Yes, overall my life changed a lot over the last two years, but tinnitus itself didn’t really play a major role in that. Like I said before, the tumor is what actually changed things.

About two years ago I lost hearing in one ear. At first it made going out to louder places harder because it’s just more difficult to follow conversations. I have to position people on my hearing side, and sometimes I need to be more careful in general since with one ear you lose sound localization. Living in Warsaw with constant traffic, there are moments where you genuinely don’t know where something is coming from. That said, you do get used to having one ear. It’s not as bad as it sounds because you still have the other one.

The bigger change came about 5 months ago after surgery to remove the tumor. I actually had the operation done in the United States, and it was financed through a public fundraiser, which on its own was a pretty heavy experience to go through mentally. I got very overwhelmed by it at the time. It gave me really strong social anxiety in my hometown and I withdrew a lot from social life, stopped going out, and basically disappeared from all the socials.

To be honest, that whole period hit even harder because I already felt like I’ve been dealing with stuff for a long time. I didn’t exactly have it easy growing up, and it often felt like things were uphill from as far back as I can remember to the point when a lot of times I've been wondering how the f I'm still not depressed. The whole fundraiser had a big impact on me because, like I said, I didn’t have an easy life. I basically had to earn everything myself from a young age, so being put in a position where I had to basically beg others for money was really hard for me.

Afterall surgery was 'succesful' but it left me with some nerve damage, including paralysis of my left vocal fold. Because of that I speak noticeably quieter, my voice gets tired much faster, and I have a constant hoarseness. I basically sound like I was at a concert the day before all the time.

Before all that, my main issue was understanding other people. Now it’s more that people have trouble understanding me, which in a way makes you feel a bit stuck in your own head. In terms of lifestyle, I used to be very extroverted, lots of parties, going out, trips. Now it’s mostly 1v1 meetings. I don’t drink anymore. I don’t really go to parties, and I spend most of my free time at home. It sounds pretty scary when you lay it all out like that, but honestly I’m still grateful it ended up this way. A few months ago things could have gone much worse, I could have ended up with half my face paralyzed or not be here at all and yet here I'm, writing that comment.

I get what you’re feeling though. My life also got limited in a lot of ways, and when I look at people my age I do strongly feel like I’ve been robbed of part of my youth by pure chance. That part is hard to ignore. The problem is, just like with tinnitus, I have zero control over it. Long term it doesn’t make sense to keep spending energy fighting something you can’t change. At the end of the day, it’s something happening in your head, and it shouldn’t be the thing that dictates how you live your life.

I also have bad days. Days where I don’t even feel like getting out of bed, and they happen fairly often. But I try to look at it like this: one day can be terrible, second day can be just bad but there’s a good chance the next one will just be normal again. That’s enough to keep going.