What Is the Difference Between Those Who Get Beyond Tinnitus and Those Who Don't?

[Kah Povi]

I come and go on this forum because sometimes I need the support it offers and sometimes I need to stay away from any obsession with tinnitus.

I'm here to simply ask why some people, such as my 78 year old brother with severe hearing loss, don't experience tinnitus as a problem ( in his case he claims to be the one of five siblings not to have it); while other people, such as my 79 year brother with severe hearing loss, are tormented by tinnitus.

I waver between accepting or even noticing a fading of my T and plunging into a tortured and hopeless grief, obsessing on the noise in my head.

Here's my answer to the question: brother #1 is literally a rocket scientist (astrophysicist) , but he's more known in the family as a space case. He loves life, is very calm to the point of infuriating the more pensive siblings, and shares a lot of time with his family, taking care of his two great granddaughters three days a week.

Brother #2 is an anxiety ridden mess, a neurologist who is increasingly angry and uptight about everything.

I truly believe that the way to heal from tinnitus is to heal anxiety, to do whatever one can do to not be uptight. Speaking from experience, that's damned hard, especially in today's world, and especially when trauma and conditioning have wired the brain to be on high alert.

For some people drugs help to tamp down the body/mind tendency to have high anxiety- they did for me, sort of, except the price of addiction and withdrawal was too much for me to pay and so I opted for meditation and anything else I could find to calm me down and turn off the overwrought activity of my anxiety.

Here are some things that work for me that I can control without adding anxiety (the directive to get a good night's sleep can actually backfire, making me crazy around how much sleep I get):

1. meditation without hoping that my T is better afterwards
2. physical activity, such as dancing and playing tennis
3. body work, such as massage and cranial-sacral therapy
4.experiencing really good and compelling art, film, books - not sensational vapid, anxiety producing crap
4. LISTENING to other people
5. doing work for and with other people (teaching really helps me a lot)
6. getting things done that mean something to me, even cleaning
7. sharing physical affection (especially works with my cat!)

Numbers 4 and 5 are crucial and what I think makes brother #1 healthy. The more I focus on my needs only, the more I hear the T.

All that said, I get completely discouraged regularly and I'm writing this to remind myself of the reality that we are not powerless and that, as is often said here, there are thousands, maybe millions of people with tinnitus who do feel it is a central bummer in their lives and who support and wait for the cure that we all want without obsessing on it as miserable victims. When I feel like a miserable victim it is NOT fun.

 

[light rain]

Obsessing causes problems for lots of conditions. Being able to distract yourself helps keep you out of that trap for sure. However I think since there is probably no one cause for everyone's T not everyone is going to be able to this to the same level. That can be why some really aren't so bothered by it and others driven practically crazy.

If there is no harm physically, emotionally or spiritually (and maybeveven financially too) then try different things and see if it helps. But don't feel like a failure if you can't overcome.

 

[Kah Povi]

I want to add that when I asked brother #1 a few years ago if he had tinnitus he thought for a minute and said, "I think I heard some ringing in my ears for a while, but it went away.

 

[GregCA]

I want to add that when I asked brother #1 a few years ago if he had tinnitus he thought for a minute and said, "I think I heard some ringing in my ears for a while, but it went away.

It seems to me your answer is right here. Your #1 brother isn't bothered by it because he doesn't have T anymore ("it went away") and the lack of assertiveness in the answer ("I think I heard some ringing") discloses that it wasn't a memorable stimulus either.

I suspect many in here would be just as zen if we had T that "went away" or that we'd have to "think for a minute" to recall the experience.

 

[Bill Bauer]

Also, the quieter and less piercing T is, the easier it is to not care. Since we can't compare the volume and pitch across patients, we can't determine whether one person has a different reaction to T compared to another person.

 

[Kah Povi]

Good points - I use my two brothers because we're in the same gene pool, so it gives me hope that my T can go away. But my sister and another brother have loud T and aren't bothered by it.

I can't deny my own experience that when I'm able to focus on something besides myself and when I am feeling like I can handle and even ignore the loud T it actually gets quieter. Definitely. And don't we know that there are plenty of people who aren't bothered by it so much and who therefore are not be on this forum? There are some on the forum who kindly talk about their habituation or even the fading of their T, but most who are over it aren't going to post much. Bottom line, tinnitus and anxiety create a loop of increased suffering; until there's a cure for tinnitus my best bet has been to work on the anxiety.