Suicide notes by Jason DiEmilio (Azusa Plane):

I want to live and be happy. I did not want to die. But hyperacusis has completely destroyed my life. It is the sole reason as to my decision. I cannot continue to live with this. What happened to me doesn’t happen to people. The irony and the cruel joke of it all is completely unbelievable. I have spent the last six years in complete disbelief. All the things that made me happy now kill me. I suffer all the time. I’m tired. I’m tired of pain, and medication, and side effects and head pain and ear pain. I am tired of being trapped and imprisoned in my body.

No one could ever possibly understand this thing that has happened to me and the utter despair, grief and sadness I feel all the time. There is never a good night, a good day, a good weekend, a good vacation. It is just torment. Every place I go is too loud. I can’t listen to music even at the lowest volume. It’s torture.

Suicide notes by Dietrich Hectors:

I cannot talk right now because it hurts my ears. The tapping on the keyboard is painful. I can barely tolerate the hum of the computer. The physical pain of the ears is not comparable to other pains. Normally you can take a pill against it, but a pill does not help against this pain.

There is a constant feeling of pressure in my ears, like the feeling when you ride uphill-downhill in the car. If you get pressure in your ears, you swallow once and it’s gone. But I can swallow a million times and this pressure does not go away.

The impact on your life is phenomenal. I don’t have the strength to fight against it. I don’t want to live like a vegetable with such severe disability.

I would like to have lived. But with this ailment my life is no longer enjoyable. I cannot communicate normally, I cannot work normally, my life has become a hell. Accept if you please that I’ve reached my limit. Every day is a nightmare for me.

When Everyday Sound Becomes Torture by Joyce Cohen