What the heck is that annoying sound in the video?

(Thanks to my sound designs skills), I've made a more or less perfect replica of what I've been hearing all the time, for almost a decade. That's tinnitus.

Tinnitus is a weird humming, whining or whistling, hissing sound that may come and go, that you hear in your ears, but that isn't really there.

Tinnitus can be caused by multiple things, one of which is hearing damage / loss. The bad news is, hearing loss is irreversible, and hearing loss induced tinnitus is permanent. That is, you'll hear this same sound for the rest of your life, non-stop.

If you found that sound very annoying, then you don't want to get tinnitus.

My story?

At 14, I went to a school show where each class presented what they've been preparing, a small show to spread awareness. The event was a week long thing, tons of activities, it was super well organized.

The evening the spectacle happened, I sat through a 2 hours long event, where the sound engineer completely fucked up the speakers EQ-ing, where an asshole next to my right side wouldn't stop whistling screaming and clapping, me being next to the speakers, no ear protections (I always had sensible hearing)... , and other excuses but in the end I'm the only one to blame.

Yeah I felt that it was painful to my ears, yet I didn't do anything, I didn't move away, I wanted to sit through naively hoping maybe something cool would still happen. No, nothing cool ever happened.

The next thing I notice, my ears are hissing. And it doesn't go away: not after a few hours, nor the next morning, nor the next weeks, nor after almost 7 years.

Ironically I never liked loud stuff, I never went near loud stuff, and I always knew that you should take care of your hearing.

Outcomes?

Today I'm doing music, advanced audio mixing, and this hasn't stopped me from doing what I like: fortunately I haven't lost my hearing, it's just the ringing, and if anything it definitely changed how "saw" hearing in general. I pay 150% more attention to sounds and details. I'm still able to hear and enjoy sounds when doing music.

I do hear the hissing pretty clearly when I'm in a quiet place, have headphones on with the audio off. When I'm falling asleep, or when I'm waking up, when I'm tired.

The only time I can hear silence? In my dreams (for real!), no kidding if I'm attentive enough the second I wake up, I hear the hissing come back! Meaning it's not there when I dream! Yea weird stuff

I've been taking care of my ears, twice as much as before this "accident". I never caused any damage to my ears because of my hobbies, I take breaks, I let my hearing rest.

Just promise me you'll be careful with your ears too:

• If you're listening to loud music with headphones, try taking a 5-minute break every 30 minutes or a 10-minute break every 60 minutes.

• At concerts, wear earplugs. There are no such excuses as "you forgot them" or "didn't buy any". No money can afford your ears after the damage is done, but you can spend anything from 1€ to 1000€ to prevent the damage.

• And when you wear hearing protections, and people make fun of you, you just don’t listen to them. (lmao get it?)

Not worth the risk, I wish I stepped out of the auditorium that evening, but at the same time this is some life experience as well that you build onto, and that you gotta take into account!

While there's 0 positive aspects of tinnitus (unless you have a precise 1000Hz ringing and you can use that to tune your guitar lol), this gave me a lot more insight on the fact that you need to take care of your body, hearing in this case.

If you're interested in this topic there are tons of videos on YouTube that help you protect your ears!