Hi
@Angel Dust,
Given the discussion here, I hope you're not being discouraged from exploring various kinds of calming techniques such as cranial sacral work that's promoted by Julian Cowan Hill. -- Due to my own health circumstances, I've explored (and found) many things over the years that help calm my own brain and nervous system--long before I developed tinnitus earlier this year.
This was necessitated by a life-altering head injury/whiplash I sustained as a 15-year old. Later on, I developed ME/CFS resulting from that injury, and then Lyme Disease. That injury--along with ME/CFS and Lyme--greatly affected my nervous system, and in particular, my vagus nerve (VN). The VN is sort of the "master orchestrator" for calming the body and neurological system down, especially after it goes into some kind of fight or flight mode.
Unfortunately, I didn't understand for many years that my vagus nerve had been so seriously impacted as a teenager (crimped), which made it extremely difficult for me to calm myself. Over that time, I continually experimented with as many calming techniques as I could find that "might" help me restore a sense of equilibrium. And I managed to find several that work really well for me.
The reason I'm sharing this is because I think it's relevant to just about everybody who deals with tinnitus. Given there's an "auricular branch" of the vagus nerve, I've come to believe that most people with tinnitus have a chronically agitated nervous system and have a very hard time calming down. Which then leads to much of the anxiety, depression, despair, and suicidal thoughts we have.
To me, that makes it almost imperative we do whatever we can do to calm our systems, and there are many things that can be tried. Thankfully after many years, I was able to create and maintain a certain equanimity within myself while dealing with some of the devastation of ME/CFS. Some of this devastation included having chronic vertigo, bedbound 20+ hours per day, sometimes taking 1-2 hours to crawl to the bathroom in the morning, etc. But it wasn't always that bad, and the techniques I discovered kept me from staying down too long, though I'm still bedbound 20 hrs/day.
I'm sharing this to let you know that in spite of all my travails, I've managed to have an amazing life. However, when tinnitus hit me back in February of this year, I was totally unprepared. That long sought after sense of equinimity vanished in a split second, as my body and brain were hit with a psychotic-type episode from taking an anti-nausea drug that as a side effect, can cause--of all things--psychotic episodes (along with tinnitus). I wrote my about my ordeal in
THIS POST.
So even though I'd had 30+ years practicing various calming techniques, I was all of a sudden unable to calm myself, and my thoughts of suicide went through the roof. It created its own spiritual crisis for me as well, which I touched on in the above post. I guess my point of emphasis is that even with all those 30+ years of practice, it still took several months for them to begin to restore any kind of sense of equinimity again. But very slowly but surely, it did happen. They literally brought me back from that brink, which is why I often mention them in my TT posts. (My apologies to those who are getting tired of them).
I know some people try various calming techniques and say that it doesn't work for them. But my experience is that they do work--IF--given enough time to begin to do their job. Unfortunately, it can sometimes take a long time. But after about 10 months now, I can not only say my system is probably calmed down by 90% from what it was at tinnitus onset (under extraordinary circumstances), but it's also beginning to have a modulating effect on my tinnituss. --
@Bill Bauer @PortalNaut. Which has improved by about 10-15% in the past several weeks. That feels pretty miraculous for me, and I'm now feeling fairly optimistic that will improve in the coming months as well.
I hope this wasn't too long for you to read. But I felt I needed to give you a fairly complete picture of what worked for me, at a time when I was facing what felt like insurmountable odds. -- Regarding your thoughts about whether God exists: -- To me, it's not a particularly relevant question. What matters more to me is what I can observe and experience. My own primary question about life is whether love exists, and whether it's eternal. I've come to believe that if we can find it, and experience it in full measure, then that can help immesaurably in facing just about any challenges that come our way.
If you have any interest in talking to somebody about love, and/or whether God exists, I would recommend checking out some of
@Jazzer's posts. He's got some very interesting perspectives. But be careful, he's got quite the sense of humor as well, and just might make you laugh...
He's also posted about some personalized calming techniques that help him cope, and that I'm sure he'd be more than happy to share with you.
Angel Dust, I sincerely hope you're doing better today. Life goes in cycles, and sometimes when we're in a down cycle, it's good to be reminded that things can (and do) get better again. I guess that message of hope is mostly what I was wanting to share with you. --
Be well... 
Member
