This is me writing in another forum several years ago:
"I certainly have profound suicidal ideations. Now my tinnitus fluctuates between being extremely loud and off the scale.It's just day after day of searing, squealing, hissing madness.Basically, I just don't understand what people are going on about when they use the word 'habituation'. How can one become less aware of sounds that are so loud, incessant, harsh and grating? CBT doesn't impress me either because it deals with cognitive distortions and not the primal emotions of fear,loathing and utter frustration/desperation that are so much a part of one's reaction to tinnitus.Sorry to sound so gloomy. But I see my situation as almost utterly bereft of hope."
"Much as I applaud the courage and tenacity of many of the contributors to this thread, there has to be a place here for people like myself who have struggled with very severe tinnitus for so long and simply do not wish to continue with that struggle any longer.We deserve the option of assisted suicide."
I think that I made this post (in the old RNID forum when I had had tinnitus for about 18 months) and was getting nowhere.
To cut a long story short, several years further down the road, I have now habituated to a point where I find my tinnitus occasionally annoying and distracting. When it is at its peak, I can still sometimes go several hours without noticing it, even if I'm sitting in a relatively silent room.
You may draw whatever conclusions you like after reading this. Maybe you will think. 'Ah, this guy's tinnitus couldn't have been all that loud in the first place'. And that's fair enough. Tinnitus is a subjective experience that makes comparisons difficult. Plus, although my tinnitus is 'reactive' and fluctuates, I don't have accompanying ear pain or hyperacusis.
All I am saying is that I was in a very bad place for a very long time and yet I still got through it. The logic of habituation (that if you decouple the infernal racket from the profoundly aversive reaction it provokes it will slip below the level conscious awareness) has, in the long run, proved to be valid in my case. And I now consider CBT to be one way to facilitate this process.
This may not be any kind of substitute for a cure. But it is way beyond stoic endurance. I'm not merely putting up with tinnitus, or 'coping' with it.
Anyway, perhaps reading what I have written will encourage a few people not to lose hope. That is all I am aiming for.