Need some support

[TomsThoughts]

Lately I've had the flu and each time I've had the flu I instantly start worrying about my ears.. I've read terrible things about people saying they have constant ringing in the ear when dealing with the flu which hasn't gone away.

I feel as if I worry way too much about my ears and I'm pretty much destined to get full blown tinnitus. I already hear noises/ringing/pulsating/fuzziness but only in very quiet environments.

It's giving me panic attacks which doesn't help the matter, has anyone got through something like this? I feel terrible

[Oosh]

Stop reading terrible things lol !
Why wouldn't you search for reassuring things instead ? Don't you want to be reassured ?

Google "can everybody hear a certain degree of background noise" etc
Find evidence that they can. Congratulations, evidence that you have normal ears.

If you search for terrible things you'll find them and you did. The only thing that proves is that you searched for terrible things and found them. What's going on or not going on with your ears is a separate thing altogether.

I don't think of my ears. If I think of them now ... I can probably hear ear stuff. I'll be ok again as soon as I've forgotten about my ears, just like I had to work to forget breathing stuff earlier and plane stuff the other year.

Become able to control what you put your attention on. Then you can worry about as much stuff as you like but that's ok because you can then forget them again.

These worries are just evidence that you have a tendency to worry. Theyll always appear. It's useful to recognise when you start to do it and see them like dead ends, traps, mud that will keep you trapped/stuck there if you don't do a u-turn and head back in the direction of your normal, every day topics.

You CAN do it. It comes with practice. I do it automatically on a regular basis now where in the past I could be locked in to these things for huge amounts of time.

"Ears"
"Oh, that's doing THAT. I'm not doing THAT. It's a massive waste of time and energy and never based on anything real. I'm going to look this way at job, gf, telly, next week instead"

Keep succeeding and it gets easier. You're just dodging worries. You're no longer believing or entertaining the fear, you're seeing it as worry and dodging it.