- I woke up one morning and my left ear
was completely blocked and itchy.
The next couple days it got really, really painful
so I went to the doctor and he looked at my ear
and said he couldn't see anything
because I had so much wax in my ear.
I started to get really, really bad tinnitus.
Started being literally like a battery up against my ear
where I could sometimes not even really hear people
through it it was so loud.
And it gradually became quieter and quieter.
Put my head on a pillow and it would be this
massive chord of tones.
- About the time I was gigging quite a lot,
probably do four gigs a week.
And then tours, it could be 10 dates back to back.
So it wasn't 'til you weren't playing that you realized
that after a day it was still there.
To be fair I didn't do anything about it.
Having the ringing in my ears was what you had.
You know that went with the gig.
- I used to go to sort of drum and bass
and dubstep raves when I was 16, 17.
Like you probably know it's loud and I used to go and
be quite stupid and sit inside basements
and stupid things like that.
I have been sat inside a basement and then I came home
and I just had this really weird ringing noise in my ears.
Didn't really know what it was
and then I sort of ignored it for a bit
and just carried on being stupid.
But then it started to get worse.
I obviously started Djing and going into clubs
and being around sound systems so obviously
over the past nine years it's just got
worse and worse and worse.
- I'm 31 and I have tinnitus I think for as long
as I can remember.
But definitely since I was maybe 12 or 13 at least.
And before that I don't remember if I had it or not.
I didn't even know tinnitus was a thing
so I didn't realize that it was not normal.
- When I was a kid and we had televisions that
had valves in them, when you turn them on and they would
kind of warm up you'd like a very high pitched whistle
from them, it's really annoying.
That sort of thing.
That that's what it reminds me of.
- Just imagine if you had sort of tiny black spots
in front of your eyes all the time.
They're never going to block your vision
but they're gonna be here.
- You know those drills that
the dentists use in your mouth?
It's like having one of them next to your ear permanently.
- I'm pretty sure that we put names on these things
as in you know humming, whistling, and all that
but it's a mix of all that.
It's not just one sound, probably it's a lot of sounds.
- And the tinnitus just kept getting louder and louder.
For about a month I barely slept
for about an hour every night.
When that happens, when you're that sleep deprived
you really lose it and I really lost it.
So I was just really worried 'cause I was right
at the beginning of a PhD in Sound Art
and I was a musician as well so it
was sort of my whole life, career.
You know it felt like it was really threatened by this.
- When I stopped and wasn't socially and professionally
around music it was there all the time.
And that, that's when it became annoying.
It was day after day.
It was not going away.
- I woke up in a different world and the noise
was extremely loud and very high pitched
and I thought whoa, what was happening?
Wanting to call my family straight away
to tell them I had a problem.
Needless to say it was three of the worst days of my life.
Because it really was horrible, I just couldn't sleep.
Took a lot of sleeping pills as I sometimes did
but I took a lot.
I wanted to go to sleep but at the same time
I felt very scared of going to sleep.
Like I started having sort of, just weird images
in my mind that I wouldn't wake up and things like that.
- My GP wasn't really being very proactive about it.
Just kept saying to me that it was going to be fine.
I knew it was sort of more than that.
- I did manage to see an EMT.
He said it's pretty mysterious, I mean,
there's nothing I can say really.
- He said it was just a byproduct of noise induced
or music induced hearing loss.
That's what it was.
Like you do with all doctors they tell you
and you just go no, okay then.
So what am I supposed to do?
What, you can't do anything about it?
So that was the kind of turning point.
Music was such a big part of my life.
Since I wanted to play the drums as a kid,
so from like six years old.
To then think that I couldn't just listen to music,
then if I'm gonna have to give up playing it,
then that's what it's gotta be.
I think for probably about five years
I didn't want anything to do with music at all.
- I started doing boxing, and I really like it.
I like the fact that for me it's a lot about
the comparisons I can make with it with life.
Especially right now it's that you know,
you get hit, you've got to get back up.
And with tinnitus it's kind of like this constant fighter
in your head like he, he wants to bring you down.
And you have to hit it back every time you feel
like it's no, it's like you know,
I'm the master, you're just like, you're in my head.
And I really fight it when you just wanna run away from it.
- Think I was really traumatized
and feeling really isolated from everyone around me
because nobody else could see or hear or experience
what was going on.
I found it really hard to feel weak and need help.
I think sometimes I found that difficult.
By this time I actually really was suicidal.
I was seriously suicidal and I'd never been,
I've never felt like that in my life.
So I knew that it needed, I needed to do something about it.
So I went to this ENT consultant privately 'cause
she wouldn't refer me, but he was really amazing.
And completely took everything I was saying seriously.
So he ruled any sort of physical reasons why I
might have tinnitus.
If only to put my mind at rest.
It had been such a difficult process of coming to terms
with possibly having this sound for the rest of my life.
I'd kind of withdrawn in lots of ways from
friends or family or work so it was really hard
to start building those parts of my life back.
With tinnitus being part of my life as well.
- I noticed mid-30s that socially I was having
problems with hearing people.
In noisy situations or a lot of people talking
I can't quite focus on what people are saying.
- My friends like going out a lot.
Bars, I, I tend to be a little bit less scared of
but still I try to avoid them.
But definitely clubs, I mean that's one thing
my friends I've just told them no, no, no, no.
I'm not coming with you.
I would never explain why.
- There were certain social situations that I
was finding hard because I had really,
really bad sound sensitivity.
Couldn't be in a room with more than two people.
- If I'm in a bar, a cafe, at a big table,
I can talk with people around me but not
the people at the other end of the table.
Now I don't even try to join a conversation
that's too far away from me.
So you do end up sometimes seeming a bit unsocial.
- My experience of hearing protection at that point
was rubbish so if you put earplugs in,
you couldn't hear the music properly anyway.
When I was younger, if you did have a really loud gig,
if you come out and you go oh, I can't hear anything.
You've got the ringing, that you've had a good time
and how, how mad was that?
How loud it actually was.
Things did change when I felt I was,
I could protect myself.
I didn't become so paranoid about
being in noisy environments.
- It's always gonna be loud in festivals, clubs.
You can't really do anything about it.
I like clubs with loud sound systems.
I always have loved loud music.
But I think we need to have it at a reasonable level.
If you're gonna go to a loud club then
just get some earplugs.
- First four months I would meditate
for two hours every night.
I'd have to do things every day before
in two years time it would've got to the point
where I could manage it.
- I have a really short attention span.
I can concentrate for about five minutes in silence
but then straight away I'll just hear it.
- And then it's hard to get it out of your mind
after you've heard it.
Once you hear it kind of starts to take over.
- The more relaxed I am I think the better it is.
If I'm tired and stressed the perception
of it is definitely louder.
I like being in the country and there's quite a few noises
in the country.
At night times being indoors in the country
when it is completely silent, that is more of a problem.
It's finding the balance between having somewhere
that's reasonably quiet but not dead quiet.
That you're distracted by the ringing.
- For me I really blamed myself for having it.
I really felt like it was my fault that it didn't go away.
And if I was a different person I would've been able
to just let it go.
- What did I do to do the, the things I've been
doing the past few days, I mean going out.
Drinking, smoking a bit.
You tend to think well, could this be the reason or this.
- So I had a hearing test.
Oh yes Mr. Healey, classic noise-induced hearing loss.
Have you worked in the aircraft industry?
And I said no, I've worked in music for like 10, 15 years.
You know, and he said well, why didn't you wear
any hearing protection?
And I was like what are you talking about?
I wanna hear the music.
I felt stupid that I didn't even think about it.
I feel music education let me down.
I feel angry about that, yeah.
- I wouldn't be surprised if some of my brothers and sisters
didn't know I had it.
Most people don't know about it,
but then I'm not doing anything to help awareness.
It's hard to describe for one.
It's, it's not something that other people can relate to
so it's not interesting for them
because you're like what, what have you got?
I don't, I don't know.
In my story, it's just a thing I have.
If people knew that exposing themselves to really loud
noises is gonna cause it then yeah,
but I don't even know myself how other people get it.
- Though, to people that have chronic conditions like this,
have to make a massive personal effort every day
which can go very unnoticed.
It's so invisible and silent but it's really hard work.
- I'm not very confident about the fact that
it's gonna go away.
Why would it go away, that's what I'm thinking, why?
There's no reason.
Because we know there's no actual definitive treatment
for it I'm thinking well, if it's a lifestyle,
well, might as well start getting used to it today.
- It's combination of having some really bad things
that changed but lots and lots of other really good things
that came off the back of that.
Just as significant as the difficult things.
I'm really glad that I had to do all that meditating
'cause now I meditate every day.
I didn't have the energy to put up with people that
you know didn't make me feel good.
Or didn't treat you well.
I've had to really respect myself more actually.
Understand well why am I blaming myself for
having a condition that affects millions
and millions and millions of people?
- Definitely for me I'm much more aware of other sounds.
And I appreciate them much more, much more careful
of what I do, where I go.
And the impact that it's going to have on me.
Yeah, it makes you think about a lot of other things
that before were taken for granted
and then sort of think about them now.
- Took me about two years until I wasn't scared
about it anymore.
The first big psychological challenge or leap for me
was having something that you couldn't
find a strategy to solve.
You, in fact the worst thing is to focus on and focus on it
and try and think your way out of it.
You can't.
The whole of my life I'd kind of come up against
challenges, faced them head on you know.
Work hard and really really do everything you can
and then you solve it.
And this is the first thing that I'd come across
that it didn't work like that, you know.
What you had to do was accept it
and know that it's gonna be there
as long as it's gonna be there.
And you don't have to fight with it.
You don't have to battle with it,
you just encounter it.
I just started to see it as a part of me
and just like I have a hand, I have tinnitus.
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