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How do you deal with overwhelming noises?

Libecht

Libecht

Well-Known Member
Being overly sensitive is one of Aspie's problems. I'm especially sensitive to sound, more specifically, the sound made by loudly-talking people. A few shouts or screams are fine since they last very shortly. But when in a club, cafeteria, etc., people often talk very loudly for a long period. And it sometimes drives me crazy. I wouldn't crawl on the ground or something like that. Usually my eyes open wide, and it's like, my brain cells keep exploding one by one. Does anyone have similar problem? How do you deal with it?
 
I suffer through it because I'm unable to deal. I have no ability to filter. I wish I had some ideas to offer. There is one thing I can do to compensate which is to remove myself from the situation for 5 minutes or so of quiet. I come up with a white lie excuse like going to the bathroom to clear my brain.
 
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wanderer03 said:
There is one thing I can do to compensate which is to remove myself from the situation for 5 minutes or so of quiet. I come up with a white lie excuse like going to the bathroom to clear my brain.
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Funny! That's exactly the same thing I did in elementary school. Although back then, I though it was just stage fright, not autism.
 
There are some times when I'm able to filter continuous noise, and other times, I am not. My family members sometimes watch TV shows/listen to music on their devices without headphones, which can gradually push me closer and closer to sensory overload. When I'm wearing a hoodie, it sometimes helps if I pull the hood over my head and the fabric around my ears blocks out the noise to an extent. Either that I put my headphones in and listen to music on my phone. If all else fails, I just try to ignore the auditory input as best I can and stim with my pink and purple Tangle toy.
 
I don't. Cope that is. I had an intercom speaker very near my work station, and I complained to several people about the volume of the intercom but they all just gave me the proverbial smile and pat on the head and didn't do anything. I managed to find an internal volume control, which I turned down and it eventually rusted off, so I hope it never gets found out. I tested it and It was about 88db. The one next to that was 97db. I couldn't turn that one down, and it would reverberate and distort but at the moment the wiring is ****ed and it doesn't work. Our maintenance guy is hopeless, so I'm banking on the fact that it will be ****ed for at least another year.
wanderer03 said:
I suffer through it because I'm unable to deal. I have no ability to filter. I wish I had some ideas to offer. There is one thing I can do to compensate which is to remove myself from the situation for 5 minutes or so of quiet. I come up with a white lie excuse like going to the bathroom to clear my brain.
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Sportster said:
I can tolerate the cacophony of a crowd to a degree; I try to ignore it, though it's not easy. I can't make people understand that I don't hear just one mixed sound, but rather my brain is hearing every individual sound and is trying to sort them out at the same time. It's hard to explain if one hasn't experienced it.

What I can't stand is the sudden harsh loudness that goes from subtle to ear-shattering in a second. For example, there was a guest speaker at church one Sunday. He started out okay sharing an amusing anecdote, but then broke into a song with the music and sound system cranked up so loud that I had to leave. It was troublesome and embarrassing, as I looked like an idiot walking down the aisle for the doors while trying to cover my ears. I never went back after that.
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This happened to me last weekend while I was having dinner with my mom. All of the sudden, a waiter yelled out a happy birthday song and I was startled into fight or flight mode. I'm not one to run anymore so for me it was fight. After the song was over, I turned to the waiter and scolded him for screaming right in my ear. Once I get in fight mode, it takes me a solid hour to "come down" again.
 
My ears hear and my brain tries to process every sound leading to overload and something of a shutdown. A light static in the back ground distracts me so I can't focus on anything. People talking loud on cell phones in public places means I'm in prison to their conversation. The list goes on and on.
For some situations I have to just endure and live through it. In others, I try to get away to a better environment. When I'm in a good mindset, I will spend the time praying.
I just try to remember that everything eventually comes to an end.
 
tw3 said:
My ears hear and my brain tries to process every sound leading to overload and something of a shutdown. A light static in the back ground distracts me so I can't focus on anything. People talking loud on cell phones in public places means I'm in prison to their conversation. The list goes on and on.
For some situations I have to just endure and live through it. In others, I try to get away to a better environment. When I'm in a good mindset, I will spend the time praying.
I just try to remember that everything eventually comes to an end.
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I actually told someone to take their loud cell conversation elsewhere. I was waiting for a train and enjoying the solitude of being the only one there when this person rolled up screaming in their cell.
 
neighbors are noisy, I listen to loud bass-heavy music and/or turn on the loud large box fan or a/c unit to drown them out.
 
wanderer03 said:
I suffer through it because I'm unable to deal. I have no ability to filter. I wish I had some ideas to offer. There is one thing I can do to compensate which is to remove myself from the situation for 5 minutes or so of quiet. I come up with a white lie excuse like going to the bathroom to clear my brain.
Click to expand...


I find that I am unable to deal with noise more generally, and for example, with lawn mowers, I employ ear muffs to escape the associated noise.
 
My complaint to a new therapist (after a recent move to a totally different state) when I first went in was that I had become entirely too overwhelmed with noise. I was good with conversation, the TV, even the radio, but that I could also hear vibrations in the wall, I could hear the muffled sounds of people talking, I could hear an alarm vibrating in someone else's apartment. Our neighbor mowed the lawn outside my window, my roommates play loud music and video games, I can hear the bedroom of the neighbor above me.

This is what first started asking them about sensory issues with both me, and my children. My had gotten increasingly worse lately. They now have me on what I call a "cocktail" of medications, taken throughout the day, for anxiety, OCD, sleep, and most recently, ADHD. It wasn't until I told my doctor how well I had been feeling since the medication for ADHD, that she asked me about the "sound" issue. I gasped and said, "It's been 4 days and I haven't been bothered by noise; I just forgot about it."
 
Do the loud voices sound angry to anyone else here? It is just logic to me to know if they really are. Logic things like: Do they have a reason to be angry? Are they across the room so need to talk louder? Are they always that way?

I use the bathroom trick to when I want to get away from people.
 
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