[2020] How Escape From Tarkov has helped me.

A couple years ago, I developed Tinnitus. Severe ringing in both of my ears, from an ototoxic perscription drug. I was crushed, and fell into a deep depression that I still battle with off and on. It's not fun having to listen to "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" 24/7 at levels that can't be completely masked.

I've always been a PC gamer, and that kind of changed once the tinnitus started. I decided to avoid games that required a headset due to fear of damaging my ears further.

Eventually, I said f*ck that, and got back into gaming as it is my favorite escape from reality and I consider it therapeutic. Typically when I'm on the computer I have my headset at a low level, with white noise playing on loop in an mp3 so I don't have to listen to the buzzing.

Anyway, long story short, once I started playing EFT I realized how important sound-play was very quickly. The white-noise was hampering my ability to listen to footsteps, so over time I kept turning it down. Eventually, one day, I just turned it off. This was a huge break through for me because I basically mask my tinnitus 24 hours a day 7 days a week.

Now, when I play EFT, I find myself turning my masking off, because I'd rather not die to a sneaky rat who makes some insignificant noise that I miss because of white noise.

I find myself getting less annoyed by the buzzing in real life now, as when I'm playing the game I'm listening to it 24/7 by my own choice.

I just wanted to thank Nikita and EFT for making such an awesome game, I wish I had started playing sooner.