Insight through peers

A little while ago I received a comment on this blog. Richard Rutherford had something very important to share. I feel compelled to provide his thoughts to you all, in it’s own post. The initial reason for that is because of what he put his finger on: the issue of audism related to self destruction-mechanisms. I feel he definitely has a very good point. In addition, we had an exchange of thoughts afterwards, which produced additional noteworthy points (these are expressed at the bottom of this post, after the “letter”!).

I had not thought about this issue from the aspect that Richard offered, which is such a beautiful thing about this form of communication (i.e. blogging); one thought or experience leads to another thought. Richard puts it so well in his letter, that I put it here, word for word. (Richard, you should seriously think about writing your own blog :-)  )

As a comment, I would like to say that this issue, even though I didn’t realize it until I read his comment/letter, was one of the major things I worked with during the two years of psychological therapy I underwent in 2006-2008.

(I underline the good stuff, which I found particularly interesting, add links and images which I find suitable (for your viewing pleasure 🙂 ))

So, here it is:

=====Start of letter======

Life is getting easier

I feel less commitment to this blog now, and for that I’m sorry. But as things develop in regards to the CI, so does my life. The hearing falls slowly into place, and I can start to concentrate on other more “mundane” (but still very important!) things :-)  This is a good thing for me, not so good thing for this blog. But, as CI 2 comes through, I’m sure I will get a need to make more blog material for myself and the world to ponder upon 🙂 More will surely follow soon enough.

It’s now around the 8 months post-activation milestone. The 6 month adjustment gave me a small bump into distress and psychological reactions, mostly due to the fact that I raised the overall sound-levels, AND increased the IDR from 60 to 70 %. IDR stands for Input Dynamic Range, and determines how much of the full sound spectrum I get delivered. 100 is a full spectrum, while 50 probably has 25% cut of from both the low and high frequencies.

(not totally sure about those last numbers concerning IDR, but I believe it to be the case. Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

I still struggle in noisy environments (looking SO forward to getting bilateral again! Hence the x-ray picture :-)  ), but now utilizes a preprogrammed setting that uses IDR 50%, which cuts down some of the high consonants from speech, BUT reduces “destructive noise” (in terms of speech comprehension) even more, making it possible for me to last a little bit longer in a multi social context (ie. larger groups of people).

Despite the aid of the IDR at 50%, I get really tired. I need one or two days of recovery after a 4 hour big-family session. This is a big improvement from before, mind you! But it’s evident that I still need more time to adjust and learn how to cope in various situations.

Tinnitus stress management conclusion: better!

The tinnitus stress management course I attended really has paid off! I recommend it to everyone with hearing problems, as having a bad hearing causes so much distress and problems.

For me it has led to a better life. Just as all the other small things I have improved/changed in my life, stress management has lessened some of the burden on me being deaf and enduring the torments of tinnitus.

Tinnitus now gets less attention by myself. The techniques I learned has somehow taught me to primarily prevent tinnitus to get started due to high levels of stress and fatigue, and also to stop it and react in a positive way when it rears its ugly head. It’s a mere notion of that the tinnitus is sounding, and I utilize the relaxation technique and think about something else. I’m so happy that the mini-course gave me such great effect. I feel like a better and calmer person too.

It was some effort invested, but totally worth it, take it from me!

🙂