Hi guys,
I remember the day I was woken up by a multi-tone variable pitch ringing in my left ear. August 7, 2016. I remember sitting in my car after pulling into work and googling "ringing in ear cause" and then learning about tinnitus. I will confess, I spiralled deep into a very dark place- like most of the people here did.
I saw ENTs, audiologists, GPs, and even opened up to a few close friends but it seemed like nobody could understand the pain I was going through. I spent days and weeks just googling stories, research, and treatments all to no avail.
One word that kept popping up was habituation. The idea that your mind can get used to the sound of your tinnitus and either filter it out completely or remove the negative feelings you get when you hear it. I didn't want that. I wanted silence. I wanted to go back to the way things were before this nightmare.
But then, you know what? I habituated. I found myself spending less time on Tinnitus Talk, and if I did - I limited myself solely to the success stories. I sorted out my sleep, and with the help of some OTC meds, I was able to achieve 3 hours, 4 hours, six - then eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I avoided situations that stressed me out like being alone in my quiet car or trying to sleep in a quiet room so I got a white noise machine. I basically did a whole bunch of little things that ended up combining to help my brain habituate.
I then found myself going whole days, then weeks, then MONTHS without stressing over my tinnitus. I say stressing since I still hear it to this day, as loud as ever, but 95% of the time my brain just filters it out. The other 4.9% it just simply doesn't send me into cold sweats anymore. There was one night this past year where I was pretty bad but by the next morning, it felt like a bad dream that had passed.
This whole ordeal felt like a nightmare but I am here to tell you that there is hope. I have this theory from anecdotes and experience that the majority of the population actually has tinnitus to some extent. It's just that their brain manages to filter it out to be a non-issue 24/7 but for a small portion, people like us, the stars just align and we get thrown into this fight of flight tinnitus situation.
Look, all I really wanted to say is that habituation, for me, was like a cure. My tinnitus is still there but it does. not. affect. my. life. whatsoever. I went from logging into Tinnitus Talk multiple times an hour to logging in once a year to give you an idea.
Don't dismiss habituation as a 'compromise' - it was all the cure I needed.
I remember the day I was woken up by a multi-tone variable pitch ringing in my left ear. August 7, 2016. I remember sitting in my car after pulling into work and googling "ringing in ear cause" and then learning about tinnitus. I will confess, I spiralled deep into a very dark place- like most of the people here did.
I saw ENTs, audiologists, GPs, and even opened up to a few close friends but it seemed like nobody could understand the pain I was going through. I spent days and weeks just googling stories, research, and treatments all to no avail.
One word that kept popping up was habituation. The idea that your mind can get used to the sound of your tinnitus and either filter it out completely or remove the negative feelings you get when you hear it. I didn't want that. I wanted silence. I wanted to go back to the way things were before this nightmare.
But then, you know what? I habituated. I found myself spending less time on Tinnitus Talk, and if I did - I limited myself solely to the success stories. I sorted out my sleep, and with the help of some OTC meds, I was able to achieve 3 hours, 4 hours, six - then eight hours of uninterrupted sleep. I avoided situations that stressed me out like being alone in my quiet car or trying to sleep in a quiet room so I got a white noise machine. I basically did a whole bunch of little things that ended up combining to help my brain habituate.
I then found myself going whole days, then weeks, then MONTHS without stressing over my tinnitus. I say stressing since I still hear it to this day, as loud as ever, but 95% of the time my brain just filters it out. The other 4.9% it just simply doesn't send me into cold sweats anymore. There was one night this past year where I was pretty bad but by the next morning, it felt like a bad dream that had passed.
This whole ordeal felt like a nightmare but I am here to tell you that there is hope. I have this theory from anecdotes and experience that the majority of the population actually has tinnitus to some extent. It's just that their brain manages to filter it out to be a non-issue 24/7 but for a small portion, people like us, the stars just align and we get thrown into this fight of flight tinnitus situation.
Look, all I really wanted to say is that habituation, for me, was like a cure. My tinnitus is still there but it does. not. affect. my. life. whatsoever. I went from logging into Tinnitus Talk multiple times an hour to logging in once a year to give you an idea.
Don't dismiss habituation as a 'compromise' - it was all the cure I needed.