A moment that changed me: on the day of my first agreement, a mysterious buzzing surmounted me | Health

I I developed tinnitus the same evening that I was offered my first book agreement at the end of 2014. I had received the news at the end of the afternoon, then I released for cocktails with two friends to celebrate. I remember the evening well: we had gone to a strong but not too strong place; I ordered a fluorescent orange drink that I did not appreciate. Before going to bed, I spoke to my boyfriend on the phone. “It could really change your life,” he said.

At the beginning the next morning, I woke up with a ringtone in my ears that did not gone since.

Tinnitus often appears from nowhere. Some describe it as to stand next to the engine of an aircraft, or taken in a colony of flying bats. The sound with whom I woke up was not so bad: a kind of median point between the whistling of static television and the roar of the ocean. At first, I thought it had to come from my phone, which was generally a few centimeters from my face while I was sleeping. I then searched my room the defective electronics, before achieving with the horror victim because the noise came from the inside of my brain.

The condition can be divided into three categories: subjective tinnitus (the perception of sound where there is none); Objective of tinnitus (where there is a sound inside or close to the ear that another person can sometimes hear); and somatic tinnitus, which worsens with the movement of the body. Mine was the first: a ghost sound. We know little about what causes it, but a theory is that strong noises damage the hair of the cochlea, flatten them like corn stems after a storm. The hairs normally collect sounds and, without them, the brain is looking for sounds of other parts of the ear, returning signals which result in a perpetual illusory buzz. I had spent many years doing noisy concerts and playing battery in a group, protecting only the opportunity with ear caps. I started to blame myself.

The first days felt long and hard. It seemed absurd so disturbed by what is fundamentally boring sound, but its inexpressible and its whole were exasperating. The world was suddenly branched off in calm spaces, in which I had nothing to mask tinnitus, and noisy spaces, which threatened to damage my hearing more. I couldn’t stop catastrophizing: “I will never hear the silence again. I will always be too distracted to write. I will have been crazy by noisy sounds. “” I became anxious and, like 21% of tinnitus patients, I developed suicidal thoughts.

My general practitioner was unfriendly, telling me that he would not disappear but that I would get used to it – and no, I could not have valium. A few days before Christmas, I went to stay with my boyfriend’s parents for the first time. Ironically, there were copies of the Max Ehrmann poem Desiderata all over the house – printed in the guest room, suspended next to the bathroom sink. He was one of his mother’s favorites; She identified herself with the message: “Place in the middle of the noise … Remember what peace can be in silence.”

I read online studies on tinnitus in a compulsive way. I discovered advice on looking for calm spaces in which I could place my hands on my ears to obtain a measure from the end of improvement or the worst. But that only exacerbates. On New Years Day, I couldn’t stop crying; I felt stuck in an abject state of misery and panic.

I started hypnotherapy, hoping that I could encourage my brain not to hear the endless noise. My hypnotherapist told me that it was not how it worked. Instead, she tried to teach me to separate my feelings of anxiety from sounds in my ears and to relax; By sending me back with audio files of women whispering on the sea.

I started sleeping at the sound of the noise of brown – named after the “Brownian movement”, the random movement of the particles in a liquid – replacing a buzz by another. I practiced progressive muscle relaxation, my antidepressants started and I started the long process of habitation – learn to settle unwanted and unstoppable sound.

A little more than a month after developing tinnitus for the first time, I was on vacation in Brasov, in Transylvania – a 30th gift from my sister and my mother. Towards the end of the trip, we both walk in the mountains, and when I looked back, I realized that I could not see any of them. I was only surrounded by recently installed snow. There was something in the white of snow and the ringing in my ears which seemed equivalent; empty and non -intimidating, in one way or another. Tinnitus are often described as a white noise, but white is achromatic – a color that is not really a color. I knew then that I would make peace with this sound which is not really a sound, my new version of Silence.

It was a decade ago, and these days, I learned to accept and adapt. I had made a heel violently against my tinnitus, and I did not get anything. Now I recognize what I can’t change, and I don’t mind at all.

In the United Kingdom and Ireland, the Samaritans can be contacted on Freephone 116 123, or send an email to jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the United States, you can call or send an SMS to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on 9888lifeline.org, or send an SMS to 741741 to connect with a crisis advisor. In Australia, the Lifeline service of the crisis support service is 13 11 14. Other international assistance lines can be found on Lisefriendrs.org

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