A Painful History With Anxiety & Tinnitus
A Dangerous Duo
A Dangerous Duo
I never thought having constant ear ringing would be so triggering. Growing up, I remember being told, “Don’t listen to your music too loud” and, “Make sure you take earplugs.” However, I suppose I underestimated the severity of what would happen. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if I hadn’t spent the last 15 years of my marriage building up anxiety. Especially sleep anxiety.
Sleeping with a high pitch ringing in your ears is sometimes the biggest nightmare. Most of the time, I can read until I fall asleep. Or if I wake up early enough, I’ll get tired and watch something until I fall asleep. Tinnitus comes and goes, it seems with me. Sometimes it’s more noticeable than others. There are about two months when it’s quieter and then about one month of it is louder. I’m not sure what seems to cause it. I also can’t say for sure that it’s actually louder. Maybe I just noticed it more. But whatever is happening in there, when my sleep is affected, then everything falls apart.
Recently, I had one of those nights. I finally fell asleep around midnight, only to be woken by my son, who informed us his dog had vomited in his bedroom. So my wife and I wake up, clean up the mess and try to go back to sleep. I sleep until about 3, check the time, roll over, and go back to sleep. Then I wake up at 5 am and feel the panic attack coming. I jump out of bed, take my daily anxiety med a little early and sit on the couch scrolling through Mastodon and YouTube until I pass out again. I got about another hour of sleep before I finally called it quits and made coffee.
I felt lightheaded all morning. But once I had more coffee and food, I started feeling better.
Did you ever see the TV show Lucifer where each person’s hell was of their own design? Yep, I guess with my ears, that was true after all.
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