Hey Martin. Hope you will lighten up a bit and take it easy. Don't focus on the current sufferings. If you treat them as a passing phenomenon, something which, in a few years looking back, you will realize the T experience just a bump on the road of your life, then perhaps it will be easier for you to handle this early phase of tinnitus suffering. You hit the right button with your 2nd to last sentence above - 'annoy' or annoyance. Being annoyed by T is ok and understandable. Life threatening is not. As long as you just keep T as an annoying component of your life, your brain can harden to it given time. Don't ask me how because it happens for me a while back, T changed from life threatening, to super annoying, to annoying, to mildly annoying, and finally to neutral, non factor. It takes time for the brain to accept an unpleasant sensation. Most T veterans can tell you went through these stages.
Perhaps I can illustrate this with the analogy of acquiring a fondness for spicy hot food like I am now. As a child growing up not used to spicy hot foods, the brain would treat such sensation as unbearable, burning, even painful sensation. A lot of spicy food lovers, like me, can tell you that at the beginning, we couldn't take a small bite on a mild pepper without feeling the burning sensation. Now, heck I can chew a raw chilli pepper without feeling it much, and magically the spiciness actually turns into pleasure to the same brain. Go figure. That is the wonder of the human brain. It is trainable and it can get used to strange sensations, even unpleasant ones at the start. So compare our response now to the initial shock, most people will find that they do not get as freaked out as initially to the same T sound. So for newer sufferer, it is important to note your little improvement here and there to build up your confidence and hope. Just like little toddlers learning to walk, it takes time and many falls before they can master walking.
Since you seem quite worry about the impact of your T on your family, I want to relate to how I turned the T suffering into a positive for my family. One thing tinnitus sufferers should watch for is not allowing tinnitus to ruin your relationship with the family, love ones, or even boy/girl friend. They are the most important people in our life. During my initial struggle with tinnitus, suffering daily from repeated attacks from T, H, A & P, and the strong negative emotions associated with these, it dawned on me that besides ruining my life, tinnitus was beginning to ruin the great relationship I had with my family members. I made a conscious decision to fight back this T bully on this. Imagining tinnitus being my most hated foe & bully, I made a conscious effort to fight back and not let the bully tinnitus ruin my family too.
How I did that? By humanizing T as my most hated bully out to hurt my family. I want to stand in front to shield them from this charging bully. I told myself if I have to live like 'hell' with tinnitus, I want to make sure my family would live like 'heaven' in return. I told myself I had to soldier on with this tremendous suffering, Heaven or Hell, for my family and love ones who have to depend on me. I told myself I would treat my body as if it were 'dead' to bad bodily sensations and sufferings (ignoring the pain, fear, anxiety, panic, depression and what have u), but that this 'dead' body will 'compost' itself to benefit my family and children, much like in nature a parent plant has to compost itself to provide the nourishments to the seedling plants generating around the composted parent plant. Using this metaphor has helped me bear with the daily sufferings. In reality most of us will defend our family if some one is going to charge at them intending to hurt them. So by standing firm on our feet, never back down to T, willing to tolerate any pain/suffering for them, we are doing just that.
Apart from determining to live for them at all costs, I made extra effort to be nice to everyone, particularly my spouse. I would massage my long-suffering wife daily while an ipod was masking my tinnitus. This was one of the many 'mini-breaks' I used to win my life back. The family sensed the deep love I have for them and my effort. They returned in kind what I did to them. The result was affection and harmony in the family, a light in my life while being bombarded daily by tinnitus darkness. This 'wasted' body of mine at least can serve and give comfort to my family and love ones. I simply would not let T hurt my family regardless what hurts it could do to me. This gave me the hope & strength I needed to soldier on with immense tinnitus sufferings during those darkest days. When we lose ourselves for others, especially for our love ones, we often find ourselves. So try not to let T fool you with self pity about letting the family down. Instead, use the family to be the strength by turning all our positive energy by giving up ourselves for them. It can do miracle on our family life and our battle with T. My family actually become a ray of light amid the darkness of tinnitus sufferings.
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