CBT, Tinnitus Vanished My Ability to Cope with Stress & Concussion

maltese

Member
Author
Oct 25, 2016
420
Tinnitus Since
10/2016
Cause of Tinnitus
Club
I don't even know why I'm writing this.

In the last few weeks was doing AMAZING: in all areas of my life - handling H, tinnitus, slowly getting back bits of social life I had before tinnitus. This recurring pattern: whenever things start to go GREAT, I screw it up again.

I had an incident yesterday when I hit door frame with my head. I'm too tall for some houses ;) Silly. I didn't even think about 15mins later, but after few hours, when a headache appeared, I went to A&E and was told that I have a concussion.

Tinnitus vanished my ability to cope with stress. Anyone feels the same?

My anxiety is absolutely bananas. I'm so afraid of my tinnitus getting worse from the concussion. Or *insert anything remotely scary, I'm probably scared of that too*. What will happen when I wake up tomorrow? It's already louder now (stress?). I've read so much about CBT and I see all possible cognitive distortions in my thoughts. But it doesn't really help me. CBT works for me like a charm, but only to a point. When a critical mass of stress is achieved I just... ehm.

I'm working hard, I want to be an amazing engineer when I graduate. But at the moment I'm doing a terrible job trying not to die in some sort of silly accident.



Eh. Sorry. I had to.
 
My anxiety is absolutely bananas

Have you got anything to help for your anxiety? Did you see the doctor for it? Sometimes when the brain is overload with anxiety, you may need some more help then just pure reasoning it out with CBT techniques. Doctors will usually prescribe benzo drugs for anxiety. But there are natural herbal alternatives for this you may want to try if your anxiety is too much. For calming and helping sleep, you can try natural alternatives such as Melatonin, Lemon Balm, Valerian, Hops, Catnips, Passion Flower, Chamomile, Lavender, Kava, etc. You can do google search or check Amazon.com for each of them to know how people review these products, and see if you can take them as a supplement. Check out this site on using natural herbs for helping to sleep or to calm the nerves.

http://www.christopherhobbs.com/lib...ealth/herbs-and-natural-remedies-for-insomnia /

Masking your T is also a good way to help control the anxious reaction to the T sound. If you haven't started masking, try these sites nice masking sounds. Take good care. God bless.

TT's audio player: https://www.tinnitustalk.com/audioplayer/

or this online sound library, particularly the self-mix nature sounds: https://mynoise.net

or download free sound generator 'aire freshener': http://www.peterhirschberg.com/mysoftware.html
 
My anxiety is absolutely bananas. I'm so afraid of my tinnitus getting worse from the concussion. Or *insert anything remotely scary, I'm probably scared of that too*. What will happen when I wake up tomorrow? It's already louder now (stress?). I've read so much about CBT and I see all possible cognitive distortions in my thoughts. But it doesn't really help me. CBT works for me like a charm, but only to a point. When a critical mass of stress is achieved I just... ehm.

You may not be ready for it but a mild strength benzodiazepine when you are having a "critical mass of stress" will provide some relief. These types of short acting, anti-anxiety meds are designed for "point-in-time" relief until you can find a way to deal with T during these periods.

I've had tinnitus for almost 30 years now although only in the last 10 years has it became an issue and in the last 3-4 years has it became debilitating. When I was working, I had severe anxiety attacks almost every morning (vomiting, shaking, etc). My doctors had me take many long-term anxiety and depression meds, all of which whacked me out so bad that I couldn't function. The only thing that worked was benzo's (Klonopin or Xanax).

Only in the last 6 months or so have I made the connection between my T and anxiety. I had reported it to my doctors repeatedly but his/her response was 1) ignore it as I do or 2) blank stare and then move on. They nor I made the connection between my T and anxiety.
 
Hi guys,

I didn't answer as I needed a break from all of this. I just stayed in bed for a few days lol. Now I feel so much better, most of the concussion symptoms went away or reduced. (knock on the wood)

Have you got anything to help for your anxiety? Did you see the doctor for it? Sometimes when the brain is overload with anxiety, you may need some more help then just pure reasoning it out with CBT techniques.

Thank you so much for your suggestions. I'll talk to my doctor in following days. I was delaying it, as I didn't want to take any drugs for anxiety, but it might be necessary.


You may not be ready for it but a mild strength benzodiazepine when you are having a "critical mass of stress" will provide some relief. These types of short acting, anti-anxiety meds are designed for "point-in-time" relief until you can find a way to deal with T during these periods.

I've had tinnitus for almost 30 years now although only in the last 10 years has it became an issue and in the last 3-4 years has it became debilitating. When I was working, I had severe anxiety attacks almost every morning (vomiting, shaking, etc). My doctors had me take many long-term anxiety and depression meds, all of which whacked me out so bad that I couldn't function. The only thing that worked was benzo's (Klonopin or Xanax).

Only in the last 6 months or so have I made the connection between my T and anxiety. I had reported it to my doctors repeatedly but his/her response was 1) ignore it as I do or 2) blank stare and then move on. They nor I made the connection between my T and anxiety.

Thank you for your answer, I hope you will feel better soon. I'll talk to my doctor.


Do breathing exercises , use the autonomous system to your advantage.:)

It works wonders for me sometimes, sometimes it does nothing. Similar thing with meditation.
 
But it doesn't really help me. CBT works for me like a charm, but only to a point. When a critical mass of stress is achieved I just... ehm.
No. What this means is you've found that "coping" is an ongoing project, and you have (re)learned it at baseline level, but now the time has come to modify and adapt to changes in circumstances....what is it they say?? Life is what happens while you are trying to make plans? Something like that. Use your engineer's brain. You appear to have plenty of it.
 
@maltese in regards to drugs, try not to go for a benzo. For me, monitoring the various effects of the drugs I'm taking is driving most of my anxiety. It's hard to not be anxious about the unpredictability of T but it's another thing to be anxious about the effects that a drug might be having on the rest of your body.
 

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