What Society Says About Being Alone

[Ronald Zeeman]

I like being alone. only my business.

 

[Outdated]

I typically hear better than a lot of people. I can often hear the low hum of an electronic device that has been left on for example, but multiple conversations in big groups of people are hard to keep up with.

That is Audio Processing Disorder. My hearing is better than most dogs but what my brain does with those sound signals is very different to most people. Neurotypical people can filter other sounds out and focus on a single voice in a crowd, I can't, my brain applies equal priority to every single sound I hear.

It also takes us longer to process meaning from sounds so our responses lag a little. In a one on one situation this lag isn't noticeable but as you add more and more people to the conversation there is more processing required and that lag becomes much more noticeable.

So you try to be part of a group conversation but by the time you've processed everything and want to interject with a comment of your own it's too late and the rest of the conversation has already moved on.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

That is Audio Processing Disorder. My hearing is better than most dogs but what my brain does with those sound signals is very different to most people. Neurotypical people can filter other sounds out and focus on a single voice in a crowd, I can't, my brain applies equal priority to every single sound I hear.

It also takes us longer to process meaning from sounds so our responses lag a little. In a one on one situation this lag isn't noticeable but as you add more and more people to the conversation there is more processing required and that lag becomes much more noticeable.

So you try to be part of a group conversation but by the time you've processed everything and want to interject with a comment of your own it's too late and the rest of the conversation has already moved on.

I don't think people have given much consideration to an actual hearing difference much because of how good my hearing is. I remember a conversation before about me perhaps having hearing difficulties because of a different situation (talking too loud), but then the conversation changed to how that doesn't make sense because of me picking up on really low volume sounds that others don't hear. I think any difficulties with following multiple conversations and/or a conversation in an otherwise noisy environment tends to get put off on my ADHD as a distractibility issue, yet no matter how hard I make a point to try to concentrate I still miss a lot in big groups. I'll have to look into that Audio Processing Disorder bit more. Thanks.

 

[Outdated]

...but then the conversation changed to how that doesn't make sense because of me picking up on really low volume sounds that others don't hear.

Correct. You don't have a hearing problem, you have a processing problem.

I was dumbfounded when I first heard about this, it was during my diagnosis. Apparently it's one of the common signs of autism that they look for.

 

[vergil96]

I talked about my hearing issues a number of times here. Yeah. Although it's not like most people's APD. I also don't know any more, hearing aids help and it feels as if the sound is deeper and richer. Apparently this is exactly what mikd hearing loss is like. But certainly I cope a lot worse than is usual for mild hearing loss. APD for sure makes it worse somehow.

Neurotypical people can filter other sounds out and focus on a single voice in a crowd, I can't, my brain applies equal priority to every single sound I hear.

Definitely not my experience. I have large issues with sound clarity. I can't tell the voices apart, no clue what they're saying, even though I should know in theory.

An infuriating experience, you have to be very assertive about any degree of deafness. People say that the disabled argue a lot and are difficult, no wonder if the default is that you have to request your needs all the time or have people walk right over your experiences and deny them.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

So, I was reading that there are 4 different subtypes and that auditory processing disorder can make it hard to follow along and take notes. That could explain some things too. If I am in a setting where note taking is expected, it is very hard to keep up. Even though I do very well with both book learning and hands on learning, I struggle in a setting with lecture based learning.

 

[Outdated]

I can't tell the voices apart, no clue what they're saying, even though I should know in theory.

That's similar to my problem, if two people talk at once I can't distinguish between them, they both blur together and I can't makes sense of any of it. Yet in a crowded bar if someone drops a coin I can tell them what denomination it was and where it rolled to.

That's also part of my problem with phones, I can hear fine until a car drives up my street or a dog barks or someone out in the street starts talking. All the sounds blend together.

 

[vergil96]

Yet in a crowded bar if someone drops a coin I can tell them what denomination it was and where it rolled to.

Oh, me too. The sharp high pitched sounds distinguish themselves a lot. And drive me crazy.

 

[Outdated]

Oh, me too. The sharp high pitched sounds distinguish themselves a lot. And drive me crazy.

Some particular tones cause me extreme pain. It doesn't hurt my ears, it hurts in the middle of my skull like someone's pushing a metal spike through my brain. Small babies squealing isn't something we can do anything about but I'd dearly love to have electric leaf blowers banned.

Many years ago I went around a friend's house and I asked him what was making the high pitched squealing noise. He was shocked, he said humans can't hear that. It was a device that was supposed to deter rats from coming in to your house. I told him I completely understand why the rats don't like it.

 

[Outdated]

Even though I do very well with both book learning and hands on learning, I struggle in a setting with lecture based learning.

Another autistic mistake I made.

Whatever you do don't stick your hand up in the middle of a lecture and say "Sorry sir, but that's wrong." It gets even worse when they demand you prove your point and you do to the satisfaction of the entire class.

 

[vergil96]

It was a device that was supposed to deter rats from coming in to your house. I told him I completely understand why the rats don't like it.

I can hear those too and can't stand them. Too loud.

 

[Outdated]

I can hear those too and can't stand them. Too loud.

Eric didn't believe I could really hear it at first, he asked me to tell him where it was coming from. I followed my ears to his caravan that he had parked just next to his computer room. It wasn't just one tone, it kept warbling up and down across a range.

 

[Outdated]

I can hear those too and can't stand them. Too loud.

Strangely, I used to love the sounds of my old dial up modem.

 

[FayetheADHDsquirrel]

I used to get scared that I was hallucinating when I was little (I have multiple relatives with a schizophrenia diagnosis), but later started tracking the irritating sounds that no one else could hear to their sources. People would be so surprised when I would tell them that a device had been left on, and proceed to follow the sound to it's source where sure enough some radio or TV or something had not been turned entirely off.

 

[Shamar]

I don't really know about other cultures, but in the culture I grew up in (upper middle class US southerner) it is considered wrong or even deviant for people to like and pursue being alone and people are often judged by the company they keep or don't keep. There can be a mentality that something is off about you if you don't have many friendships, or if you aren't always surrounded by people in your orbit, including that you are expected to be very superficial....it was a very superficial culture I grew up in. As an undiagnosed autistic person this arrangement took a toll both physically and mentally. At its worst, I was told it was a sign of mental illness to not want to be around people all the time, sent to social training classes--when the truth is that's where my light comes on. Do you have experiences of people telling you there was something wrong with you for craving and enjoying solitude? Told you you just need to cultivate friends, that you are anti social or that you should be more pleasant in order for people to like you more? Does your culture support solitude? Do you like solitude?

I have the same culture. I have been alone my entire life, even when surrounded by people, including my family. I have never had a friend comment about this, mainly because I never had a friend. Like you, until I was diagnosed, this did take a toll on me, for which I am still paying.

 

[Jumpinbare]

Ditto. Though in my own case, really low frequencies drive me nuts...similar to cigarette smoke.

With me it's the high frequencies.

 

[RemyZee]

Even in Australia preferring to be without company seems a little strange to most people, but then we also have a lot of extremely remote and difficult places to get to and the people that live in those places all tend to be loners.

To your average doctors and head shrinks I'd get diagnosed with depression and social anxiety and all sorts of ridiculous things, to the point that it's a waste of time seeing them unless there's something as obvious as a severed limb that they can see.

Fortunately there's a lot more autism awareness here now and if someone tries to tell me I suffer anxiety I can just laugh in their faces.

I came acrost this essay about autism and mental illness, saying that as a form of neurodivergence, mental illness when it comes to autistic people is adaptive.
Also So many of us who didn't learn early about being autistic have tendencies to accumulate diagnoses, as people constantly see people like us as having something wrong with who we are, so they are always trying to find a cure for autistic people. I have actually wondered how it skews demographics that so many people with autism were, for years, treated and approached for psychological disorders. If you can put a word to it, they think, then you can cure it. For me it wound up in institutionalization basically for being different and for gender differences in a conservative extremist Christian geography. Many people don't have the fortitude, or the sense, to figure out the supposed professionals had no idea what they were talking about.
Autistic Mental Health: Beyond the Pathology Paradigm | Autistic Realms

 

[Aspea]

I don't really know about other cultures, but in the culture I grew up in (upper middle class US southerner) it is considered wrong or even deviant for people to like and pursue being alone and people are often judged by the company they keep or don't keep. There can be a mentality that something is off about you if you don't have many friendships, or if you aren't always surrounded by people in your orbit, including that you are expected to be very superficial....it was a very superficial culture I grew up in. As an undiagnosed autistic person this arrangement took a toll both physically and mentally. At its worst, I was told it was a sign of mental illness to not want to be around people all the time, sent to social training classes--when the truth is that's where my light comes on. Do you have experiences of people telling you there was something wrong with you for craving and enjoying solitude? Told you you just need to cultivate friends, that you are anti social or that you should be more pleasant in order for people to like you more? Does your culture support solitude? Do you like solitude?

I also grew up partly in southern culture and now I am back in the south again. But because my parents were both low on social skills, they didn't interact with many people and thus we as a family never got directly exposed to, or knowingly judged by, the part of the culture that thought that there is something wrong with you if you don't have people around you all the time.

But I am aware of this thinking in the culture.

There is nothing wrong with being alone or isolated and being happy about it and ok with it; it does not mean you are a social deviant or a bad person or secretly a serial killer etc. These silly insinuations come from a part of the culture that is very social, very friendly, extroverted, and they cannot understand how someone can be wired any different.

Now, having said that, I am very thankful that people are so friendly and accepting down here; it makes it easy to talk to people. I have also lived up north, and people there were very closed off and would think you were a weirdo if you talked to someone in the grocery store or in line at the pharmacy. I don't want to live in that culture again.

 

[RemyZee]

Even in Australia preferring to be without company seems a little strange to most people, but then we also have a lot of extremely remote and difficult places to get to and the people that live in those places all tend to be loners.

To your average doctors and head shrinks I'd get diagnosed with depression and social anxiety and all sorts of ridiculous things, to the point that it's a waste of time seeing them unless there's something as obvious as a severed limb that they can see.

Fortunately there's a lot more autism awareness here now and if someone tries to tell me I suffer anxiety I can just laugh in their faces.

Even in Australia preferring to be without company seems a little strange to most people, but then we also have a lot of extremely remote and difficult places to get to and the people that live in those places all tend to be loners.

To your average doctors and head shrinks I'd get diagnosed with depression and social anxiety and all sorts of ridiculous things, to the point that it's a waste of time seeing them unless there's something as obvious as a severed limb that they can see.

Fortunately there's a lot more autism awareness here now and if someone tries to tell me I suffer anxiety I can just laugh in their faces.

Seems like a common experience for those of us who didn't know until later that we were autistic to accumulate at times ridiculous diagnoses in the service of "helping" autistic people. And people universally seem to say it effects our health first to not know that we are autistic, then to be told repeatedly that we ARE something we can't even relate to--for instance, I was "diagnosed" with OCD, but don't relate to that at all. I also just came acrost this article saying that for autistic people mental illness can be adaptive.https://autisticrealms.com/autistic-mental-health-beyond-the-pathology-paradigm/

 

[RemyZee]

Would you all still prefer to be completely alone if you could spend time with someone who shared your most of your special interests?

That is a really good question: I think that if someone else was doing my interest with me it would feel pretty invasive, even if they were equally passionate about it. Crux of it is that being around other people, even when I know them very well, is never relaxing and what I love about my stim is that it is very contemplative and private. But other people in my space always feels a bit invasive, am generally waiting for it to end. Even with my own family, co workers, friends who are like minded. It's just never natural. It is a little different on this page, and I do notice that those of us who describe ourselves as loners also hang out here quite a bit.