One Way to See It, I Suppose

[Marty]

Hello.

I was watching a dvd with a swedish comedian, David Batra, doing stand up comedy. He was doing a rather fun and entertaining show, but in the middle of this he said he wanted to take a moment to talk about a hearing disorder he got about 2-3 years ago. He said that one time during a live show he started to hear this noise, and everytime he got applause he felt this extreme pain in both his ears. He had gotten tinnitus and hyperacusis. His doctor told him to stop doing live stand up comedy for forever. He struggled with the condition and kept doing live show wearing earplugs. This condition got to him so bad that he was thinking of ending his life.

But he said to himself, oh God, what am I thinking? I have kids, I can't do this to them.

Then one day he was playing with his daughter who screamed near his ears. He covered his ears and asked her not to do that because of this condition. His daughter replied "are your ears talking to you?"

He thought about this for a while and said that this made him see and think of his T another way. "Perhaps this is how I should see it. My ears are talking to me and they're telling me that they are working fine". This was the turning point in his life. Today he' doing stand up comedy, he doesn't need the earplugs any more, his hyperacusis is gone and he now rarely even notice the T.

I thought this was a good story and worth hearing. Seeing the T from this point of view have helped me through some bad days, and may very well be worth trying.

 

[Louise]

That really does illustrate how its the 'reaction' that causes the suffering as Jastreboff says. I read where someone calls it 'music of the brain' and another person said 'its just the sound of my brain working'.

 

[Marty]

Indeed. The evil circle of tinnitus making you feel bad which makes the T worse which makes you feel worse and so on. But I guess I shouldn't complain if I'm that smart that I can actually hear my brain;-) ehh?

 

[Louise]

Yes, but why does it have to make quite such an awful noise?

 

[Marty]

If I were smart enough to understand that, I'd have fixed it already. Let's hope someone is!

 

[stantheman]

There is always hope. But telling your body not to react to a constant noise that provokes the flight or fight response is almost like standing in front of an oncoming bus and telling yourself not to move out of the way. Not an easy thing to do.

 

[Louise]

Thats very well put Stan

 

[calin]

Interesting... I was just thinking about this.

I think a lot of the frustration is that we are used to controlling and having choices in our lives. When we don't want something we reject it or say "no". We don't like what the T is doing "to" us... how it negatively interferes with our lives. So, what do we do? We want it removed... fixed. We are frustrated as nothing will work. Resistance builds and so does anxiety about the T.

Geez, I just bummed myself out! haha

So... my thinking was when I found this thread, was that to calm this "resistance" one can just let go. Stop viewing the T as something that needs fixing.... a mental exercise so to speak. Just as the lead post here is suggesting... What am I not hearing or hearing? What is my body telling me?

If this is part of me, then so be it. It is what it is. I can appreciate other things that is functioning perfectly well in my body. Right now, I have no pain anywhere. I can appreciate that. I can hear. I can see and taste food. Etc...

While I was thinking about and writing about other things that are indeed working well in my body, I did not even think about the "noise" - I stopped "resisting" and focused attention elsewhere.

Sometimes, I will get a squeal in my right ear (which does not have the T sound regularly) and I can mentally ask it to fade. It does. How cool is that?! I will hold the acupressure point next to the ear flap and it fades when I think of it to do that. The body and mind are connected. When I become stressed out about the T, it gets louder. When I am de-focused on it, sometimes I don't even hear it when I draw my attention to it. But then... it grows in volume and low and behold it is THERE! Shucks!!! Then I have to distract my focus and it is ignored again.

Well, I have spent an hour on here which focuses my attention to the noise. I will go about my day and de-focus.

Thanks Marty for your contribution! Nice story.