I thought for a while about whether to announce this, but I will be leaving soon.
I don't bluff, threaten suicide, I'm a man of my word.
My downfall was tragic. I watched my life be stripped away from me, my tinnitus is horrible, but the hyperacusis is the most unbelievable thing I have ever experienced in my life.
The cruel irony is that I took the drug Klonopin for a very mild spike in my tinnitus. You can read my post history to see what happened from there. My life has become completely unlivable. I can't even make it to Switzerland, where I was accepted for VAD recently.
I thought for a while if I should say I am pro-benzo or anti-benzo. I am completely anti-benzo. I don't care how severe your tinnitus is. If there is a 0.01% chance of this happening to anyone else, it's not worth it.
I made so many compromises to live. I don't give a shit about the tinnitus. My hyperacusis is probably in the top 10% of bad. I can't continue to watch this play out the way it is. I cannot believe this is happening. I cannot believe there is nothing to help.
Please reconsider. What can feel intensely cruel and unlivable now, can become entirely something else in years to come. We never know what the future holds, but good things
do happen to suicidal people all the time.
I've also experienced extreme lows where taking my life felt like the only option, but things eventually changed for me, and there's always the possibility that they will for you too. I know that these types of messages can come across as condescending when you're at your wit's end, but I say this with the absolute best of intentions. My life was absolute dog shit when I was around 19. I remember waking up from a botched surgery on my chest and just wanting the ground to swallow me up. I cannot begin to explain how low I was, and thinking about the future was a laughable concept. Then when I was around 32, I was hit with a severe tinnitus spike and was forced to quit my music career. Once again, my life was plunged into darkness. In either instance, I could have ended it all, but today, many years later, I am content again. Being happy is a strange concept because nobody is ever in a constant state of happiness.
Life can humble people in a split second, and it does this to people regularly. One minute you can be playing with your kids and having a great time, and in the next second you can be paralysed or maimed in some other way. Tomorrow is not guaranteed for anyone.
We have more of a chance of seeing some form of hearing treatment in the next decade than any other of the last two centuries. I know we hear this all the time, but I really believe it to be true at this point. There's more going on now than there's ever been.
I hope you hold on, and I wish nothing but good things for you, and as
@Damocles said above, hyperacusis frequently improves for people; especially if you seek help for it from someone who fully understands it.