I developed tinnitus in 2009, a neurological "gift" from a case of swine flu. (The other gift was chronic paroxysmal hemicrania, a nightmarish migraine-like condition that threatened to destroy my life until I got it under control with medication.) The tinnitus was exacerbated a few years later after a freak accident while inflating a mountain bike tire. The tire exploded off the rim, more-or-less directly into my right ear. I'm now partially deaf on that side, but of course I hear the tinnitus load & clear.
Mine was a "gift" from my mother's physically abusive boyfriend, who would haul me around by my ears when I was five or six. I have three high pitched tones in my right ear, two in my left.
If you're familiar with the high pitched squeal of a CRT television, even the lowest of my tones is far, far higher pitched than that. Now that I'm in my 40s, it's probably well outside my actual hearing range.
