Does anyone else ever feel lonely because of their tinnitus?
Not in the sense that you isolate yourself from society but rather in the sense that people can be sympathetic but rarely anyone relates?
It’s kinda the main reason I joined this subreddit since I was born with severe chronic tinnitus and genetic progressive hearing loss. I’ve had both for as long as I can remember and the only people I have ever met with anything similar are my father (who only has hearing loss, not tinnitus) and occasionally people with very minor tinnitus. Due to my age (17) it’s really hard for me to find anyone my age, or even remotely close to my age, who share my experience. I wear hearing aids and am doing Tinnitus Retraining Therapy which has helped me improve my overall QoL tremendously. However I still struggle in certain situations (like testing environments).
Although I struggle with this, I still manage to succeed in school due to my love for learning, but I face an additional hurdle that seems to be like ADD/ADHD yet more severe (even with ADD/ADHD meds I still struggle significantly since stimulants makes tinnitus more intense). Despite overcoming it in many aspects, the loneliness of the people I know being unable to directly relate to my issue can feel very isolating at times. My father somewhat understands since he gets it on occasion (typically event related), but my mother seems to understand it less (she does try, though).