Tinnitus has brought me lower than ever and in so doing, it has given me virtue - at a heavy price. Do you see any good in tinnitus?
I feel tinnitus has imade me a more appreciative, meek, humble (though l was probably the humblest person ever, even before T).
List of good things:
- Patience and meekness: It's made me more willing to let arguments pass, rather than reply back. This is the most important change for me.
- Kindness, empathy: It's also made me more willing to say something nice to a person in pain rather than be reserved.
- Sincerity: It's made me sincerely regret tormenting my parents and other adults as a youth. Maybe they were enduring tinnitus and never let on? It's more than likely so.
- As a spiritually oriented person l believe the language of God is pure silence and all else is poor translation. So, ultimately it's made me want to be nearer to him for one obvious reason at least!
A lovely post and you’ve got me thinking at last !!!! There is no good in tinnitus ( as you say). However you’ve proved in your very true words that in a sense good has come out of your having tinnitus . Very well done “ you”. I will take a large “ tip” from your wise book !!! 🌞 Goodnight xxx
Thanks for your encouragement. I'd like to point out: my post just shows my public facing side, but my reality is horrible, and l'm no angel. Some people with severe tinnitus hate to read calm lectures from well-to-do individuals about coping. I hope nobody thinks l'm well-to-do, l find tinnitus hard sometimes, and l find dealing with people hard, l'm no paragon of virtue.
What l'm saying is: this is my ideal, this is my designated way out, my path, my goal, my aspiration. Virtue in response to tinnitus. 1 day at a time. Little by little. I'm already mellowing out sliiiightly. Thank you for reading!
in reply to
Fact: In terms of character, virtue, I'd certainly be a *worse* person *without* T.
This a very thoughtful post AC. I'm going to think about it and reply later today ..
In the past year or so T has cast a long shadow over my life. It's stolen my silence, at times my sanity but it's not stolen my soul. Like you I think it's made me a little better in some respects. When you said to me several weeks ago that God won't give us more than we can bear .. Those words touched my heart. It was another step on the journey. Everyone here has been so kind & supportive. It's shone a light into my life and chased away the shadows 🙂
I think T makes us all look at things in a different way and any way you can change a negative experience into a positive one is indeed a blessing in itself.
It made me become more tolerant and less quick to boil over. We all don't know what's going on in someone else's world, so judgement should not be so hasty.
T makes you appreciate the better things in life, I find I use my eyes and other senses more now to fully take in what's around me.
With acceptance and knowledge T is just another part of us as people and part of our daily life's. We have the choice to allow it to rule out existence or to let it become just another background noise.
Peace is a gift we all have inside of us, mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually, allow them to come and they will.
Keep doing what you are doing, it's your path to follow and your way of dealing with it. Good on you and God bless.
Thank you AAA (if I may call you that). I’ve had T since I was about 16 and I thought everyone had it and that it was part of growing up - my first boyfriend was deaf in one ear and had T too so it was all normal to me. So I’ve never suffered in the way that most of you reading this have done. I do suffer with it - it’s louder than the car travelling at sixty on the M25 - but I accept it. It’s never made me anxious or depressed.
But what you say about tolerance and so on resonates with me.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago and it changed me in
many ways - for the better. When I was beginning to realise that all was not well I asked God to help me accept whatever was to come, and to help my husband support me.
God answered my prayers.
Thank you each for your replies. I want to clarify about "bearing" duress: We eventually pass away from something that we cannot *physically* bear (not referring to anybody here), that's natural. But l believe we can *emotionally* bear every test so long as we keep troth.
The simplest way of putting it (keeping troth) is: being thankful, grateful, inwardly at peace. It's a decision at a T-junction (note the pun!). The left path or the right path.
In my unproven theorem, just shooting the breeze: Those choosing the left path find themselves unable to locate inner peace, and get more disquiet.
I'm not saying the thankless are all psychopaths, in fact the best of us have moments when we want to scream obscenities at the sky, you know, finally let it all out. However, l do notice that the Hollywood movie psychopath is someone that hates having been born, and despises those that brought them into the world, and further down the thought process, toys with people as someone from the outside looking in, someone not part of the world. I call this the left hand path.
So what i'm saying is, l want the right hand path: thankful, at peace, no matter how life is trolling me. I think we all agree that's the psychological way out of the T impasse. Maybe there's a pharmacological way out too but drugs upset equilibriums. If a psychological cure is possible, it's always better isn't it. I take strength from those here who have found peace, and are bearing it, are thankful.
My advice to anybody approaching the T-junction (when chronic round-the-clock tinnitus first hits): You didn't end your life, did you? So take the right hand path, it's the only one that makes sense once you've decided not to end it all (l find suicide abhorrent FWIW). In retrospect, the approach to the T-junction and the pause at that junction, was the most important part. The rest just falls into place ... eventually.
Happyrosie l think everyone will agree your story especially was inspirational! Thank you. God bless you all!
I see (hear) nothing but Torture with T: I've been awake since 4am listening to a raging blizzard in my head. The only thing positive is that the left ear rumbling thunder sensation that usually accompanies is not present (at the moment).
Hi there. T can be torture - no doubt about it. I'm sorry yours is giving you so much trouble. How long have you had it? I found the first six months very tough.
Ah. Sorry to hear this .. I had mild T for a year or so before it burst out last summer. I don't know why this happens . It's like two different ailments. Mild T & loud T. I hope you have some relief at some point.
Thank you for taking the time to reply. Did your T revert back to the old days? Mine was manageable and only the left ear for many years. Then after a trial of Arlevert progressed to both ears. And now I have it 'central' or in the head; full blown 24/7, and never "mild".
No. Mine hasn't reverted back to mild T. It's still loud & intrusive a year on but I'm coping better. I've just googled Arlevert . I know there are some meds which can increase the levels of T but I've not come across this one before. I'm sorry you're suffering in this way. What does your GP say?
It was a new doctor to ENT that suggested it, mistaken that I was suffering from dizziness due to Menieres circumstances. I took the tablets for 4 days and stopped; the side effects were awful and it's what brought on the bilateral T. ENT have since apologised for my problem but deny any correlation between the two! Glad to hear you're coping better, I wish I was!
I've noticed a lot of grumbles about MRI scans inducing or worsening tinnitus.
I think to say yes there's a correlation between Arlevert (or MRI for that matter), they'd have to do an official study, and find an actual mechanism. In the absence of that, they'd rather not inflate suspicions. Personally, l'm going to avoid MRIs forever more!
Crumbs! That's bad luck to say the least. I wish docs would be honest about these things. Hang in there. T - as we know - is unpredictable. The way people cope fluctuates too. I still have good days & bad days but I found a short course of CBT very helpful .
Sorry to read this, 1966366 . I'm trying to find a way of connecting two things:
(1) Tinnitus isn't real, but it can be a response to something real e.g. loss of auditory frequencies due to physical ageing or damage.
(2) Virtue, which is an ephemeral moral concept, which some would say has no objective existence.
The challenge seems akin to materialising a meal out of thin air. We can't undo physical damage by wishful thought.
I'm wondering if the left path and the right path at the T-junction (T-junction = the conundrum that is tinnitus) each offer a cure.
The sensation isn't real.
So the left hand path (in theory): we drown it in other mental sensations, and physically do what it takes to keep the pleasures. Eventually even building new brain receptors ready to channel all that energy, the energy from drugs, chocolate, and so on. Like, a new band stand for our brains to scream and headbang at.
Or the right hand path (in theory): we don't respond with increase, we absorb, dissipate it, ameliorate it. Through forcing ourselves to a lower energy state that requires less energy input. This could take the form of finding virtues such as patience, meekness, gratefulness. It may require having physically less to do with the wider world. I don't know. It may even result in fewer brain receptors for certain chemicals.
So, we have physical insult or neurodegeneration, leading to ephemeral tinnitus ... being "cured" with ephemeral vices or ephemeral virtues, leading to physical acts and even physical changes in brain receptor density?
Regarding mindfulness, l think both the left hand path and the right hand path ways of coping (in this theorem) *are* actually mindfulness. I think it might take more than mindfulness for a lasting cure, even if the cure manifests through the lens of mindfulness, l don't think the cure is mindfulness itself. Let me know if you disagree, l'm just shooting the breeze. I mean, l don't know how to interpret the right hand path "cure" in real terms. Sure, we have to step out of the world and look at ourselves in the present, forgetting the mundane context that made us unwell. That is mindfulness. But then what?
I'd say we then move to a lower energy state, but l don't know how. Sitting in a quiet room doing nothing would be a lower energy state but conventional wisdom says you really shouldn't do that if you have tinnitus - the head on confrontation with tinnitus would surely cause despair. Me? I'm considering just gradually withdrawing from the world, including less audio, maybe quitting drinking, hopefully never smoking again (quit in 2015), and who knows, maybe 20 years down the line, actually sitting in a cave in perfect silence. Gradually moving to a lower energy state.
You write so elegantly it was a pleasure to read and re-read! Myself, I have found withdrawal from the world is the best way for me. I used to be very social with people and work, but just the thought of having to go back to this stage of my life brings despair. T has "stolen" the "old" me. I have no TV, very little audio and I quit drinking for almost a year during lockdown and I can still only get by for the majority of the time; but I have found a certain place substantially better than the other (if that makes sense?). Or to put it another way, I sit down with silence and it is hell; but it is a more endurable hell than being in 40,000 crowds at football matches or concerts or being in a busy pub with fifty people. So, in the most simple way moving forward in a lower energy state is the road to survival at the moment.
Hi there 1966366 it's encouraging to me that you're finding a quiet place better than a crowd.
I'm sorry to read you don't feel you're progressing all that much though.
I have two suggestions that you might like. To me, it's important to score little victories against the evil empire that is tinnitus. These will be signal victories which would show how ephemeral tinnitus is.
Suggestion #1: In your mind, try to force a tone to match the tinnitus. I don't know how else to explain it. Imagine a tone exactly like the tone you're hearing, and imagine hard ... It momentarily has the effect of cancelling out the T.
Suggestion #2: Sleep on a hard floor, but with a camping mat or yoga mat underneath, and a thin pillow, not a thick pillow. Maybe even no pillow? I find this earths my energies and / or evens out bad form in my body e.g. my neck, upper back etc. If you get a really good night's sleep from that, you might wake up feeling great. I think it helps if you could actually go camping. Nothing quite like sleeping in a tent in summer, surrounded by low cloud, with a hot water bottle keeping you warm, and the sound of a sheep randomly bleating out of the pitch dark. I got such a good night's sleep! Shame l can't find the time for a proper camping weekend at the moment.
So anyway, these were little victories for me, which helped me understand T isn't all that. Of couse l still suffer, but it's getting more manageable. Somebody posted a link on here, detailing the stages of dealing with T, it was a bit like the DADA cycle. I wish l could find the link.
Thank you all for your input, l must leave this space to focus on my business. As l read on a school blazer decades ago: "Keep Troth".
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