Mourning the loss of silence: how tinnitus interrupted my life

You sit looking at a lake, watching as a couple of loons pierce the pristine glaze of the water’s surface. Clumps of clouds hang in the sky, painted violet by the setting sun. You hear the hum of a boat’s motor in the distance — it fades into nothing. The air is still, windless. You take a deep breath and take in the silence.

Then, suddenly, you hear a ringing. It’s like someone’s switched on an old TV right next to your head. It’s a high-pitched, tinny screech of a sound. And it’s relentless. Now you’ve heard it, you can’t unhear it. The lake made you feel calm. Now all you feel is discomfort and distress.

This is tinnitus. At least, it’s how I experience tinnitus — sounds vary from person to person. Some hear it as ringing, others more like a roaring, hissing, or clicking. It can be high or low-pitched. It can stick to one pitch or play two or more pitches at the same time. It can sustain the same note or — if it’s feeling jazzy — move from note to note. It can feel like it’s coming from one ear, both ears, or the head itself.

My tinnitus is one, high-pitched, single-note ring in what feels like both ears. The very word has an onomatopoeic quality to it, sounding like what it sounds like in my ear: tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnnn. It comes from the Latin tinnire — to ring. It’s always…