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loud noises

A

Aspergers_Aspie

Well-Known Member
I personally hate fire alarm tests in a building noise wise and an emergency vehicle siren noise close by, at night if I'm a o passenger and the oncoming car's lights are at the brightest or a camera's flash hurts my eyes, anyone else has similar?
 
Fire alarms make me feel tense and then angry. Bright headlights do the same thing. Mercedes are one of the worst culprits. For years now they've had some of the most blinding headlights on the roads.

One of the worst feelings of tension I get is when my partner gets up. Usually I'm up for an hour or so before her and I've got everything set up how I want etc. When she comes downstairs there's new noises and sounds and it quickly feels like it's too much noise and I become increasingly more frustrated until I eventually adapt. Seems to happen every day though. I'm not vocal about it though - as with most negative emotions I just bottle them up and hope that the lid stays on.

Good analogy for my life I guess - much like a glass jar I'm strong, but also very brittle.

Ed
 
Yes, totally. The other day I was at the bus stop when an ambulance passed by with sirens. I found the noise unbearable, tried to cover my ears up but it didn't help much, but the others waiting at the bus stop didn't even flinch.

I don't like white LED lighting, or car headlights either.
 
My husband put some white LED lights on our Christmas tree which felt like lasers hitting my eyes. I had him take them off and put up our old regular tree lights even though many bulbs were burned out. Who cares if some bulbs are out? No one is going to notice it anyway and we aren't able to have company or visitors this year due to Covid.

This was the first time in about 10 years that we put up a tree because we've spent Christmas in Mexico or elsewhere. It has long been just kind of our "thing" to get away together, literally out of the US, and avoid the usual Christmas insanity here.
 
Absolutely and flashing lights hurt my eyes and confuse me. I jump so much when a sudden noise occurs.

It is ironic that there is loud polution and yet, the biggest noise is from the very people who inforce the noise polution!
 
I really dislike fire alarms... It always leave a ringing in my ears long after they are turned off, which leads to constant headaches... AND people chewing food is irritating, to me.... especially people eating potato-chips... To me, it's like they are right at my ear chewing and it's very distracting and nauseating...

Bright and/or flashing lights are disturbing as well... I can usually get over it, but I usually have an imprint of the light for about 15 mins after... It's not enough to block my vision, but enough to annoy me...
 
Xmas party was a beautiful outdoor roof seating. l was thinking perfect yet the acoustics seem to hold down the entire fifty people and every syllable uttered. l wanted to turn into a bat and fly into a tree. l thought it would be perfect but it was like going to a concert and being overwhelmed with too many people.
 
My neighbour has a leaf-blower. When he over uses it by going right over the street to my side I have a meltdown. I begin to get agitated, then very hot, then I begin to stim which includes head banging. Yes I have confronted him. The worst is when I cannot find relief, say my Noise-blocking earphones are not charged or broken. Car revving also does it. Ambulance/Police alarms are horrible even at a distance. Bagpipes are the worst musical instrument. Angry people cannot pass information onto me. I have another neighbour who swears loudly; I just cannot engage with him. Noise & certain smells are my triggers.
 
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Oh yeah, it can be pretty bad.

Worst for me was one time when I was at a convention. For context, at these events you're almost guaranteed to be physically run down before the first day even ends. They are tiring and there is a ton of activity. And lots of caffeinated geeks, which creates chaos and stress. And for some people, well... too much caffeine leads to bad sleep. So, MORE tired.

So imagine, the second day, partway through, the fire alarm goes off. Note, this is in a gigantic hotel. And I'm up on like floor 10. Hotel fire alarms are LOUD. Really loud. So, dealing with that, and then step outside of the room, look down from the balcony, and it's just total chaos. Go through the steps of evacuation, go and stand outside with a bazillion people. And, I'm in costume at this point, and that outfit is... definitely not designed for warmth (arms and legs are bare), and it's winter outside, because of course it is. My cousin who was with me handed me his jacket to use, not exactly a winter coat (mine was in my car, you see, which I assume made sense at the time, and my car was in the attached parking garage, 5 floors up). So, go stand outside in that, very cold, colorful chaos, for like 10 minutes. Go back in. Get warmed up, ready to go back out into the convention and do things that dont suck.

.....20 minutes later, fire alarm goes off again, before I've left the room. Repeat earlier scenario. Do this AGAIN then about an hour after that. I tell ya, I learned NOT to leave my coat in the car ever after this.

Whole thing was that some useless turdbomb kept pulling the alarm for teh lulz. Eventually this stopped, I'm not sure what they did to prevent it or if the idiot just decided to stop. But it was pretty bad.

As much as I like conventions, there's always some amount of intrusive chaos (like the time an elevator crashed at a fortunately small hotel, so there was paramedics barreling through the insanity, causing more insanity, complete with LOTS of flashing lights outside. That hotel was... something else). So you're at least somewhat stressed out BEFORE anything loopy occurs. So yeah, that's fun.


Another thing I've trouble with: my phone suddenly SHRIEKING if something like an amber alert is sent out. You cant set it to not do that; if that alert goes out and the thing isnt out of power it WILL react. That's fun when I'm sitting here in the basement with the lights dimmed watching some horror thing on Youtube. Lots of fun. Fun fun fun.
 
Misery said:
Another thing I've trouble with: my phone suddenly SHRIEKING if something like an amber alert is sent out. You cant set it to not do that; if that alert goes out and the thing isnt out of power it WILL react. That's fun when I'm sitting here in the basement with the lights dimmed watching some horror thing on Youtube. Lots of fun. Fun fun fun.
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Actually, you can! At least on Android. It's in your text message settings (yes, really. Messages is the app that they use to send them out.) The only thing you can't turn off is Presidential Alerts.

I had to turn them off. Alarms that I can't turn off are a pretty big trigger for me - driving down the highway at 60MPH when my phone suddenly starts BLARING in my pocket is NOT a good situation. Especially since you can't just hit the side button to turn it off, you HAVE to pull your phone out and look at it. This would be a road hazard for anyone, but especially an autistic person who will go into meltdown because of it. So, I turned them off. No meltdowns while driving because someone thought these emergency alerts were a good idea.

Actually, I keep my phone on silent all the time. I got a smartwatch - which turned out to be the best thing ever. The PING! PING! BING! auditory alerts that are nearly constant when my phone's volume is turned on are overwhelming, but I can pick and choose what notifications I want to get on my watch. And the gentle vibration of my watch is far less overwhelming than the audio on my phone is. So now I have absolutely no reason to turn my ringer on, ever. (This actually isn't why I bought the watch but I'll probably have one forever now because this is a total game changer!)

Loud noises bother me if they're unexpected. I work in a machine shop - loud noises are the name of the game (but I wear earplugs). That doesn't bother me, shooting etc. doesn't bother me, I love fireworks. I wear hearing protection if I need it. Sudden, unasked for loud noises really anger me. Enjoying a quiet relaxing day and someone starts yelling suddenly? Startle, then anger. My uncle thinking it was a good idea to drop a 1/4 stick of dynamite off the back porch? NOPE! Fire alarms? UGH (though I usually know when the fire drills are so they're rarely a surprise).
 
Car alarms go off regularly from wind, improper settings over and over. It's a good week if one does not go off in the night.

Snow plows, each night if it's snowed they clear the roads. The sound of the back up alarms go on and on between midnight and two in the morning. You wake up startled by the sound of the drop and then scrape of the plow onto the roads, which sounds like a heavy object being dropped that rattles the windows of buildings.

Snow blowers, everyone has one in the area. Seven AM and onward they clear their paths and driveways. When one finishes another takes up the task.

Overhead fluorescent lights, remind me of hospitals, government buildings, large stores, I can't even look up at them! Car lights also at night, difficult to drive and actually see very well. I feel like my eyes have been fried.
 
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Mia said:
Car alarms go off regularly in the area I live in, from wind, improper settings over and over. It's a good week if one does not go off in the night.

Snow plows, each night if it's snowed they clear the roads. The sound of the back up alarms go on and on between midnight and two in the morning. You wake up startled by the sound of the drop and then scrape of the plow onto the roads, which sounds like a heavy object being dropped that rattles the windows of buildings.

Snow blowers, everyone has one in the area. Seven AM and onward they clear their paths and driveways. When one finishes another takes up the task.

Overhead fluorescent lights, remind me of hospitals, government buildings, large stores, I can't even look up at them! Car lights also at night, difficult to drive and actually see very well. I feel like my eyes have been fried.
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That reminds me when the lawn guys come to mow the lawn, every Tuesday starting at 8am...

I live in Florida.... so they're always mowing the lawn... o_O
 
Guilty as charged. That much of any sudden uninvited and unsolicited sound can set me off. :oops:
 
I also find fire alarms extremely overwhelming. It’s as if the sound is drilling inside my head, and I can’t function. I also find that I cannot take any loud noise when I am really tired, even the tv bothers me. The one noise that nearly sends me into a meltdown every time is when a fork scrapes across a plate. This happens during meals with my family, and they don’t seem to understand that it hurts! They get mad at me for ‘shutting down’ over a little noise, but they don’t know how it feels to actually listen to it. So I just keep quiet and try to deal with it the best I can (usually by stimming). Thankfully it doesn’t happen too often, usually only with specific plates.

I have also noticed that driving during the night is especially painful. Headlights seem to glare unbearably, and I can barely see what’s in front of me. Certain lights in the house are painful as well, such as the bathroom lights. I have to keep my head down and eyes closed for a few minutes, until I can adjust, since it feels like my eyes are burning.
 
SliverOfSand said:
I also find that I cannot take any loud noise when I am really tired, even the tv bothers me.
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At night the sound of dishes being scraped and washed when I'm tired also sends me into a meltdown. Loud noise when I'm tired, makes me want to roll into a fetal position and start covering my ears with pillows. It's like someone is sticking a pin in my brain.
 
I found some yellow tinted glasses to wear at night when I drive. I wish I remembered the name of them. They block the glare of oncoming headlights and greatly improve my night vision while driving. We're always on the lookout for deer while driving this time of year.
 
Yep, all of those. The worst is going to the eye doctor and they shine the light right in your eyes or have to dilate them. My eyes start watering uncontrollably. Or even at the dentist.

For noises I'd also add when people talk too loudly. Another thing that I had to get used to was going to movie theaters to watch loud action movies. Takes a while for me to adjust to the loud sounds.
 
I had a problem at the airport on my last visit to the UK because at Heathrow they take a photo and shine a light into your eyes... I couldn't look at it and they made me do it again.
 
Fortunately I don’t drive, so headlights aren’t such a problem for me. Oddly, I’m not all that hypersensitive to light anyway (considering how hypersensitive I am to pretty much everything else). Fire alarms startle me so badly that I’m still shaking half an hour later, not to mention the crowds as everyone pours out of the building. The worst thing for me, in my area, is lawn-related machinery of any kind, I live in a suburban area and in spring through mid-autumn (particularly this past year with everyone home because of COVID) there’s pretty much always at least one person using some sort of noisy machinery nearby. In late summer, cicadas are also extremely obnoxious. And there is no place in my house where I can’t hear either.

What makes sound sensitivity particularly frustrating for me is that I get extremely tense and antsy if my hearing is dampened in any way, like by using earplugs or noise-cancelling headphones. I’m very on edge if I can’t use my hearing to constantly monitor my surroundings. So I have to decide which is worse, the noise or not hearing.
 
Loud noises used to not necessarily bother me, but lately they have. It seems like I'm becoming a lot more sensitive to certain things which sucks. I have to cover my ears more often and leave rooms because I can't handle much noise.
 
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