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?
I find that what a lot of people would consider silence isn't silent to me, because I can hear all the little tiny noises they can tune out- something I now realise is a fairly common autistic experience. Those little noises can really get on my nerves if it's already a bad day.
I find that what works best for me is just having one noise happening. It's genuinely easier for me to listen to loud heavy metal that drowns out all the unexpected/unpredictable stuff than it is for me to sit here in 'silence' while the pipes clank!
I get asked the question, “ why do you listen to music with your earphones when you hate noise?” It’s easy, it’s one noise, I’m not trying to filter it and know what comes next. I went on holiday last year, there was live music in the evening, I started to spike, the music was fine, the chiller unit behind the bar was driving me insane.
Roy said:It’s easy, it’s one noise, I’m not trying to filter it and know what comes next.
Yes, it's exactly the same for me- I know what it is and what will happen next, and that requires a lot less processing power than trying to constantly manage new sensory input.
I go to the village pub on a Friday evening with my wife, I understand that she wants to go out and mix with people. We always go quite early, before all the foodie people start coming in, what becomes hard isn’t the general buzz of voice, it’s the fact I can hear every conversation clearly. Trying to process all that is too much and to be honest, most of them just talk about nothing. It’s then home time.