Well. Sticking my head into the fray to say the following only:
As someone who has what I'd call moderate tinnitus (high pitched, somewhat reactive, clearly audible over nearly any normal day to day sound) and who has dealt with periods of what I'd call severe T and some H -- I think my perspective on this is a little different than a lot of replies in this thread simply because of the period of time that I've been dealing with this stuff, along with the experiences I've had watching people die or deal with serious disability.
Tinnitus is a
global problem, but if it's the "worst" thing you're dealing with then that means your basic needs are more than covered. So,
tinnitus distress and anxiety as a primary lifestyle impediment is inherently a first-world problem. Meaning, if you suddenly had no access to clean drinking water, tinnitus by necessity would become a secondary concern
even if it was still more distressing than the lack of water. So... so what? That doesn't seem like a very useful metric of how serious a problem it is, it's just a comment on your life circumstances. With that in mind, I understand why this thread went sideways as fast as it did.
That said -- the basic message here, of "get out and live your life, tinnitus be damned" is, I believe, absolutely correct. I mean, probably don't go to loud shows or take up machineguns as a hobby, but, beyond that, you've got to just fucking
do things, and, over a period of time, it's the act of
doing things that can "give you your life back".
I went skiing by myself yesterday, in near perfect weather. Very few people, and very little noise, just the wind in my face, some very low volume Johnny Cash in my ears, and through all of it, that piercing 14khz whine. Several years ago when I tried to go skiing I was aware of the tinnitus like 98% of the time and it "ruined" it for me. Yesterday I was consciously aware of it maybe 5% of the time.
My tinnitus isn't any quieter than it was a few years ago, that's for sure. It hasn't changed at all, I don't think. But, to some extent, my brain is changing around it - less H, and I can actually do things and get sucked into them and laugh about how amazing they are a lot of the time these days. It's not perfect, and I wish I didn't have the T! It's my biggest lifestyle complaint, by a
wide margin. So, that's a bummer. But, the effort, over a long period of time, of just gritting my teeth and forcing myself to get off the internet, stop reading about T, and just do things and be active even if I don't feel like it at all -- that's the only thing that's really "worked". Drugs haven't really helped, and certainly, knowing as much as I do about this condition now makes me better educated on T than most audiologists, but none of that information has helped me either.
Our brains change
every second. It's a machine. The way you think rewires you.
If you're miserable, and angry, that's okay. That's normal, that's a pretty fundamentally fucking human condition to be in. But, do not make the mistake,
ever, of thinking you have no agency. You are making choices. You can read a post like the OP's, pick out the three most offensive things in it, and then tell him to "go die" or "I hope you get bad T" or whatever else all your toxic, narcissistic, nasty, unpleasant comments have said here. I get it. Venting feels good. But, if you want more positivity in your life, if you want a
shot at reclaiming something like "happiness" -- then you have to
fearlessly, calmly and without hesitation set aside your preconceptions of your self and your canned reactions and all of this useless, toxic ego wiring.
Reinier said:
I chose : "I have only one live. I will allow Tinnitus, hyperacusis and hard of hearing to destroy it".
Yah dude, you and a lot of people, and that's absolutely your right, but then don't sit there and tell me that it's God or Bad Luck or Inevitability or Tinnitus making your life a living hell; you're doing it to yourself, and that's a thing you can stop doing in any moment. But, you've got to do it, and this isn't a "take the first step and the path will be clear" kind of thing, that's Hollywood bullshit. More like, "take the first step, feel worse but take a second with faith that some day things might get a little easier" and maybe eventually they do.
Sam Bridge said:
I think its very easy to assume everyone has a similar level low level tinnitus especially if you are new to it
No, that's not what's happening here at all, I don't think. People are assuming that the basic message of "get out there and do shit and try to be happy in spite of it all" only applies to "low level tinnitus", and I assure you, that's absolute bullshit. The people who need to hold onto that message the hardest are actually the people with the most severe ringing. It's
easy to stay active in your life and the agency of your decisions if you have a mild problem. It's
hard as nails to do it with a more serious problem, but that's when you
really need to do it.
Anyway, you know, call me an asshole, say I don't have any idea what your ringing is like (I don't), say I'm totally full of shit, w/e, that's fine because at the end of the day I'm just some guy on the internet. You're the one who has to live in your head 24/7. The tinnitus is already making it a less pleasant place to be, if you just want to dwell on that and not take basic steps to improve your internal life, it means little to me because I don't have to live with the unpleasant consequences of your self-centered and basically broken thinking.
Change is scary, and it's a lot easier to just sit around making unpleasant comments about strangers on the internet who have done nothing more than genuinely try to be
helpful. Even if it's naive, even if it's misguided, so what? What do you want?
For fucks sake. Figure it out. Change is possible. How to achieve it is something everyone has to figure out on their own, and what the end results might be is left as an exciting exercise for the viewer.
Namaste, peace, love, and a side serving of snark and attitude, as always
<3 LinearB
Member
