What helped me accept (and ignore) tinnitus was realizing that I had already grown accustomed to tolerating that sound indoors. When's it's something you have no agency over (like "it's an old house and the wires just make that sound sometimes"), you learn it's part of the environment.
Accepting it as part of the environment gets you past the "OMG my body is ruined forever" anxieties and back to normal life.
I always have that, but I only hear a random high pitched tinnitus noise in one ear, rising and falling in volume for max 10 seconds, about once every few months.
I can still hear old CRTs in my forties, although it's less maddening now. They had those mosquito devices, that are intended to repel kids, for a while at a shopping mall near me. They repelled me very effectively as well.
A friend once thought it was funny to try the 15.000Hz silent ringtone on me, although I had told him not to. It made me react without conscious input and I nearly broke his phone.
I get these, too. I just looked it up, and it's called "Sudden, brief, unilateral, tapering tinnitus (SBUTT)." That's quite an SEO-friendly name.
Holy crap! I'm not alone! And now I have a name for it. They've always freaked me out and I don't even know how to describe it to people.
I have known people that have it much worse than I face daily.
I genuinely could hear CRTs when I was 5.
Tinnitus sound now is very similar for me too.
Hearing test showed high frequency hearing loss in that range which is well above human speech and a lot of music.
It's mildly annoying but I've definitely learnt to live with it pretty ok.
Here I am, 31. I have to look for them really really hard to see if they are still there. Only when I have a streak of stressful days and bad night sleep, they will be visible again. It comes without saying that I had to change my life in many, many aspects, not only due to these floaters. A much calmer life, better food, gym, financial security, better friends and people around me, and cultivate a spiritual being in some sense. The mind can be shaped in many many ways it's fascinating.
[Of course this is not be used as medical advice, as your LLM for that ;)]
tinnitus seems similar. maybe in the future there could be some kind of functionally guided high intensity focused ultrasound ablation procedure that could dull out some of the malfunctioning percept, but for now probably the best bet is to ignore it.
on a related note in interesting auditory neurotechnology, vestibular implants seem pretty cool!
No you can't tune them out.
They are always there, sometimes if you are very lucky you can get engrossed enough not to have them as the first or second thing on your mind
But it is always in the top five you never can tune them out you have always be aware as not to to certainn things.
I had a slight crack in my windshield right at eye level view. And after a minute of driving I don't notice it at all anymore
Audiologist suggested treating it like a rock in your shoe. At the time seemed like impossible advice but now I just live with it and it’s 100% fine.
Also the idea that it is actually made worse by anxiety was a game changer for me. Literally, “don’t worry about it” is the exact right advice.
I only notice it when it changes abruptly (very rare), but otherwise I just tune it out
I got mine in my 30's too. The first week I thought I was going crazy, and this was the end of my life. I was shocked, I couldn't go to work for a whole week.
I then saw a doctor who said to me: "Man, I've got tinnitus since 20 years and I barely hear it anymore. The more you accept it, the more it'll fade."
A decade later, my own experience is exactly this. I accepted it as one of the body malfunctions that comes with age for everybody. I barely hear it anymore except in extremely low noise situations and it doesn't bother me at all.
I wish you well.