Actually, on the serious side...I do believe you can lose your mind! I have heard that there have been cases of suicide because of extreme tinnitus. One of our newscasters in Portland, several years ago (actually I read her story and then noticed I had the smallest of hisses in my ear....
) had a major feedback in her headphone/earbud/whatever you call them, and it blew out her ear so bad that she has the worst case of tinnitus that OHSU in Portland has ever seen. I remember the comparison that they wrote about in her story. They said, "Imagine that you are sitting on your front porch reading your book, and two or three fire trucks pull up beside your house with their sirens blaring, and they never leave." She has suffered terribly from her tinnitus. She is on disability and she misses her work in TV very much. Most of us are fortunate that it is an annoying problem, and a few of us are unlucky to be the ones who truly are "suffering from tinnitus". My sympathies. Try a loud fan in your bedroom. It may help.
Unfortunately, once tinnitus sets in, it rarely leaves.
Hang in there,
Sue in Vancouver, USA