that resolved about 80% within a year or so.


But then yet again I was screwed over by noise,not even loud noise not even to me and I had H!

I'm in agony all day everyday and for someone so in love with life regardless of all the shit I had been through I can say that I look forward to death now,I look at it as an escape as there's nothing really here for me now only pain and suffering.The only thing however that keeps me alive is hope,the hope that Stemcells can treat me enough to have a nice quality of life again,if that hope dies I die with it.

It's sad but that's my honest feelings at this point,I don't fear death,I embrace it.

I'm with you there Bill. Except for the "looking forward to death part". You have to be smart enough to not even think about wanting to end your life, no matter how difficult things become. A reward is always at the end of a strenuous journey. Life is a gift.

 

[Cityjohn]

Being handicapped has made me unhappy, not so much about my life as it has made me unhappy and disgruntled about the god damn state this planet is in and food they serve at a bloody university. If you can't eat safely in a place that's filled with posters with shit like "A place where people think", then where can you eat? Well, at my house for sure because I know how buy safe food and cook a damn meal.

I had a fellow research colleague on a bio mechanical project which we did using weights. Every evening he would rush home to eat and thus run away from responsibilities at the lab every day's end. He kept putting off to the next time and in the end even lied to me that another group that his friend was in needed the weights so that he wouldn't have to help me bring them back to the gym next door... I thought he was a complete amateur sociopath unable to recognize a more experienced one but I guess with a doctor as a father he was just being smart about where he was eating The cheeky bastard..

In general I'm very cynical and hold the world in very low regard but I don't complain much. I have always been unsatisfied with my life which I admit is a bit of luxury problem at this time since I live in one of the most advanced countries on the planet enjoying the best education and having an abundance of iPads, Canon's, cheap Chinese import goods, girls, friends, etc. But then again I've always thought that satisfaction would mean I saw no way to improve in my situation and that has never been the case.

I think that a tendency towards anxiety and or depression is probably correlated with higher tinnitus distress for obvious reasons, but not correlated with overall tinnitus risk.

There is a research showing that stress is very damaging to the brain overall including the auditory system. Specifically it can greatly weaken the body's ability to clean up excess glutamate thus leaving people with a much lower threshold of permanent hearing damage.

These are some studies touching on the issue;
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3645314/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3302010/
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0006899394916225

 

[Marlino]

The title question is complete bs!

Why should it be so? Actually everybody is unhappy about something and only after getting T you will give it more weight.

To establish a connection between stress, unhappyness and other poorly defined reasons and T is very misleading and giving external people (e.g. M.D.s) arguments for trivializing it.

 

[dudeguywithstuff]

As Tinnitus Talk contributor Dr. Hubbard will tell you, 98% of people will habituate to their tinnitus.

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/dealing-with-guilt-and-shame-of-tinnitus.16800/

You can choose to focus on the 2% of people who don't and most likely populate this forum. Much as I sympathize with those of you posting here, it is of absolutely no comfort to the OP and is statistically unlikely to become the reality of the OP.

Tinnitus is YOUR OWN experience, not the experience of others who have suffered the worst of it.

 

[GregCA]

As Tinnitus Talk contributor Dr. Hubbard will tell you, 98% of people will habituate to their tinnitus.

Citation needed.
No, do not cite Dr Hubbard, cite the study that provides this statistic. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

I'm very skeptical about it because ATA provides these stats: 50M Americans experience T, 20M struggle with burdensome T, and 2M have extreme and debilitating T.

No matter how I slice the numbers, I don't get to 98% habituating to their T. Maybe there is another source more trustworthy than ATA?

Now, it could look like, from the perspective of a doctor, that a patient is habituating, maybe because s/he is not coming back, but we know very well in this forum that patients often given up on going to see doctors.

 

[dudeguywithstuff]

Citation needed.
No, do not cite Dr Hubbard, cite the study that provides this statistic. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics"

I'm very skeptical about it because ATA provides these stats: 50M Americans experience T, 20M struggle with burdensome T, and 2M have extreme and debilitating T.

No matter how I slice the numbers, I don't get to 98% habituating to their T. Maybe there is another source more trustworthy than ATA?

Now, it could look like, from the perspective of a doctor, that a patient is habituating, maybe because s/he is not coming back, but we know very well in this forum that patients often given up on going to see doctors.

You're assuming that the 20 million with burdensome tinnitus never go on to habituate to their tinnitus. Or acknowledge that people may still consider it something to "deal with" but may do so significantly better than they did when they first got the condition.

I could say a lot here. But I think the most important thing I can say is that when you look for reasons to keep yourself miserable and validate how bad you feel, don't be surprised when you find no progress towards normalcy.

 

[GregCA]

You're assuming that the 20 million with burdensome tinnitus never go on to habituate to their tinnitus. Or acknowledge that people may still consider it something to "deal with" but may do so significantly better than they did when they first got the condition.

Nope, that's not what I'm assuming at all.
If "dealing better" is equivalent to "habituating" for you, it may explain why you are aligned with the 98% figure.

I could say a lot here. But I think the most important thing I can say is that when you look for reasons to keep yourself miserable and validate how bad you feel, don't be surprised when you find no progress towards normalcy.

Perhaps, but I don't really see how that supports the 98% claim... which is what I was questioning. No need to get defensive: questioning is healthy. If not we'd still be thinking the earth is flat...
I'd think you'd be interested in knowing if this number has any truth to it yourself.

 

[PaulBe]

I'd think you'd be interested in knowing if this number has any truth to it yourself.

I wonder how much of this 98% includes those who give up seeking help and retreat from life generally. Its like unemployment in the US. If you give up looking they stop counting you and thus their stats look great, reality thus avoided.

 

[GregCA]

I wonder how much of this 98% includes those who give up seeking help and retreat from life generally. Its like unemployment in the US. If you give up looking they stop counting you and thus their stats look great, reality thus avoided.

My guess is that this number has no basis on any statistical study at all, so I'm not inclined to try to understand how that number came about. I'd love to be wrong though.

 

[volsung37]

I think I was clinically depressed but didn't know it before tinnitus. I had very little motivation and was drinking quite a lot. Wish I was back to pre tinnitus as I would definitely have appreciated life more. That being said I appreciate the moments of happiness I get now much more. Every day I make time to consciously be thankful for what I do have - family, sight, mobility, a job and good general health. Taking that time to be grateful is really useful.

 

[Melissa101]

I only had mild to moderate T for 4 months with daily spikes. Mine was anxiety-induced so there was no damage to the ear and therefore it doesn't appear to be a chronic condition, rather a secondary symptom to a primary diagnoses of anxiety. In fact, it's now all but disappeared. I initially got very anxious and down when it first appeared but within a couple of months I was 100% comfortable with it. I wasn't happy because I have an on-going anxiety disorder but it wasn't the T that was causing my stress, rather it was the other way around.

I have Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD) and have used anxiety, depression and chronic fatigue support forums often in the past. There is LOT of doom and gloom on those forums but I have to say that without doubt this is by far the most depressing, anxiety-inducing, negative support forum I have ever encountered. I wouldn't expect a balanced answer to your question. I realise that a lot of the people who use this site have really bad T and I have the utmost respect for them. I'm not trying to put them down in any way, just to point out that this causes a huge bias towards the negative. Most people who are happy living with T aren't on here because they're off living their lives.

 

[Kelvin]

My unhappiness came with permanent T and H. I was happy before and trying to be happy now. Hate pharmaceuticals and so not tried anything to lift my mood. I did however find the Saffron in milk (there is a thread for this ) very uplifting, although sadly it didn't quiet my T. Peace X

 

[sanjay doodani]

This is aboslutely true people in extreme mental and physical stress and doubtfull health get tinnitus.
Also true is it can be lowered greatly after gaining health and reducing stress and anxiety