Tinnitus hit me harder than anything I’d ever faced.
But oddly enough, it wasn’t the first time I’d felt that kind of fear.
18 months of chronic pain had already shown me how symptoms, stress, and panic can trap you in a loop.
I didn’t expect those lessons to save me, but they did.
Long before I got tinnitus and eventually habituated after a long struggle, I went through something almost identical with chronic pain.
It started with confusion and fear, spiraled into endless medical visits and obsessive research, and slowly drained the life out of me. I chased supplements, booked appointments, and read lots of horror stories at 2am. Sound familiar?
When tinnitus hit, I thought I’d learned my lesson. But I still fell right back into the loop.
It took two months of spiraling before I realized I was running the exact same mental program that had kept my pain going for years. It was the same fear, the same compulsive searching, and the same urge to control the uncontrollable.
Thank God I caught it this time. I stopped chasing external fixes and started doing the internal work that actually made a difference.
The same principles that got me out of chronic pain helped me reclaim my life from tinnitus. A lot of people have asked about that experience, which changed the way I see everything, so here it is just in case it helps someone else.
I spent 18 months unable to walk across a room without intense pain, and I was convinced I would never get better. Now I play badminton a few times a week and get in 15,000 steps a day effortlessly. I’ve been pain-free for 15 years.
My pain started mild but worsened over a week. It was testicular pain that got a different diagnosis from every specialist I saw, including epididymitis and varicoceles.
The first year was a nightmare of long days and nights of googling everything and finding very little. I slept with a thick pillow between my legs. I walked as little as possible, and only when necessary. The pain wasn’t just physical; it chipped away at my confidence, my identity, and any sense of feeling normal.
Every day when I awoke, my very first thought was, “What’s it going to be like down there today?” Then, throughout the day, there was the constant checking.
I was working from home at the time, which made it difficult to avoid letting my mind wander and catastrophize.
I remember being on the edge of angry most of the time, constantly thinking, ‘I can’t live like this.’ To this day, I still shudder to think of how miserable I must have made those closest to me for that year and a half. It’s embarrassing.
I was 30 and already grieving the life I thought I’d lost. I pictured myself limping through the next 50 years, always hurting, always checking, always wondering why no one could fix me.
That fear didn’t just visit; it moved in. And it was amplified every time a doctor didn’t have a plausible answer or solution for me.
By the end of that year, the answer (a book!) had already landed in my lap. But I was so conditioned to distrust anything that didn’t come in a bottle, from a specialist, or with a billing code, that I read it, took no action, and let it sit on my bookshelf for six months. I continued going to specialists, trying new drugs, and being told I needed surgery that I couldn’t afford after having already spent many thousands of dollars pursuing a cure.
It took the failure of the one med I had finally been given that seemed to be working to spark a crisis that made me think, “I’d better go back and take a look at that book again”.
I had already ruled out any serious and life threatening conditions as causes, which the book (The Mindbody Prescription by Dr. John Sarno) emphasizes must be done before beginning the process. That didn’t fix anything directly, but it made it easier for me to believe the pain wasn’t dangerous, because it took away the “what if it’s something serious” loop that had been running in my brain for months
Only then could I take a serious second look at The Mindbody Prescription and consider that it might actually apply to me.
Reading it again was one thing. Believing it was about my pain was something else entirely.
Sarno makes a strong case that the brain can create real pain in response to repressed emotion. But accepting that idea in the abstract is very different from saying, “That’s what’s happening in me.”
Trusting his recovery process was the hardest part, and the most rewarding.
Here’s what I did next:
I started journaling daily.
The goal wasn’t to vent, but to uncover repressed emotions, past and present. It wasn’t easy work, but doing it paid off big time.
I resumed all activity.
I had to believe that I wouldn’t break anything by doing things as I had before. That meant walking even when it hurt. I talked to my brain while I walked: “I know what this is. There’s nothing physically wrong with me, and I’m not afraid anymore.”
I stopped checking.
Every time I checked in on the pain, I was reinforcing the belief that something was wrong. That kept me focused on the physical instead of the psychological. When I finally stopped monitoring every twinge, I started trusting the process, and that’s when things started to really change.
I gave up all meds related to the pain.
As long as I kept trying to “fix things” with meds, I was telling myself I didn’t really believe in the process.
It only took about three weeks of doing all of the above to go from “can’t walk across a room” to 95% pain-free. Within another month, I was at 100%.
That was 15 years ago.
It’s still the most astonishing thing I’ve ever experienced…and I never would’ve believed it was possible if I’d had any other way out.
In 2010, I’d been pain-free for over three years when I got emails from two different guys on the same day. Each had found my story on a blog. Both described having the exact same problem I’d had and wanted to know how I got better.
It felt good knowing that maybe my story could help someone.
The very next day, the pain came back.
At first, I panicked. It felt like a cruel joke. But within a few hours, I managed to get quiet enough to think clearly: I’ve beaten this before. I can do it again.
It took about a month. But it worked. Again.
For a long time, I believed I’d never walk without pain again. But I’ve been doing it for 17 years now.
That recovery didn’t just end my pain. It changed how I respond to anything physical that worries me. It gave me tools I’d later need to face tinnitus once I made it through those first weeks of sheer panic
It also helped me avoid turning temporary issues into lifelong ones. I still get checked when something hurts, but I don’t catastrophize (most of the time, anyway!).
Most importantly, I learned how much my thoughts, emotions, and assumptions affect my body, and that changing those things is not only possible, but sometimes necessary.
Pain used to feel like the enemy. Now I know it’s more like an alarm. It doesn’t always mean something is wrong. Sometimes it just means something needs attention.
Learning to listen without panicking gave me back my life.
Even with that behind me, T was still brutal. It wasn’t like pain, where I could at least stop walking or change positions. It was 24/7, loud, inescapable, and mentally exhausting. For a long time, I couldn’t think straight because I couldn’t get a break.
But the tools I got from Sarno helped me find a path to habituation that actually worked for me.
I know many people spend years cycling through free tips, forums, or quick fixes, hoping one of them will finally stick. That kind of advice can point you in the right direction, but what really made the difference for me (and for the people I’ve worked with) was when the guidance stopped being general and started being personal. When someone helps you connect the dots in your own life, apply the tools in a way that fits your patterns, and see what you can’t see yourself, that’s when real change begins.
If your symptoms feel overwhelming, or if part of you suspects there’s more going on than just the physical, I’d be glad to talk.
Book a free consultation, and let’s figure out if working together could help you get unstuck.
