Firstly, I'm trying out a "drop cap" style graphic at the head of each article that'll allow you to tell which blog the repost came from when it's announced on social media. If you find this annoying let me know, but give it a few days to see how it goes...
When a news source you respect, doesn't respect you, what can you do? For reasons, being hit with this example of disregard for a medical condition was a bit confronting.
TRIGGER WARNING FOR TINNITUS SUFFERERS!The linked podcast has a load of tinnitus-triggering sound in it for cheap thrills and because the producers were a-holes with no respect for the 17% of the population affected by tinnitus. There - I fixed it for you, YW.
I can't stress this enough - without a single warning word, they play the sounds that, according to the various tinnitus sufferers describing each sound, resembles their tinnitus. I don't know how you listen to your podcasts but I listen with headphones, with the volume up just enough to overcome minor environmental noises so that I can listen to my podcast without missing a word from my wife or others around me.
The podcats producers have done their research - ar at least, you'd hope they did - so they should be aware of how hard it is to avoid triggers. And the podcast centers on an app that you can download that allows you have CBT reinforcement messages and conversations with an AI chatbot. And hopefully you all know that CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is a bit like playing mental judo with yourself to convince yourself that when certain things happen, you react in a more appropriate or relevant way to the event than before applying CBT, that you change your internal self-talk in response to the event, etc.
Basically - think about what you're thinking and doing, realise where it needs to be amended and modified, and try hard to do so, until it becomes habitual and your new normal response.
With tinnitus, you accept that it's incurable, that you CAN tune it out to a degree or at least lessen its impact, you may have some hearing damage but tinnitus is often triggered by relatively tiny losses, and while you may have thought that it would be the loudest most persistent thing in your life and ruin your enjoyment of life and your interactions with loved ones and friends and coworkers, you CAN manage it. You CAN live well with it.
But you can also see that CBT will always require some levels of conscious self-control and management. You have certain reflexes for a reason, the blink reflex for example to prevent objects getting into your eyes, the fight or flight reflex; and they can be managed in the same way, but you can't always just keep your eyes open - you have to override the reflex. In the same way, if you hear a continuous high-pitched whine or tone or similar, you have to remind yourself that you can ignore it, minimise it, focus on everything else you hear instead.
So now imagine that there you are, totally engrossed in listening intently to a podcast on a subject of extreme interest to you, and suddenly
- WHAM! -
a hissing or squealing or high-pitched whine or tone - and there you go, it's exactly the noise that used to drive you to the point of madness to get away from, and if you kept rigid self-control after that asault the show just laid on you, then good on you. But I can't imagine anyone being presented with a close analog of the very sound that they're only keeping clamped down by sheer effort of will, and not suddenly having a flare-up of it.
When I was in my late 20s I first got sporadic bursts of tinnitus and they worried the sh*t out of me. I couldn't concentrate, had trouble hearing anything (if I was even aware of it over the high ringing squeal I could hear) and all my research led me to the conclusion that I could perhaps mask it with a white noise generator but would never be rid of it ever again. It was depressing and frightening and very hard to cope with. (PS white noise generators = nope. At least for me.)
But also, it was sporadic. It happened at random times, sometimes after a day in a noisy environment, sometimes while sitting reading, and sometimes, it just - happened. And it would hang around from 1-2hrs to a day or so. I do recall that when it happened for a day or more, I'd wonder if life was worth living if this kept happening, but I reasoned that over the rest of my life, someone would find the cause and a cure.
Over forty years later there's still no cure, and my tinnitus has moved in and stayed. But I found that because I was able to get used to, and even minimise in my hearing its sound, I was basically doing CBT by myself. I thought CBT was kumbayah group hug BS and I can't imagine myself in any therapeutic group. But - self-talk, using what I learned about tinnitus, and creating distraction strategies for minimising the noise - those worked.
I only feel mildly despondent when I think about it these days, and I still hold out hope that someone will localise many of the several dozen suspected sources and start developing ways to fix or disable them and so free the unlucky 17% of the population from this eternal *crickets* (and not in the usual sense of the word...) in our heads.
The Worst Things About The Podcast IMHO
There was no trigger warning in the written description. There was no trigger warning in the audio introduction. There was just sheer journalistic "let's play these sounds at volume and to hell with the 17% of our listenership who are going to hear that and have it set off their tinnitus! Come on - these sounds are weird and interesting, let's score a few Noddy points!"
Bad job, Guardian - BAD job. I say this with all sincerity while sitting here trying to concentrate on writing this article while dealing with the jump in my tinnitus levels which was still going half an hour after finishing the podcast to try and glean any useful information from it. And there was useful information, just a pity they had to muck it up for me and others by playing triggering moises.
If you mention indigenous affairs, you put in a warning. If you mention LGBTIQ+, sex, or any form of gender controversy, you put in a warning. If you do pretty much anything to do with any touchy issue or mental health issue, you put a warning. These are emotional and mental distress issues
If you're one of the 0.1%-2% (my best guess after reading pages of reference material) of people who experience epilepsy, you'll either find a very clear warning at the beginning of videos that might trigger a seizure, or else the triggering flashing or audio will be modified. Epilepsy is a neurological condition.
Tinnitus is also a neurological condition. Grow some compassion, Guardian.
Please use the buttons below to share and bookmark this, I'm sorry to the 83% of people that this issue doesn't affect, but I felt this was a betrayal of my trust and had to point it out.
Also, please consider donating the cost of a cup of coffee - perhaps even monthly - so that I can stop paying for everything podcats-related out of my own pocket. Are you considering that? Then please click. 😁
As always, stay awesome, be part of the changes, be a driver of the changes.
No comments:
Post a Comment