4 years ago I started experiencing tinnitus. This is hearing a ringing sound in your ears. It is constant. When I first got it, I was devastated. All I wanted to do was hear silence again. I felt like my brain was damaged at the early age of 17 and I’d have to deal with this for the rest of my life in pain.
This was long before my psychosis. And I had no idea that this was peanuts compared to psychosis. Hearing a constant ringing sound is annoying, but it doesn’t taunt you. It doesn’t tell you it’s going to kill you like the voices. It doesn’t command you to do things or comment on your every thought and accuse you every time you do something wrong. It’s just a sound.
Anyways, when I first got tinnitus it was all I could think about. Curing it, making it go away, ruminating on my misfortune. But as quickly as 3 months after getting tinnitus, I started not focusing on it, and started becoming habituated. Habituation is becoming used to something and it no longer bothers you. It fades into the background. The noise in my head that I used to focus on and dwell on, I would almost never notice it anymore unless in complete silence. Even much of the time in complete silence I ignore and forget about it now.
I got psychosis 10 months ago at age 20 (I’m 21 now) and it parallels when I got tinnitus. I would think: My brain is damaged. I’m so young and I will have to deal with this all my life. I need to find a way to cure it. I spent so much time looking all over the internet for solutions. It’s similar because it’s hearing noise in your head but instead of a constant sound it’s words that engage with you.
The moral of the story is: if I can become habituated to the constant sound of a high pitched ringing in my ears, perhaps we can become habituated to the voices and not give them time of day anymore or ruminate on how it’s ruining our lives. It can just become background noise that we don’t give any credit or influence on us and we can be well on the road to recovery.