Mental Wellness Support Group

[rhubarbodendron]

^there might be some truth in that.

My new therapist is pretty cool, too She works in a psychiatric ambulance clinic and therefore has to deal with lots of emergencies. She's a specialist for post traumatic problems but knows a bit about anxiety, too. She thinks we should try to tackle the problem from both sides. I find it a bit unnerving that she gives me so much praise for my courage - I'm not used to getting compliments. But else we make a good team.
I get very interesting homework. Last week when doíng a lesson on feelings I realized that I always hold back "negative" feelings, especially anger, and try to maintain control. At a certain point the pressure gets too strong (imagine a pressure cooker with a blocked valve) and I explode into a panic fit because I daren't have a fit of anger. I always fear that if my control slips, I'll react like my parents used to do: freak out completely and beat people/children unto an inch of their lives.
I must learn to let of steam at an early state and not allow so much pressure to build up. I'm thinking of getting a punching ball =)

 

[think]

so yeah the population is like that --- don't smell the roses as you pass them just keep going --- don't wonder about the way things are you can't change anything === and yeah don't gaze into the abyss it is just an annoying blemish on this perfect society 0000 OK that is it enough of the negative thinking when it really has no matter to much at all-- is very pointless and futile just be safe and well keep you mind together enough to fool them somehow.

 

[think]

 

[rhubarbodendron]

that's only too true! I've been through several phases of "I don't have any power left to fight" but somehow there's always a bit left to go on I feel like a VW beetle (it runs and runs and runs...)

The side effects of my paroxetin were too bad and kept me from sleeping, so I reduced the dosage to 20 mg/day. The restless legs syndrome is almost gone but I keep getting tiny anxiety fits out of the blue (without trigger). Ideal for training, though I've tried out several anti-anxiety strategies already and found out which work for me and which don't. I didn't try the hot pepper method yet - the anxiety fits I have atm warrant only a hot radish

 

[JesterFace]

This isn't a response from a professional but from someone who has had struggles with MS and that has led to very many different kind of thoughts about life and if one wishes to continue it.

If you're feeling like there's no way things could get better, perhaps there is? This can't apply to everyone but if there's even a little hope things could get better just imagine that situation. Try to think yourself into a situation where your biggest troubles are behind you or at least temporarily gone. Currently my dream is that this tinnitus would go away, if not completely gone maybe quieter, it would be awesome. Then there are many other things too with this disease but right now I feel I could live a much happier life if this noise just went away or would be more quiet.

Fortunately it is possible to forget the noise for example when watching TV and in some other occasions. I think I don't listen to it even most of the time but when you hear it.... shit, what a reminder.

But, enough about me. If it helps, even a little, put yourself into that place where things are better. Lets hope the better comes to our way.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

as someone who's having tinnitus for 38 years now there are a few things you can do:
try sleeping with earplugs or a mp3 player with in-ear speakers. Both mask the tinnitus. With ear plugs you hear the blood flow in your ears, a sort of constant "shhhhhhhhhh". These two methods work particularly well with tinnitus in the lower frequencies.
There are "tinnitus-maskers" which basically are ordinary in-ear speakers that emit a rustling or meeping sound which is meant to drown out the tinnitus. The advantage of these is that the specialist who programs them can vary the frequency and customize it to fit your personal tinnitus' frequency.

Another thing I recommend is to try relaxing techniques. It helps you to accept the tinitus and to live with it. In many cases it stops all by itself after 3-6 months. In others it doesn't. If you had it for 6 months there is little chance of getting rid of it. You have to learn to live with it and to ignore it. Otherwise you'll go insane.

I'm having a bass-frequency one for 38 years now and have grown so used to it that I only notice it in moments of extreme stress. A few months ago I had a sudden loss of hearing and got a cortison treatment that mended the hearing but caused an additional high frequency tinnitus in one ear. This one was harder to get used to but thanks to decades of training I manage to not notice it most of the time now. Only at night it sometimes gets a bit annoying but I drown it out with a murder mystery or a soppy romance

Spoiler: med babble

in our inner ear there are cells that have a brush of thin hairs on top. The hairs bend with the sound and their movement gets registered by nerve cells. For every frequency there's a special sort of hair and a nerve that transmits a signal when this frequency is hit.
For unknown reasons these hairs sometimes get stiff and immovable. The nerve is puzzled: is there a signal or not? Just in case, the nerve decides that yes, there is one, and fires a signal to the brain. This wrong signal is your tinnitus.
The problem is to "unfreeze" the sensory hairs. If one day someone discovers a method to do that, tinitus will become curable. Until then, we must learn to live with it.
Btw - the ringing in our ears after a loud sound is something similar. Only there the hairs recover after a day or two. Again, nobody knows yet how they do it.

 

[JesterFace]

@rhubarbodendron

I forgot to mention that this tinnitus as it is now has been around for about a decade.
Earlier there was just a little bit of it after a stupid way of using new year's explosives when I was 15 or so years. (?) It just got louder about decade ago. And that's the thing, I'm not sure is this noise MS related or has it got something to do with the explosives way back. Maybe it is a combination of both, who knows.
Well, I can live with this but it's just that everytime I remember it.... "oh shit, that thing". Well, fortunately I can forget it most of the time, magic of TV and Star Trek among other things. The problem seems to be more the way I'm afraid if it gets louder. On top of that, MS, not a very nice disease to have. Fortunately medication has taken huge leaps forward in the past 10 years.

 

[think]

there might be ways to prepare for these things but once it is happening 000 yeah it is happening --

 

[TrickyDickie]

For years, I thought I had some hearing loss. (Other people thought I did, too.) It never really made sense, because there were times when I could hear faint sounds that were far away that others could not hear. I've finally figured out that my brain tries to 'hear everything at once'....it's a focus and processing issue. If someone is speaking and there are any other sounds at all nearby, I get everything overlapping and picking out just the voice is difficult.

Understanding what's been going on makes it much less frustrating and bothersome.

 

[Steven P Bastien]

... I get everything overlapping and picking out just the voice is difficult.

I remember people used to say that the old hearing aids used to create this problem because they tended to amplify the distant sounds and did not provide the stereo sound to help the listener tune in. I've heard that modern aids are better in this respect.

This makes me think that we currently have the technology (electronics, processing power, sensors etc.) to go a step beyond and design hearing aids that do this processing to aid people who don't have this ability on their own. If there is no one in industry doing this already (maybe the market is too small), it becomes a good topic for a Ph.D dissertation for electrical engineering students working in the signal processing field. I just thought I'd mention it in case any such student happens to read your post. Or, you could even contact nearby universities and make this suggestion to the EE professors in the signal processing field and offer yourself as a test candidate.

 

[think]

OK this is a meme --- I had searched for this meme before I made it you know to see these memes right --- but no -- google could not find it -- soo I made it into one--- right yeah my own meme hehe

 

[TrickyDickie]

OK this is a meme --- I had searched for this meme before I made it you know to see these memes right --- but no -- google could not find it -- soo I made it into one--- right yeah my own meme hehe

View attachment 17522

Love the colors you chose. It reminded me of this, which would actually go well with it.

 

[think]

@TrickyDickie
I agree this is the image for this meme

 

[rhubarbodendron]

@rhubarbodendron I'm not sure is this noise MS related or has it got something to do with the explosives way back. [...] The problem seems to be more the way I'm afraid if it gets louder.

I looked up a few German sources and it would appear that a connection is theoretically possible but not very likely.
For MS to cause or worsen a tinnitus, the hearing nerve would have to be afflicted with the MS. Your neurologist can test that by checking the auditory brain stem response.
It's more likely, though, that the increase in volume is stress related or a problem with the blood flow - as we get older our blood vessels get blocked and slacken a bit so that the flow is worse than in younger people and malnourished hearing cells tend to get damaged easier. People who already have a tinnitus appear to be more prone to get further ones. Mine didn't get louder within the last decades, they only became more. As long as the frequencies are harmonic that's no prob for me. I am not sure I could live with a dissonance.
Only when I am exhausted or ill my tinnitus gets louder temporarily but I am not certain if that's a real or an imagined increase in volume.

 

[JesterFace]

I looked up a few German sources and it would appear that a connection is theoretically possible but not very likely.
For MS to cause or worsen a tinnitus, the hearing nerve would have to be afflicted with the MS. Your neurologist can test that by checking the auditory brain stem response.

Thank you for this response.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

you're very welcome

 

[think]

this meeting has no one in charge- LOL

 

[think]

public service announcement from think--

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Have you talked with my therapist? It's pretty much what she tries to teach me

 

[KimMH]

View attachment 17852
public service announcement from think--

Great reminder- thank you!