I don't know how many of you know this, in fact I doubt that any of you do, but I have tinnitus. "What is that?" you may ask someday if that ever comes up in conversation with an acquaintance who has it or knows someone who does. It's quite common you see. Tinnitus is the constant ringing in the ears. Many of you may be familiar with this ringing. You'd experience it after you came home from a concert and for some of you it might last only an hour or so, for other maybe two or three days, for me it's going to be there constantly for the rest of my life.
People don't really realize how damaging this can be to a person, mostly because no one knows what it is outside of the music world (as in many musicians have it because it is caused by damage to your ears) and it's probably one of the most unpleasant things that can happen to you. Other than the fact that it's mildly annoying hearing ringing every minute of every hour of every day it can be an indicator of a loss of hearing so when you're twenty you're constantly asking people to repeat themselves because you can't hear them like a 70 year old and you can't go out to loud places (like concerts and rallies and anywhere where there is a possibility of it being loud) without wearing special ear plugs that knock down the decibels of everything around you so that you don't kill your ears anymore.
One of the most concerning parts of this is that it is the first sign of hearing loss. If you have it, you've lost some hearing. It might also mean that, if you're like me, that you have soft ear drums which means you are at a higher risk of losing your hearing all together. I don't know about you, but I really like being able to hear. I love music and at one time I loved to play in concert bands which I feel I can no longer do due to my hearing problems. I also can't listen to any loud music, my ipod, go to the movie theater without wearing earplugs, avoid concerts and if I feel I have to go wear ear plugs and not drink a lot of coffee because caffeine is believes to irritate it more.
Because tinnitus is very hard to diagnose due to that fact that you can't really test for it, there aren't really any treatments for it so it really is a for life affliction which makes it even harder to deal with. My mum said she was reading some studies that said a mild anti-depressant has been said to help make it less noticeable in some cases but that's mostly because it flares when you're anxious, stressed, or sleep deprived, which unfortunately I am most of the time. Also, because it's a hard thing to deal with I believe that it does have a major affect on peoples mental stability so an anti-depressant can only do good.
Luckily, I probably won't go deaf but I still feel like I'm losing my hearing. I imagine that it's what Beethoven felt like only it would have been 10 times worse for him because music was literally his life whereas mine is just a love and a wonderful hobby.
Anyways, I started out writing this post in order to share a song with you called Elegy of Elsabet by The Weakerthans. To me it's always been about hearing loss and going deaf. I love the language in it and the words that are used to describe all the sounds. You never really notice how much you hear until you don't have anything to hear. I mean just look at the lyrics:
People don't really realize how damaging this can be to a person, mostly because no one knows what it is outside of the music world (as in many musicians have it because it is caused by damage to your ears) and it's probably one of the most unpleasant things that can happen to you. Other than the fact that it's mildly annoying hearing ringing every minute of every hour of every day it can be an indicator of a loss of hearing so when you're twenty you're constantly asking people to repeat themselves because you can't hear them like a 70 year old and you can't go out to loud places (like concerts and rallies and anywhere where there is a possibility of it being loud) without wearing special ear plugs that knock down the decibels of everything around you so that you don't kill your ears anymore.
One of the most concerning parts of this is that it is the first sign of hearing loss. If you have it, you've lost some hearing. It might also mean that, if you're like me, that you have soft ear drums which means you are at a higher risk of losing your hearing all together. I don't know about you, but I really like being able to hear. I love music and at one time I loved to play in concert bands which I feel I can no longer do due to my hearing problems. I also can't listen to any loud music, my ipod, go to the movie theater without wearing earplugs, avoid concerts and if I feel I have to go wear ear plugs and not drink a lot of coffee because caffeine is believes to irritate it more.
Because tinnitus is very hard to diagnose due to that fact that you can't really test for it, there aren't really any treatments for it so it really is a for life affliction which makes it even harder to deal with. My mum said she was reading some studies that said a mild anti-depressant has been said to help make it less noticeable in some cases but that's mostly because it flares when you're anxious, stressed, or sleep deprived, which unfortunately I am most of the time. Also, because it's a hard thing to deal with I believe that it does have a major affect on peoples mental stability so an anti-depressant can only do good.
Luckily, I probably won't go deaf but I still feel like I'm losing my hearing. I imagine that it's what Beethoven felt like only it would have been 10 times worse for him because music was literally his life whereas mine is just a love and a wonderful hobby.
Anyways, I started out writing this post in order to share a song with you called Elegy of Elsabet by The Weakerthans. To me it's always been about hearing loss and going deaf. I love the language in it and the words that are used to describe all the sounds. You never really notice how much you hear until you don't have anything to hear. I mean just look at the lyrics:
So your fields are stubble, garden's done
Where the scary scarecrow stands
Sees her holding up horizons with her hands
She's so tired of reading Daddy's lips
That essay on a frown
Watch her memories of human voices drown
Let horsey Bray break between the thunder boom
Make grasses swish meet the cricket ring
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
Words that Betta never heard
The back lanes tie the city down
A mess of dirty string
Winter dies the same way every spring
As the sky tries on its uniform of
Turned off TV gray
And the ways we watched her watch us walk away
Let every rain clatter down groaning streets
Make footsteps tick, talk to echoed walls
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Let every wind howl and creak the creaking doors
To rooms that too much has happened in
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Where the scary scarecrow stands
Sees her holding up horizons with her hands
She's so tired of reading Daddy's lips
That essay on a frown
Watch her memories of human voices drown
Let horsey Bray break between the thunder boom
Make grasses swish meet the cricket ring
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
Words that Betta never heard
The back lanes tie the city down
A mess of dirty string
Winter dies the same way every spring
As the sky tries on its uniform of
Turned off TV gray
And the ways we watched her watch us walk away
Let every rain clatter down groaning streets
Make footsteps tick, talk to echoed walls
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
Let every wind howl and creak the creaking doors
To rooms that too much has happened in
Let every sound consecrate our whispering
The words that Betta never heard
A lot of it is talking about sounds or lack there of (sound words bolded, others underlines). It's just so beautiful.
Hearing loss and tinnitus is a serious problem that no one talks about. You hear about depression and mental illness and how much we should talk about them but you never hear anything about finding out what is behind all of it. I know for me tinnitus is defiantly behind a lot of my darker thoughts. I always feel like not being able to hear is some sort of death sentence. I know a lot of people who are deaf do perfectly fine in the world but being able to hear and then not is too much for me to deal with as a person. I think that more people should be made aware of this serious issue we have in our society. Everyday I walk around seeing people ruining their hearing and not even knowing about it. They don't know how precious it is and how much turning the music up to 30 in the car hurts your hearing (there are a lot of higher and lower frequencies that you can't hear in the music that can seriously damage your hearing when you have it that loud) or having their ipods up so loud on the bus that I can hear it half a bus away. I just wish people knew more about what they were doing to their ears and protected and valued their hearing a little more. It's really painful to watch people throw away what I so desperately want.
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