Anonybrit
19-10-17, 09:18
So about 6 weeks ago I suddenly noticed high pitch ringing during a very stressful period of my life. My first thought was typical of someone with HA: what if I have some terrible disease, what if his never goes away.
Turns out that was a self fulfilling prophecy. I had a full work up with an ENT and audiologist and my hearing and ears are normal, I have learnt that we all have tinnitus even without hearing loss etc but that anxiety can cause us to fixate on it. So my brain has been hearing this sound for years and filtering it out, and now it won’t because it thinks it’s a threat.
I then noticed that as I calmed down it was only present when exposed to certain high pitch sounds like driving or air con etc and eventually calmed down even more to the point it 90% disappeared entirely. I’m told this is basically a form of hyperacusis, also common in anxiety, and that it will settle in time if my anxiety does.
Then I spent the last 3 days frantically packing to move continent. I’ve been anxious, stressed and irritable, it’s been horrible and all my symptoms have come back with a vengeance.
Now I’m struggling to go back to relaxing and being positive about how quickly I was improving. I’m having those horrible HA intrusive thoughts about “what if I never get better” and monitoring the sounds constantly - all of which make the problem worse and stop me getting better like I had been.
Anyone got any good tips on how to stop these intrusive thoughts and distract yourself even when you’re on your own without much to do?
Turns out that was a self fulfilling prophecy. I had a full work up with an ENT and audiologist and my hearing and ears are normal, I have learnt that we all have tinnitus even without hearing loss etc but that anxiety can cause us to fixate on it. So my brain has been hearing this sound for years and filtering it out, and now it won’t because it thinks it’s a threat.
I then noticed that as I calmed down it was only present when exposed to certain high pitch sounds like driving or air con etc and eventually calmed down even more to the point it 90% disappeared entirely. I’m told this is basically a form of hyperacusis, also common in anxiety, and that it will settle in time if my anxiety does.
Then I spent the last 3 days frantically packing to move continent. I’ve been anxious, stressed and irritable, it’s been horrible and all my symptoms have come back with a vengeance.
Now I’m struggling to go back to relaxing and being positive about how quickly I was improving. I’m having those horrible HA intrusive thoughts about “what if I never get better” and monitoring the sounds constantly - all of which make the problem worse and stop me getting better like I had been.
Anyone got any good tips on how to stop these intrusive thoughts and distract yourself even when you’re on your own without much to do?