Published on 12, July, 2020
I am most comfortable with complete silence.
I wonder if this is the autism at play?
When I was growing up our house was always noisy and I think I was traumatised by it.
There were no quiet refuges - I even shared a bedroom until I left home.
My mum had to have sound on all the time. I believe she was autistic but I think she had an under sensitivity to noise, which I'm pretty sure I've read can also be an autism thing.
Then I had a series of shared flats, which were noisy, then bedsits until I purchased a quiet flat in my 30s.
Then I lived in a nice Victorian house on my own which still had some noise, as it was on a busy road in Portsmouth and terraced.
Nowadays I am lucky.
The last 15 years I have lived in a very quiet detached house where once the windows are closed there is no outside (or inside often) noise at all.
My husband is a quiet person + spends a lot of time in his studio outside.
It's taken me a long time to get to this quiet place in my life - I am now 61.
How do you respond to noise/silence?
The older I get, the more sustained silence I need to function. While I do listen to things a fair bit (I couldn't do the dishes or iron without an audiobook or podcast), I keep a low volume and anything with very dense sound (I don't mean texture or intricacy, which I do very much like - more sort of heavy, cluttered sound, like rock music background tracks) I can only take in small doses and would need regular breaks from. Sound that I can't control is the biggest challenge.
Like you, Debbie, my parental home always had, and retains, a fairly busy, fussy air to it and occasional refuge from at least some form of ambient complexity had to be grabbed when it could. In some ways (and if mood-matched to it with more 'spoons' ) it was nice that my dad liked to play his favourite music loud (too loud though) when the notion seized him, but that could be for many hours. He also took up the banjo, which was great therapy for him I think - his own way to stim I suppose, if there's an ND component to him- but that instrument has a way of getting to even the furthest reaches of the house. It gave him pleasure, and may do again if he ever gets well enough, which is the main thing. But I'm so glad I have my own place now.
I think often it's volume, more than sound itself, that really drains me. Most people seem to crank stuff up loud and that appears to be part of the enjoyment for them. Though, for me, the more I'm processing LOUD the less bandwidth I have to tune into the intricacies of a music track's construction, etc. which is where the added value experience tends to lie, for me.
I would be really interested to know how you get on with them, I keep considering them myself but worry they will make my ears itch like the silicone earplugs I bought before
I've just ordered those 'flares' earpod things for dampening down sound to an extent, so will see what those are like when they turn up.