One random night, I lay on my bed in my silent bedroom, and I felt that the silence is uncomfortable. Why, I asked myself, that the silence felt sharp, like I prefer the noise of my annoyingly loud dehumidifier, or the muffled sound of traffic in my old apartment?
I realized that the silence was ringing, in a high pitched noise that we all associate with being hit near the ears. My inner voice told myself: “man, you have tinnitus.”
Thinking back, that wasn’t the first time I thought that I have tinnitus, but I was probably in denial for years, or it just got louder. The sad part is that I’m only 26, and somehow, I feared getting tinnitus ever since my childhood.
Even worse, I just ordered a pair of headphones with ANC, and when I don’t play anything through it, the ringing gets very clear.
Was depressed for a few days, thinking that it’s not fair that I got it even though I don’t expose myself to loud noises often, I listen to music at a couple levels lower than my preference, and I don’t turn up my music to drown out noises.
But nothing in life is fair, and to compared to the suffering of others, this is only a mild discomfort. So I’ll try to keep positive about it, and be grateful that I still enjoy a comparatively luxurious life.
I’ll visit a doctor soon though!
Any of you have a similar experience? I’ll be happy to read your stories!
I realized I had it a few years ago. I liked loud music and headphones so it wasn’t much of a surprise when it happened.
Still I had a woe-is-me self pitying stage where I obsessed over it. I hyper fixated over the sound it made, I did online hearing test to see how bad my hearing was, read through internet fourms seeing if there were cures to tinnitus or hoping it was a reversable kind caused by earwax or some bs. Typical human copium psychological stuff, you know the drill.
Ultimately its one of those things where I learned to accept it as life. It could be worse, and hoped one day it lessens or even recovers. And in the meantime I just tune it out with basic background noise and plain old learned cognitive filtering. I think it may have even lessened a little over the years too.