Too Loud for Me: Hyperacusis Stories

Inside this volume

Fifty first-person accounts describe hyperacusis, the condition in which everyday sound becomes painful or frightening. It arrived after a gig, a beep in a call-centre headset, a firework, an airbag, a shot at the range, a virus, a tick bite, Ménière's, facial palsy, ear surgery, pregnancy and new hearing aids, and for some it simply arrived with no reason ever found. The writers include a chef who left his own kitchen, a drummer of thirty-one years, a violinist seated in front of the brass, a nurse, a dentist who flinches at the drill, a road-train driver, a barista and a piano teacher, along with teenagers, a new mother, a husband living alongside his wife's condition and two adults who learned in their late twenties and thirties that they were autistic. They write from Manchester to Medellín and Kampala to Osaka. Treatments include sound therapy devices, a psychologist's ladder of graded exposure, jaw treatment from a dentist and earplugs used with more care, alongside school, work and church adjustments. Several were told it was anxiety or stress first. Not everyone improves: some left careers they loved, one man made the noise worse by wearing headphones all day, and some say plainly that they never learned why it happened.

Who it's for

For anyone who finds ordinary sound painful, and for the parents, partners, teachers and employers trying to understand someone who flinches at a dropped spoon.

Format · Instant download · PDF & EPUB · Fifty first-person accounts · PDF: 231 pages

A collection of personal testimony, offered as companion reading — not medical advice.

• 50 single-author testimonies from real people
• A short, plain-language introduction to the topic
• Editor's note, contents page, and curated resource list
• Professional interior typesetting and an original cover

Every purchase includes a print-quality PDF (best for desktop, tablet, and printing) and a reflowable EPUB (best for Kindle, Apple Books, Kobo, and phones). Files are DRM-free. You can download both instantly from the order-confirmation screen, and we email them to your inbox as well, so your books are always within reach.