OCD or Change in Behavior Pattern After Tinnitus

[Nick Pyzik]

Anyone noticed a change in context of repetitive behavior after T onset? I feel my T has created a significant change in my behavior pattern and I'm always looking for some stress relief. It's like the brain is always "spinning" on high gear, like a computer hard drive trying to store information. To be able to handle the stress of my constant T it seems like I need to keep my brain activity in fifth gear, it's not enough to just occupy myself with one thing. My attention span has also reached a very short level, when I for instance read a news article my eyes keep wandering to a different section after a few seconds, way before I have read the article. So I need to start over again many times. I have also noticed an increased negative sexual energy, meaning having to find sexual release by myself all the time. I feel that I'm monitoring my sexual energy. I say negative cause it's not voluntary, it's something that I HAVE to do or else my body feels overloaded with stress and negative force. I think it's because I'm frenetically trying to decrease my physical stress levels cause my mind is going overdrive. Almost like my brain is cooking. It's been ages since I felt comfortable in my body, it's been so much pain. When I got T it just went overboard and I didn't think I would ever be friends with my physique again.

Just to illustrate I have probably read this post seven times now to make sure I haven't made any misspellings, it's like I really need to get things right. No room for errors or mistakes. I feel that I'm developing OCD and that T has made it escalate. Anyone here that shares the same experiences?

It's because the brain is not getting the neurotransmissions it once got from the nerve fibers of the auditory nerve connected to the ear since they are damaged thus causing Tinnitus. There are many neurotransmitters in our ears and these are allowed through the synapses of the auditory nerve fibers connected to the hair cells. Neurotransmitters are the key to our mood. Hearing is strongly connected to our mood. Our hearing has so many functions in vast sections of the brain and that's why it's being discovered that Tinnitus is active in many parts of the brain. These auditory nerves in our ears have to be connected all throughout the brain and I wonder where it all starts from. Tinnitus is not just ringing. It's the loss of what was once our connection to the world and what made us specifically who we are as individuals. The nerves (not hair cells) in our ears are aligned in plasticity to the brain. This has to clearly show us something. Hearing is what makes each of us uniquely ourselves to where we think a certain about encounter and we feel different emotionally about whatever it might be. Hearing let's us take mechanical energy from this world of ours and we experience it in an electrically stimulating form processed so fast which gave our brain the information that it needs to grow and mature. Our brain loves information, it constantly wants to experience it. I keep seeing the Amygdala, a small almond shaped piece of the brain that is very involved our emotions, being talked about with Tinnitus. The Amygdala lets us feel certain emotions and even lets us feel them in other people. It helps us store memories of events and emotions so an individual can recognize these events later on in similar events in the future. Our hearing has got to be very involved with this small section of the brain. We feel many emotions from our hearing, whether it be from a song or talking to a loved one. We feel happiness, we feel sadness, we feel anger. A good example of the Amygdala working is let's say you have an event where you got bit by a dog. The Amygdala helps in processing this event so the next time you see any kind of dog you'll have an increased fear/alertness of the situation.

There's a lot more about the brain and Tinnitus that I want to look into but I'm trying my best to explain how Tinnitus is not just ringing in the ears. It's the connection that it has to our emotions that really bothers me a lot. There's articles talking about how people with Tinnitus process emotions differently than those with normal hearing. That's awful. We NEED to be feeling emotions as human beings. We were born to feel emotions. We emotionally cried as babies to get what we needed from our parents. Emotions are what helps us develop into the people we are supposed to grow up and become later in life. The ringing in our ears is there for a good reason. I wouldn't say being able to stop the ringing in our brain would be a cure or even a good thing. It would be a step forward, but it wouldn't actually solve the problem. The problem is really that we've lost a neuronal connections that like I said before made us who we were. These nerves were developed at birth so that we could learn, grow, and mature everyday until we got older and could look back at everything we accomplished in our younger lives. This is is why it feels like we have to adapt to a new life with Tinnitus, we lost a part of our younger self. Being able to get these nerves back would solve the problem, not stopping the ringing from annoying us. The real issue will still be there.

P.S. The Amygdala is also significantly important to our sexual health, the drive, and libido.

 

[SoulStation]

Does Lexapro has a good effect on you btw?

Yes. It helps with not obsessing and depression. I think it prevents severe anxiety too. I'm on 15 mg a day. It's a relatively small dose but its helped. The side effects that I get ate feeling a bit emotionally flat and some very very minor libido changes.

 

[John G]

@Nick Pyzik Thanks for your post but you lost me in some of your thoughts.Stop the ringing,but the problem will still be there?. We lost our younger self?.

I could be wrong,but are you saying that our emotions are a cause of T ?. What about the stories of loud music,head trauma etc.. causing T?.

 

[Telis]

My behavior has become bizarre. I feel like I move around like a chicken with my head cut off. I'm always missing things, my keys, my wallet etc. I don't do things with precision anymore, they are done quickly and with little thought or care. I feel like I am so distracted with T or how my ears feel that my brain is 99 percent occupied, this leaves me with very little to work with and everything else goes out the window, nothing is done unless it absolutely has to be.

Doing things that require a lot of thought or planning are out of the question, I get frustrated quickly and just do the minimum required. This is not me, I was always well organized and put together, I'm a complete disaster with the shit.

As far as OCD, I may have had it in a minor way, but before tinnitus, the only obsessive thoughts that I have now are about my ears, I'm totally consumed.

My tinnitus shifts and changes from second to second, I feel like I have insects crawling around and biting my brain and ears. I can always feel the sounds, even if I have it masked. I can mask my T in the shower but I still feel the sound activity, it's just maddening. I don't know how to function normally under these circumstances. I also have H so any sound grabs my attention, even my own voice, I have to talk in a certain tone or my ears distort/get painful, even with low voice. All this going through my brain 24 7 seems to have taken all my attention and I'm left me with nothing to function with. I can "act" somewhat normal at times but it's just an act, my brain is totally consumed at any given momont with this problem. It's as though I have someone screaming at me 24, punching me in head and putting things deep into my ears. Can anyone function half way well like this? It seems unrealistic that I get back to how I once was, I think this is the new me whether I like it or not.

The hardest part is letting go of the old self, having too much pride is hurting me. Time to let go, the old self is dead and gone and I'm left with kind of a half wit looser with the memories of once being a successful and happy person. I wouldn't have traded my life pre T with anyone, I was so happy being me. Now...honestly I feel like I would trade with anyone that doesn't have totally fucked up ears/brain. I know this is not productive thinking but it's going to cross a guys mind, I'm only human.

Sorry if I've gone on and on here. I was going to type a short message but end up rambling, another thing out of character for me. I don't know.

 

[John G]

@Telis hang in there buddy

 

[Nick Pyzik]

@Nick Pyzik Thanks for your post but you lost me in some of your thoughts.Stop the ringing,but the problem will still be there?. We lost our younger self?.

I could be wrong,but are you saying that our emotions are a cause of T ?. What about the stories of loud music,head trauma etc.. causing T?.

No. What I'm saying is Tinnitus is part of our emotions. People with normal hearing have emotions that are controlled enormously by their hearing. Yes Tinnitus is caused by loud noise, trauma, ototoxicity, but the actual damage is to the nerves that conduct impulses to our brain so that we can experience life in the way we were given birth to experience. Yes the ringing is annoying and yes it would be great to get rid of it so that we could live in silence once again, but we still have lost these nerves (and even hair cells too) in the end. The ringing is our brain trying to make up for the loss of these connections all throughout the brain. Our hearing involves so much in learning, remembering, making decisions. When the hair cells in our ears receive sound waves, the current is transferred from mechanical energy to electrical energy and allows the nerves in the auditory nerve to process the sound and conduct the neurotransmissions like GABA (important for learning), Dopamine, Acetylcholine, Enkephalin, Dynorphin, and I believe even more to be sent throughout the brain. When you think about it, if we are experiencing this electrical stimulation everyday in our brain, then your brain is going to grow strong connections to these nerves/neurons. If you listen to a song that you truly love because of how it makes you feel and then you lose the nerves that conducted that neurotransmission everyday then you're not going to feel the same way about it the next time you hear it. I've also read that Tinnitus runs through the same section of the brain as Chronic Pain. For people blessed with normal hearing, all throughout their lives, they used and developed these nerves up until their Tinnitus began. There's no way to see which nerves they damaged exactly from the auditory nerve but for those people, the brain not receiving input from those nerves connected to whatever specific hair cell(s) it was connected to anymore thus not giving the brain its original neurotransmitting impulses anymore which is not good. This is why hearing loss is connected to cognitive decline, dementia, alzheimers. I'm really not sure how the brain works with people who are Deaf all their life. I did read that their brains develop different uses of their senses to where their senses of touch are established in what should be the hearing areas of the brain.

I hope I'm explaining this all okay. I'm no scientist but Tinnitus has a much deeper and more severe meaning to it. I don't look at it as just an annoying ringing sound in the brain.

 

[Konstadinos]

Anyone noticed a change in context of repetitive behavior after T onset? I feel my T has created a significant change in my behavior pattern and I'm always looking for some stress relief. It's like the brain is always "spinning" on high gear, like a computer hard drive trying to store information. To be able to handle the stress of my constant T it seems like I need to keep my brain activity in fifth gear, it's not enough to just occupy myself with one thing. My attention span has also reached a very short level, when I for instance read a news article my eyes keep wandering to a different section after a few seconds, way before I have read the article. So I need to start over again many times. I have also noticed an increased negative sexual energy, meaning having to find sexual release by myself all the time. I feel that I'm monitoring my sexual energy. I say negative cause it's not voluntary, it's something that I HAVE to do or else my body feels overloaded with stress and negative force. I think it's because I'm frenetically trying to decrease my physical stress levels cause my mind is going overdrive. Almost like my brain is cooking. It's been ages since I felt comfortable in my body, it's been so much pain. When I got T it just went overboard and I didn't think I would ever be friends with my physique again.

Just to illustrate I have probably read this post seven times now to make sure I haven't made any misspellings, it's like I really need to get things right. No room for errors or mistakes. I feel that I'm developing OCD and that T has made it escalate. Anyone here that shares the same experiences?

I already had OCD before tinnitus, and T actually came after a very stron OCD spike (and benzo cold turkey withdrawal). At first I just thought T was related to my stress or just another obsession. My OCD almost dissaapeared after T as my brain now is stuck in this noise.