Question from a member of our community:
My tinnitus sounds like a computer in my head. It’s hard to describe. It doesn’t sound like the descriptions I’ve heard. Could this still be tinnitus? MRI shows nothing wrong or abnormal.
First of all, and I explain this in my book, Rock Steady, every person could describe the sounds in their body differently and it’s all still tinnitus. Tinnitus describes any sound that nobody else can perceive but you. It’s sound coming from within your body. It’s sound that only you hear. So any description is a good description and it’s a little bit like describing wine. 100 people could describe a wine in 100 different ways, even though it’s the same wine. The way you describe it is your way and it’s perfectly fine. I’ve actually heard that tinnitus sounds like a computer sounds so there are other people out there who would describe it that way too and it’s all tinnitus. So, that’s the first thing.
Yes, sometimes it is hard to describe and that’s okay. And I wouldn’t get bogged down in trying to describe it because probably really what you want to do is to celebrate the fact that they’ve found nothing wrong with your brain, that sounds like you’ve got medical clearance. That there’s nothing wrong with you. So that’s good. We want to take an exhale and relax into that information. That’s where we want to prioritize. The sound can come and go, you can reverse the neural emphasis on it. And if you follow the Rock Steady path, you can retrain the maps of your brain to return back to or to really rebuild a whole new normal where tinnitus is no longer central. So I think it’s important to acknowledge what you’re hearing and also acknowledge that it’s safe. It’s allowed to be there. And it’s great that you’ve got a normal MRI.
