First of all I wanted to apologize to those who felt bad because of my post.
I am sorry, that is not what I meant writing those words.
I am not a Troll, I am just an old member of TT who has recently dropped by this website to share his "ignorant views", as many called them, with this community.
Even though I do not log into this forum any longer, it was thanks to TT that I got my life back and do not want to hurt people in this community. I feel very sad about my thread and particularly seeing how some people reacted sending me to hell and wishing me to have a bad T and H for 1 month....
I am not a newbie in TT. Those who have insulted me, please read all the threads I wrote in 2013 and 2014 and learn a bit more about my suffering and struggling with T... and also about my recovery.
For those who do not know anything about me,
I would like to share my story with you and some conclusions at the very end of my post.
1. T and falling into depression
I got T around October 2013.
Back then, I had just arrived to Japan to live. My girlfriend at the time was living there so I convinced my bosses to move me to Tokyo, after several months pitching them the idea.
A week after I landed in Japan, I got T.... and a month later my girlfriend dumped me.
I did not care very much about breaking up with her. Even though she was the main reason why I had gone to Japan, a country that always had fascinated me, after having T I just cared about the ringing in my right ear.
Day and Night. In the morning and in the evening. In the street and in my office.
"You have T", the Dr. said. Go live with it....
I was sad, alone in a different country and my A personality just pushed me to desperately find a cure for this "disease" that they had told me that there was no cure for.
Suddenly I found TT and this website was godsend. I could chat with people who had they same problem as I did have and who understood me.
But having no friends, having no hobbies, and just spending all my day thinking on T made things worst.
"there is no cure for it" those words got stuck in my brain and I could not accept that.
I thought I was the most unfortunate person on Earth and in a matter of weeks I fell into depression.
My mind could not figure out a escenario of myself being happy with T.
"T won´t let me to be happy---> I won´t be able to have friends because people do not want to be with unhappy fellows---> It will be the end of my social life -----> I won´t be able to find a girl who loves me because I am not happy ------> I will be alone for the rest of my life -----> To be happy I have to find a cure for T....but there is no cure.....and turn the wheel again.
And then the same thoughts with music because I play guitar. "I won´t be able to play guitar again ----> I wont be able to go to gigs..... I won´t be able to listen to the music---> I will be sad the rest of my life"
And same with evth.... job, family, friends... T was going to make me a sad person forever who would not ever smile again.
I wanted to die.
The idea of c suicide started to cross my mind. I never actually took those thoughts seriously, but everyday I took the metro and Japan has a very high suicide rate... so I started to look at the tracks with a different view, as a way to free myself from this endless suffering and sadness that T was bringing into my life.
I started to read positive threads on people who had overcome this situation.
I learned as much as I could about TRT and CBT therapies.
And most importantly,
I realized that I needed a specialist to help me.
Thus, I realized I needed to move out from Japan and go back to Europe to be close to my family and friends.
But that was not easy. I had been begging to be moved to Japan for months, and after just 4 months I wanted to be moved back to Spain..... I felt that was a profesional defeat for myself.
Fortunately for me, a workmate in Lisbon had just quit, so I could take over his position and start a new live in Portugal.
It was not an easy decision, again. Having a job in Japan was a life opportunity for me. I had been dreaming of going to Japan for months, and just a few months after my arrival,
T was tearing up that dream of mine.
But whereas Japan is a difficult country to live in, I knew that Portugal was not. And I could be closer to my family to have support.
Additionally, I found the best specialist in TRT in Spain and a great CBT professional who helped me greatly to overcome depression, and my boss in Portugal allowed me to fly once a month to receive my treatment in Madrid.
I felt miserable and misunderstood by everyone. Again,
the most unfortunate person on Earth.
2. Getting my life back
Christmas of 2013 was the worst of my life.
You are supposed to be happy in Christmas, right? Well, I was not. I was sad, and wanted to stay all day in my room.
I went for my first TRT session and thought that was useless. "I already know what the Dr. told me", I tought to myself.
But things were better with my CBT therapist. Instead of giving me advices, as everyone did, she listened to me for over an hour. I vented out my feelings and when I had finished, she began to talk.
"You have an A personality. You want evth to be perfect and have control evth in your life"
"The more you want to control your T, the more your T controls you", Bang, that comment made an impression on me.
She was right.
You cannot control everything in life, and there is no point trying to control T.
I had spent hours measuring how high my T was "Has it gotten better? Is it louder?". I was pluggin my ears every hour to see what my T was like.
T WAS CONTROLLING ME
I had spent all my leisure time in TT reading and talking about T in order to find support or a cure.
T WAS CONTROLLING ME.
All I did was telling everyone that I got T and that my life was very unfortunate because of that,
T WAS CONTROLLING ME
And also I just wasted hours of hours of my life thinking about how unfortunate my life was going to be because of T: I was going to be alone, without friends, and soon jobless because I was not performing well in my job.
T WAS CONTROLLING ME
In order to free myself of this T Tyranny, I had to stop trying to control it, as simple as that.
I accepted that there was no cure for it and will never go away.
So I just let the T Tyranny go and began to feel better.
I stopped reading about T and doing the things I used to before getting this condition.
I understood that nothing bad was happening to me and that I was not going to die because of T.
Actually nobody dies from T. Some T sufferers commit suicide, but because of depression and not from Tinnitus.
Suicides among tinnitus sufferers are rare, says a study in
PubMed.
I realized that having T did not mean the end of my life and that I was not condemned to commit suicide.
So little by little, day by day, I started to feel better. It was not something that happened from one day to another, but after some weeks of TRT and CBT I began to get my life back.
Besides my time in Portugal was great. I made some amazing friends, met great people, and my social life improved significantly.
I had so many plans with friends that, after some weeks and months I had forgotten about how upset was about T.
I began to play guitar again, and also started to perform well at my job.
CBT therapy was helping also a great deal in my recovery. The Dr. had put me in January on antidepressants,but I began to reduce my dosis around June-July.
It is hard to explain
why I got well in a thread, but I would point out these things:
1- Realizing that T was not as bad as I thought. There are worst things in life and T does not kill.
2- Minimizing the importance of T. "Do my pants bother me? Why T does annoy me then? It is just a sound."
3- Stop thinking about T and began to do other things. Made friends and had hobbies.
4- Accepting that Shit Happens in Life. You are vulnerable and bad things will happen.
5- Realizing that all those bad things about my future, were not taking place.
3. Nearly 4 years after being depressed and having T.
My contract in Portugal finished in July, so I had to find another job.
I joined a new company and was sent to Zambia between August and October 2014. Later they sent me to Mexico from Oct to Jun 2015 and to Colombia between Jun 2015 and July 2016.
I have traveled, matured, made friends, made business, signed business contracts, published papers in magazines.... even though I had T.
I was a very well-recognized worker in my company and fell in love with an amazing woman.
In July 2016 I decided to quit my job and started my own business in Mexico, doing really well at the moment.
And have done all of these despite having T.
T has not had any significant impact in my quality of life in the last 3.5 years.
Even though I thought my life was going to be horrible because of T, it has not been like that.
Once it felt as the end of the world. Now, looking backwards it was a great lesson.
4. Conclusions after 4 years with T
1. Tinnitus has not ruined my life.
As I said, I though my life was going to be terrible with T. It has not been like that.
2. Tinnitus is not a major world problem
Wars, poverty, and inequality are. Not tinnitus.
Climate change, droughts, diseases -T is not a disease but a symptom-, violence are. Not tinnitus.
I have lived in underdeveloped countries over the last three years.
These people really have problems such as poverty, bad access to health care, child labor, domestic violence, having no access to energy, not having water to wash your bump.... these are day to day problems that millions of people live. And as a former T sufferer I think they are worst than T.
3. Tinnitus does not kill.
"
Nowhere in the existing literature is there any evidence supporting a cause and effect relationship between tinnitus and suicide"
PubMed
"Suicides among tinnitus sufferers are rare".
PubMed
4. The offline ringing heads.
After having T, I have met many people along these years who have T, and they just live happy lives.
T has not either had an impact in their lives. They have told me that were upset when their ears began to buzz, but they just carried on.
These T success stories are everywhere. Why are not them online? Because these people are just so busy enjoying their lives that do not have time to come to a forum to say how unfortunate they are.
5. The earlier you stop coming to online forums, the sooner you will recover.
That happened to me.
As I said, did you come to TT before having T? I did not, so leaving this forum was essential to return to do the same things I used to in my previous life.
For newringers, it is good to drop by here for a time period. But then it is good to say farewell and move on.
6. T has been a great lesson.
a) T has made me a more
sympathetic person, although some people in this thread think that I am monster.
When somebody has a problem that I can help with, I try to be on their shoes and advice them on how I would proceed. I used to be more selfish.
b) T has made me realize that I am
vulnerable. As I said in the OP, I learned that bad things will happen in my life and I just have to carry on, and accept that fact.
There is just one life and am not going to waste it because of a stupid harmless sound.
c) T has made me a
better listener to people´s problems. As I mentioned, I used to be very selfish. Now I listen more to others and try to forge stronger relationships with my friends listening to their problems.
When I got T I wanted to tell everyone about my problem, but nobody wanted to listen.
I hated that feeling, so I realized that from now on I was going to pay more attention to others.
d)
I cannot control evth. As many people who have suffered from T, I am an A personality.
T has made me realize that I will not be able to control everything in life.
I do not mean to offend anybody with my words, and I hope this will be of use for some.
Respect has always been a key characteristic in this forum, and I hope that we all respect each other and discuss this topic as adult people. Me first.
My final word.
Having Tinnitus and
suffering from Tinnitus are two different things.
I
have T but I no longer
suffer from T.
I hope that this story will help you, that person who is having a bad time with T, find this story from a Headringer who no loner suffers from this eternal PIIIIIIIIIIII that will be the soundtrack of my life until I die.