PERSONAL STORY
Teenage Hopes Challenged by Tinnitus By Cindy Zhang
I am 16 years old, well-versed (-ish) in computers, strong enough to carry stacks of textbooks, and can run an eightminute mile (if we’re generous). Unfortunately, I haven’t had a moment of silence in years.
Fateful Night My tinnitus began when I was just in middle school. It slithered into my ears on an ordinary day in the middle of the night, and I remember thinking, Has this whisper always been here? As it turns out, that whisper hadn’t always been there, and that whisper would never leave. To this day, the cause of my tinnitus remains ambiguous: Was it my constant use of headphones? My days spent in band without hearing protection? My TMJ (temporomandibular joint disorder), which I am still dealing with to this day? Regardless of the cause, the onset of tinnitus plunged me into darkness. Day in and day out, I would fixate on my ears, living in a state of denial about my condition until I could no longer do so. When it finally registered that the hissing was not going away any time soon, the full weight of that realization struck me mercilessly, and I entered a period of purposelessness, anxiousness, and hopelessness. Above all, a deep sense of loss seized me. I felt like I had lost a part of my youth, a part of my life, and suddenly felt I was aging far too quickly. I felt like my youth was over. 16
TINNITUS TODAY SUMMER 2020
Strangely, I can only recall crying once during this time of grieving. Unlike my tinnitus, my grief and panic were silent, but they were potent enough to convince me that tinnitus had robbed me of my life.
Words Saved My Life During that tumultuous period, I completely shut myself off from the
I learned how stress exacerbates tinnitus. ——— I learned how turning tinnitus into something positive defeats its negative effects. ——— I learned how life with tinnitus requires adjustment. ——— I learned life after tinnitus is possible. ——— I learned about life.
rest of the world. Instead of reaching out to friends and family, I remained silent about my tinnitus. In hindsight, it would have been far wiser to reach out and communicate, and I implore anyone dealing with tinnitus to do so. For me, however, I scoured the internet in search of a cure. What I ended up with were patient stories — many, many patient stories — with one unifying theme: The power of the mind. At first, I couldn’t believe what I was reading, but my desperate heart clung to those lessons and stories. My longing for hope loosened the grip of tinnitus on my life. The change wasn’t instantaneous, but I slowly began to take back my life, one moment at a time, harboring that newfound hope that life was still possible. Finally, there was a day when everything clicked. Everything I had read online in the patient stories became my truth. I can’t recall whether it was a birthday party or a trip to the mall with my friends, but on www.ATA.org
