Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello all.
I'm awaiting an assessment for diagnosis, it's a 27 month wait list and my god am I struggling. I find my main struggles are sounds. I'm struggling to sleep because things are waking me, cars on the road, dogs barking, others in the house moving around.....the smallest of things. I've got white noise playing when I sleep and also sometimes have ear plugs in. If I'm at home and sat watching TV etc and I hear a dog bark, loud car pass my house etc it really triggers me, I can only describe it as making me feel ill and angry. I hate these feelings. Not sure what I can do. There's a list of other things too but the sounds is definitely the worst! Any advice would be so appreciated
Thanks
Lois
I can relate to what so many of you have said and I am being driven crazy by certain sounds. It is no exaggeration to say that it is controlling my life and it's good that there are people here who understand.
With me it is mainly the more high pitched sounds that really get to me. Like those yappy dogs already mentioned, also screaming children and those reversing bleepers that seem to be on constantly around building sites. They trigger an instant angry and anxious response in me and have resulted in some epic meltdowns recently. It's like the more I'm exposed to a particular noise the worse my reaction gets the next time it happens.
It is a constantly struggle for me and at this time of year especially it is having a severe negative impact upon my quality of life. Every time I leave or enter my house or get a delivery it seems to set at least one of the local dogs off. The more dogs and children are outside the more I retreat and stay inside. Even then I cannot block out the noise completely and I hate having to keep my doors and windows shut to try and block it out. I am regularly awoken by the dog barking and that heightens my anger and anxiety, to the extent that I cannot calm down all day. As others have said I also become angry at myself for reacting so extremely.
I have tried Samsung earbuds and some cheaper noise cancelling headphones, but I did not find the noise cancelling effect of either to have much impact on the dog yapping. I've also tried various earplugs and ear defenders or even both together. The best I've achieved so far is a dampening of the noise. However it is still enough to invoke an instantaneous anger / anxiety response in me. Then what happens is the headphones or ear defenders seem to amplify internally my own heart pounding and the noise of the blood rushing inside my head. I experience further sensory overload from that and have to take them off.
I'm going to invest in a pair of top of the range noise cancelling headphones and hope that they work better. If anyone has any recommendations that would be appreciated.
It's got to the stage where I'm going to have to move for my own sanity and wellbeing. The trouble is where can I go that there won't be any of the things that upset me so much? More and more people seem to be getting those yappy rat dogs since the pandemic. Even the ones who had them before are now leaving them out in their gardens more, as they are working from home all day. Every house I view seems to have one of those giant trampolines in the neighbouring garden, guaranteeing hours of noise from screaming children. Unfortunately I don't think there is much demand for lighthouse keepers these days.
Maybe the autistic community should inhabit our own village in the middle of nowhere. We could set the rules and not allow any yappy dogs, screaming children, motorbikes, vehicles with reversing bleepers, etc
Have you tried corded earplugs? they dampen everything farther than 2m, if it is closer you can hear it normally, muffled a bit
Yes I have these ones and I always take some when I go out.
I like that they are really quick to put in when needed. However they don't dampen the noise anywhere near as much as I would like and I still seem to get the reaction.
it's two sides of the coin:
it gets more sensitive, passing annoyance threshold
because of that increase brain is getting more precise data and is identifying things with higher accuracy
calibration of how brain interprets signals from senses, it's messed up for us in childhood, it looks like it finally happens after 40 :P
I could not tell notes apart unless they were half of an octave away from each other
now I recognise classical music pieces I like after I hear first 5 notes sometimes
it's another of my hypothesis
Yes I have some of the other sensory issues you mention but nowhere near as bad as my sensitivity to noise.
I'm sure it's getting worse as I get older (I'm in my early 50s). I think I read somewhere that people do get less tolerant of noise as they age. For autistic people that's going to have a lot more impact, as we're very intolerant to start with.
I don't recall a time in my life where noise has bothered me so much since primary school, where I used to get extremely distressed from the noise of the other children screaming and squealing in the playground.