Hello. I am a 33-year-old male who has had an incredibly strange, difficult, and extraordinary life trajectory. I grew up in poverty with two parents who both struggled with drug addiction. My father's heroin addiction would kill him when I was 10. My mother developed a painkiller addiction after a bus accident that she and I were in. We had won tickets to see the movie "Ferngully" in the early 90s. We took the public bus to the theater. A drunk woman ran head on into the side of the bus, and permanently disabled my mother.
My father spent most of his life in jail. He wasn't married to my mother.
At age 9, my mother married an abusive man who lived on a farm. He would block the driveway with his car so that we couldn't leave, and hit my mother and scream at me. My biological father died a year into this marriage, and my mother divorced that man a year later.
From that time, my mother spiraled into drug abuse and alcoholism. She would often come home to our half of a duplex house at night crawling on her hands and knees. I would help her to bed, at only 13 years old.
She would fall in love again, and I would do my best to leave at age 18 for college. I spent 18 and 19 pursuing a degree in anthropology. Unfortunately, in the US, you must use your parent's financial information to receive student aid until you are 25. My mother and new stepfather, whom I had little to no contact with, had no interest in giving that to me. After trying every pathway to remedy that, I was forced to drop out.
From 19-26 I would work in a grocery store, move to Philadelphia to work in an IKEA, move to London, Amsterdam, Osaka, and elsewhere, just trying to experience what I could. I was making myself.
At age 26, I went back to college. I pursued my real passion: philosophy. I graduated and left my undergrad with a girl who loved -loves- me very, very much. We both moved to Pittsburgh together to pursue our Master's degrees.
We were building a life together. We got a cat, and a roommate. I finally had hope.
I received therapy, and began a gym training regimen. I was raising myself up from my past.
And then, in March 0f 2021, the powers of this world decided that I had tasted enough happiness.
I got my first tinnitus tone as I sat on the couch eating a sandwich. For six months, I spiraled into a depressive, suicidal state. I emerged broken, and that hasn't changed. The person I was hoping to build died that day.
People, doctors especially, say that "tinnitus won't kill you". They're wrong. It killed me, and it has been killing iterations of myself ever since. A year after that first tone, I was gifted a second.
Two weeks ago I was given a third tone, and then a fourth, reactive tone the next week in the opposite ear.
Now, I am finished. I am about to check myself into a hospital out of fear that I will end my life.
Nothing has given me strength to fight this. I am empty now. I can no longer listen to my loved ones speak, or enjoy the days with them. There is only this noise.
Twice a night, consistently, with no exaggeration, I am awakened suddenly with those "flash-bang" like moments, and I fear that the tones will stay. I can not endure this any longer.
I have found no peace, and nothing masks the noises in my mind.
I don't even particularly love the movie Hellraiser, but the main villain reminds me very much of this condition.
"There is a secret song at the center of the world, and its sound is like razors through flesh.
Oh come, you can hear its faint echo right now."
My father spent most of his life in jail. He wasn't married to my mother.
At age 9, my mother married an abusive man who lived on a farm. He would block the driveway with his car so that we couldn't leave, and hit my mother and scream at me. My biological father died a year into this marriage, and my mother divorced that man a year later.
From that time, my mother spiraled into drug abuse and alcoholism. She would often come home to our half of a duplex house at night crawling on her hands and knees. I would help her to bed, at only 13 years old.
She would fall in love again, and I would do my best to leave at age 18 for college. I spent 18 and 19 pursuing a degree in anthropology. Unfortunately, in the US, you must use your parent's financial information to receive student aid until you are 25. My mother and new stepfather, whom I had little to no contact with, had no interest in giving that to me. After trying every pathway to remedy that, I was forced to drop out.
From 19-26 I would work in a grocery store, move to Philadelphia to work in an IKEA, move to London, Amsterdam, Osaka, and elsewhere, just trying to experience what I could. I was making myself.
At age 26, I went back to college. I pursued my real passion: philosophy. I graduated and left my undergrad with a girl who loved -loves- me very, very much. We both moved to Pittsburgh together to pursue our Master's degrees.
We were building a life together. We got a cat, and a roommate. I finally had hope.
I received therapy, and began a gym training regimen. I was raising myself up from my past.
And then, in March 0f 2021, the powers of this world decided that I had tasted enough happiness.
I got my first tinnitus tone as I sat on the couch eating a sandwich. For six months, I spiraled into a depressive, suicidal state. I emerged broken, and that hasn't changed. The person I was hoping to build died that day.
People, doctors especially, say that "tinnitus won't kill you". They're wrong. It killed me, and it has been killing iterations of myself ever since. A year after that first tone, I was gifted a second.
Two weeks ago I was given a third tone, and then a fourth, reactive tone the next week in the opposite ear.
Now, I am finished. I am about to check myself into a hospital out of fear that I will end my life.
Nothing has given me strength to fight this. I am empty now. I can no longer listen to my loved ones speak, or enjoy the days with them. There is only this noise.
Twice a night, consistently, with no exaggeration, I am awakened suddenly with those "flash-bang" like moments, and I fear that the tones will stay. I can not endure this any longer.
I have found no peace, and nothing masks the noises in my mind.
I don't even particularly love the movie Hellraiser, but the main villain reminds me very much of this condition.
"There is a secret song at the center of the world, and its sound is like razors through flesh.
Oh come, you can hear its faint echo right now."
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