Published on 12, July, 2020
My sensory issues feel like mild hallucinations, because I sometimes smell things that other people can't smell.
I have this with sound. The game of is it auditory hallucination, tinnitus, or hearing the electricity/sound no one else can, is rarely a fun one to play.
I have had someone say to me "why is it that you can get so stressed by a sound that I cannot even hear?!". The problem is, just because other people cannot smell or hear what we can, they think we are over reacting. Tinnitus is not fun. When I lay down to sleep at night, I sometimes have a tinnitus that sounds just like the bathroom fan and have to get up to check that it is not actually turned on. Very frustrating!
Do you have the sound issues while you're actually asleep too? I've been woken up by the slight clicking noise that the heating makes turning on if the temperature drops too low in the night, my partner's key in the door downstairs, and I have to turn off the water pump that supplies the flat at night otherwise the humming noise it makes around 3am will wake me up -- and I'm hearing all these sounds through earplugs!
I can't work out if my hearing is sensitive or not. I used to be able to hear my partner chewing in the other room while he couldn't hear me shouting through the wall to him. But I have to have the TV volume quite high or I miss all the dialogue.
I also like to watch things with subtitles, then you can have the volume down to a comfortable level and still not miss what is being said. Do you find adverts to be a problem, as the volume is often so much higher and more aggressive than the programme? I find this with YouTube and always have my finger on the mute button when I see that an advert is coming up. I am the same as you with the screen brightness setting on my Chromebook... I keep trying to turn it lower and it always turns off before I can get it as dim as I want!