Describe your experience with crowds…

[Lilacleia16]

I want to know what happens in your body when you are in a crowd. I tried to explain my experience of crowds with an analogy of a rollercoaster but how would you describe your experience of it?
I’ll start:

Tonight I went to the ladies conference and there were traveling stage lights and a loud speaker system and a very large crowd and I just kind of froze. I went into a trance. People kept asking me if I was ok and it was so embarrassing. It felt like being on a rollercoaster and wanting to puke and holding on and looking down and people talking to you and trying to turn to look at them and pretend you are feeling normal. I couldn’t feel my feet and I felt dizzy. I just kept telling myself that rollercoasters can be fun too. It was like a fight/flight/freeze kind of adrenaline rush.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I just simply avoid crowds. no going to the mall for me.

 

[ChrisCRISPR]

I can definitely relate. I'm with @Ronald Zeeman on this one, I just tend to avoid crowds all together. Even grocery shopping at a smaller supermarket at times can be overwhelming for me. I wish I wasn't this way but my social anxiety feels so deeply ingrained in me I can't imagine being any other way, just accepting myself as I am (easier said than done)

 

[Judge]

As a child it didn't usually bother me a lot. But so many of my traits and behaviors seem to increase with time.

As an adult I really try to avoid large, condensed crowds. One of the considerations that can and has caused me to go into a rare shutdown. Taught me to avoid malls at peak seasons like Christmas.

 

[TBRS1]

Last crowd I was in was a football tailgate party.

It was horrible. I tranced out, much like you describe, Liliacleia16. If I do breathing exercises I can get through the "I wanna run away" feeling.

But I end up looking like I'm asleep.

 

[WhitewaterWoman]

I try to avoid crowds, but do tolerate them for some activities such as dancing.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

I have never been to a rock concert, lots of opportunities rather go to a bar or play music at home on great sound systems.

 

[AuroraBorealis]

It depends. Sometimes they don't bother me at all. Like @Judge, I feel like this is one of the things that got worse over time. Recently, I've been at a sort of convention - crowds of people, noise, loud music over many large rooms. Already at entering the building, I felt like something compressed my chest a bit, my palms got sweaty, my head got foggy and I couldn't focus well, and I felt nervous and fidgety. First, I put on my headphones, and then I put in my earplugs, which helped a bit. I did enjoy it for about an hour (I felt somewhat uncomfortable but it was absolutely bearable), but then I started to notice a meltdown coming on (physical feeling: what I described above, but more intensely, and I felt irritable and at the same time like I was about to cry; like I couldn't ignore all the noise and people close to me anymore) and we went into a spiritual room where people can go to pray, to take a short break. That helped a bit. But after that, I was kind of done and didn't enjoy it anymore.

Sometimes I have no problems at all, and sometimes it's like this. It depends on my mood, my overall energy level, how I slept, whether we have guests at home (a huge stress cause for me), stuff like that.
I've been at a few concerts and parties where I really enjoyed myself. But then, I came close to my breaking point in a supermarket. It just depends on the day.

 

[Neonatal RRT]

Been there done that several times over the years. Get any more than 3-4 people in a room and I have to leave. Individually, I like people. Whenever people begin to "clot", their intelligence drops and the "hive mind" takes over. The entire atmosphere changes and it becomes intellectually disturbing to me.

 

[jsilver256]

I prefer no crowds, but I do okay in crowds (like shopping malls). But I have zero hearing and that no doubt helps a lot.

What's bad is social gatherings, where people might know me. These feel far more suffocating for some reason.

 

[Xinyta]

I have problems with crowds. Though only if they are condensed in one particular spot. The worst is when people park thier carts around me in a isle in a store, all mindlessly looking at shelves. I feel block in, like some caged animal that's being hunted.

I also really don't like pushing through tightly nit crowds, feeling like I'm the one being rude. Especially when it sometimes is actually the group that's being rude, by blocking up a walk way with thier conversation or whatever they are doing.

 

[Outdated]

I hate crowds, I have very sensitive hearing and to me being in a crowded place isn't much different to putting up with a flock of Corellas. (by far the noisiest and most annoying bird on the planet)

If I'm on a bit of a mission and have to wade through them I can do it but I'd never put up with it by choice.

 

[NB79]

I-m interested in seeing what other people say about this. Me if i am with more than let-s say 5 people in some place, i get overwhelmed of sorts, i get a loss less open and social and i am not social to begin with and sort in defensive mode.

 

[NB79]

someone can relate to this? in restaurants, is like this does not happen as strong as other places, maybe because people are in their small groups, not paying attention and ignoring the others.

 

[kriss72]

I think it depends on the crowd, like yesterday I had to pass a city square because I had to go to the pharmacy on the other side, there was a lot of people and music, because they were marking their opinion about things going on in the world - it was scary to me to pass that crowd (I walked around it), I turned the music up in my nc-headphones so I couldn't hear anything, except my own music I stared at the ground and walked as fast as I could, to pass the square - I do go to concerts (at a local music festival), always with earplugs and I try to find a spot without too many people - a good thing about concerts is that it's perfectly fine to happy dance or stand rocking from side to side, semi following the beat a bit of alcohol at the festival is probably also making it more bearable.

 

[Ronald Zeeman]

Been there done that several times over the years. Get any more than 3-4 people in a room and I have to leave. Individually, I like people. Whenever people begin to "clot", their intelligence drops and the "hive mind" takes over. The entire atmosphere changes and it becomes intellectually disturbing to me.

I worked alone in my lab, crowded a few times but the majority of the time supplier reps would come in had great one on one's.

 

[Levitator]

Don't like them. Find them unpleasant and chaotic. Never been overwhelmed by them, though. I just don't like them, and the chaos is like an annoying noise I don't want to deal with.

 

[Fino]

The sound of a small, crowded room all talking at once is, to me, the sound of madness.

 

[Jumpinbare]

It's like being suffocated. I will go to great lengths to avoid crowds or go around them if I can't avoid them altogether.

 

[tree]

A crowd is a sort of anonymous gathering of people.
Like a crowd for a concert at Cobo Hall.
I don't mind that sort of crowd.

I don't mind 'shopping crowds' either.

A crowded room is different.
A room can feel crowded when there are three people in it:
me and two others.