Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
my mother has always been a lover of animals, and we have always had some sort of pet within our home, especially dogs. I am now an adult but I still live at home and support my family financially. I have a particular sensitivity when it comes to my senses of sound and touch, finding loud noises or persistent unwanted noise to irritate me greatly and cause an intense anger response. I've never really acted upon these feelings, instead I have become quite proficient in bottling them up and appearing relatively normal on the surface, however the sensation is so strong that it tends to cause me to shutdown after too long.
we used to have 3 dogs; 2 smaller dogs that were more of my mum's dogs, and 1 big border collie, Ozzie, who was practically my best friend. He made me see the best in dogs, and was one of the only sources in my life who made me feel unconditionally loved. however, he had to get put down earlier this year and i was devastated. following this, i've started to dislike our small dogs more and more, without Ozzie being there to remind me of the good. Shortly after he was put down, my mum bought herself a third small dog without first asking me whether or not I was ready and willing to attach to a new dog, and now I've been expected to train and dog-sit them even though I wasn't given the opportunity to accept these responsibilities. She had never trained the previous two and is making very little effort to train the third, so I am now having to try tolerate 3 uncontrolled, whining, screeching, barking, and biting dogs without my head exploding.
A result of this frustrating situation is that my willingness to tolerate my sensory issues with the dogs has decreased. I've made my mum aware of how uncomfortable and upset I get when the dogs, especially now that I've received my diagnosis, but instead of finding ways to train her dogs to behave properly and respond to commands to get them to calm down, I am expected to just simply tolerate it and try to out-reason my disability and sensory issues, with her responses being like: "but you need to understand they're just dogs", "you need to understand they're just anxious", "you need to understand they're just playing", or "you need to just learn to tune them out".
What about my anxiety?
What about my feelings?
what about my enjoyment?
What about my diagnosed disability, which explains that I can't tune these noises out?
it upsets me to see the dog's feelings being more valued than mine, surely the more easily controlled variable is the dogs temper, rather than my autism? suppressing my responses in these situations is profoundly uncomfortable and will surely wreak havoc on my mental health, even more than it already has.
Has anyone else here been in a similar situation? do you guys think that I'm in the right? have you any advice on how to approach this situation and improve my quality of life, even though I've already told my mum about this multiple times? How do I learn to process these feelings in a more healthy manner, in order to avoid potentially hours of rage and discomfort?
This has ended up being a very lengthy post, so I appreciate anyone who took the time to read it and respond. Thanks
Here’s an update to the situation; she has now obtained a 4th dog, and only gave me 15-30 minutes of notice before it arrived.
Oh no that is bad and totally unreasonable.
I would say you need to be firm that you will no longer train or dog sit them.
Have you found the ear defenders helped to block out the noise? Based upon my experience they just dampen it and the noise sensitivity gets worse the longer you are exposed to it.
I think in your situation I would be exploring options for moving out.
I bought some compact ear defenders which aren’t the strongest, they dampen the noise but they don’t give quite the relief I was hoping for and they get uncomfortable after a while. I could combine my ear buds with the defenders but that would be a lot of pressure on my ears and head at once.
I was really quite angry when she told me a new dog was coming, I didn’t know when or how long we would have her. And it was such a shock to me that I couldn’t construct a coherent response at the time, instead I just went mute. The owner turned up shortly after that and I’ve had to help look after her since. Additionally, the dog is very anxious and barks at any new person she meets or noise she hears outside, which leads to all 4 dogs running out into the garden going ballistic.
Moving out is something that weighed heavily on my mind when the new dog came, but unfortunately I don’t think my mum could afford to live in our home without my assistance financially. You’d think in that case my opinion would be much more respected around here.
It could be that the sensory overload at home is making you less tolerant of noise at work. I know my sensitivity to noise is hugely elevated in all settings at the moment.
It would be a shame if you have to give up your job. Have you tried approaching your employers to discuss any reasonable adjustments that could be made to make the sensory environment less overwhelming for you?
I don't know if it is just that my ear defenders aren't very good, but they hardly seem to have any impact on the sharp noise of the barking. I hate the way they clamp tightly over my head. It seems to amplify all of my internal body sensations. When I get the intense physical reaction to the barking it becomes so overwhelming I have to take them off. Also every footstep reverberates if I try to walk while wearing them.
Like you I don't enjoy using anything in or over my ears for long. If I've tried combining ear plugs with over ear solutions, but not really found anything that works so far. I'm currently deliberating whether or not to spend a lot more money on some better quality noise cancelling headphones.
It's understandable that you reacted the way you did. I'm the same, in that I can go mute and not know what to do or say if something unexpected happens. You have a right to be angry when your mum had already been made aware of how the dogs make you feel.
I feel sorry for you and your neighbours. Having 4 dogs going ballistic must be a nightmare. I think even non autistic people would find that hard to tolerate. One going ballistic in my neighbours garden is bad enough!
You are being very considerate towards you mum and it's a pity that kind of empathy isn't reciprocated to you. By continuing to contribute to the household finances you are enabling her to acquire more dogs and the resultant ongoing cost of feeding them.
Please try and put your own needs first for the sake of your health and wellbeing.
Unfortunately I may have to leave my job due to significant sensory issues and socialising aspects. But I’m looking into the ADP that’s recently started in Scotland, so if I can get that then it’ll at least prevent me from using up all of my savings whilst I figure all this out.
I'd start looking into the mechanics and practicalities of moving out if I were you, now.
Don't say anything just start doing it. Let others ask you why you are doing budgets, looking into benefits and assistance etc. then tell them using the clearest and bluntest (but not offensive) language that you can muster.