I have it. Mine is a constant high pitched ‘ringing’ which came on suddenly about 13 years ago, seemingly out of nowhere. The reason to go to ENT is to rule out hearing loss which can be the trigger. However, it’s not always ‘an ear thing’ and can be brought on by stress, which was the reason for mine. As was explained to me by a leading tinnitus expert (I mention this because he knew what he was talking about and it helped) it can be the body’s fight or flight response which kicks in after extreme neurological stressors. Mine was being constantly on red alert for a prolonged period of time.
When first got it? I thought I would go mad from the constant ‘noise’, which is why I sought answers from ENT as I wanted it ‘cured’. I honestly thought my life was over. I’m saying this, because my reaction to it was immense panic and I thought I could never possibly habituate.
it took some time, maybe around the six month time onwards to accept it and slowly learn to live with it. I remember reading absolutely everything about it and praying it would just go away but it didn’t go away, yet here I am all these years later, and I still have it. I didn’t go mad. I habituated. Hearing other people saying they too had habituated really helped me in a time of what was for me, crisis.
In the early days I tried everything. White noise machines; pillows with inbuilt speakers to play either white noise or light music; anything to mask the tinnitus. Having been someone who highly valued silence I couldn’t deal with these extra ‘noises’ in the day, let alone at night when the tinnitus was so apparent. I was also terrified I would never be able to read a book or just sit with my thoughts because I’d always done that in silence.
But I did habituate. To the extent that I can sleep without ‘hearing’ it, and can even wear ear plugs to block out other noises (noisy neighbours, etc) and it doesn’t make the tinnitus any worse.
I’m hoping that my telling you how frightened I was will give you hope that if it doesn’t go away you too can learn to live with it. One of the things my expert told me was that constantly looking for ways to make it stop can in a way make it worse, because the more you think about it, the more you ‘hear’ it. And when I was doing this, the most helpful things I read were from people saying they’d felt the same as me: that they feared they’d go mad and never cope with it.
But I didn’t go mad and I did cope with it; and now, even though talking about it makes me notice it more, I know that I’ve lived with it for all of these years and been ok. Better than ok. I can read and sit with my thoughts and enjoy birdsong and ‘silence’ and it’s not all about the tinnitus. At all.