Enough of the rationalisations!

I've been having a bad week. It's been stressful. I started a new job a few weeks ago and it's taking some getting use to. I decided I wanted to do something useful. I could go stack shelves and get bored to the point of suicide. Or, I could go work with disabled people and feel like I had done something useful at the end of the day. So that's what I have done. My choice, and I'm glad that I've done it. It was just a bit of a shock. These people have no quality of life to speak of. They are incapable of much of the things that we take for granted. And I am appalled at the fact that there is a shortage of people to look after them. Says a lot about the society that we live in.

So what is my beef? Well, not only have I had a bad week with the little choir in my head, but I have added to that the guilt of knowing that in no way is my situation as bad as the people that I'm working with.

Cant win can you.



I have written so far about my own methods for dealing with Tinnitus. This is not to say that I have not looked into the alternatives offered by the Medical profession. There are a whole range of therapies and devices out there for your delight. The standard route is to get your GP to refer you to the Ear Nose and Throat department at your local Hospital. My GP did this when I popped last year. It didn't actually take that long and I was pleasantly surprised at the level of help offered. I was seen by a therapist a couple of times, who, was mostly concerned with my life style and the amount of stress that I was under. At the end of each session she would offer me the choice of some of the devices that they had in the cupboard. I could have something that was placed under the pillow at night. This device could be programmed to emit anything from white noise to the sound of waves on the beach, and, I have to say that I was tempted. My mother, who, up until a few years ago, would make her husband take her out in the Car to mask the rumble in her ears, has a little device that sits behind her ear. To my understanding, it emits a sound that cancels out the nose she suffers from. Great! It seems to work.

I have lots of leaflets and information that has been supplied to me. But what good does it all do me?

Some of it helps me to understand that there are many people out there who suffer from variations of the same condition. And there are lots of companies out there who manufacture Aids to masking the various types of Tinnitus.

So what! I've tried the therapy. I've tried talking about my life. I've considered having a noise machine under my pillow. I KNOW that there are other people out there who suffer from the same problem (some much worse than me). Blah Blah.

It means nothing this week. It means nothing when I go into the back garden to have a cigarette at night and stare at the stars. and my head is screaming at me. It means nothing when I get up in the morning and go downstairs to make a coffee and try and respond pleasantly to my family. It means nothing at various points of the day when all the background noise disappears and I am left with my little choir of Neurons. This week I am sick of it. I see no point in crutches. I see no point in devices that could get taken away at the moment I have just started to depend on them.

I am sick of the sympathising looks on the faces of the models in the leaflets. I'm suspicious of the need to delve into my head and find the underlying cause of my stressful life. I hate the happy, calm, content look on the faces of the models for the noise devices. I cant help thinking that someone is going to make a lot of money from a machine that I don't need. I've got a radio for god's sake!
I don't want anybody to help me with it. But I do really. I know that no one is going to come along with a miracle cure tomorrow. But I hope that they will. I don't want to make my partner and family suffer because I'm having a hard time. But part of me does. I know that I am lucky to only have this to deal with. I'm sick of convincing myself of that. I feel like screaming today. I rely on background noise to keep me sane. Pull yourself together I hear you say. Get lost! I say.