Anxiety and Tinnitus

Jesus Christ, I never thought having constant ear ringing would be so triggering. When I was growing up I remember being told, "Don't listen to your music too loud" and, "Make sure you take ear plugs." However, I suppose I under estimated 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. Speicially, sleep anxiety. 

Trying to sleep with a high pitch ringing in your ears is the biggest nightmare sometimes. Most of the time I can read until I fall asleep. Or if I wake up early enough, I'll get tired and just watch something until I go to sleep. Tinnitus kinda comes and goes it seems with me. Sometimes it's more noticeable than others. There are about 2 months or so when it's quieter and then about a month of it being louder. I'm not sure what seems to cause it. I also can't say for sure that it's actually louder. It's like...I just notice it more. But whatever is happening in there, when my sleep is effected, then everything falls a part. 

Last night was 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, turn 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 passed out again. I got about another hour of sleep before I finally called it quits and made coffee. 

I felt pretty light headed all morning. But once I had some more coffee and food I started to feel 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.