Noise?

This is why God invented sensory headphones to block out all of these devilishly evil noises.  

If you don't have some definitely invest in some they are life savers for me.

wow. that's a great story. I have had similar experiences. I didn't remember much other than shaking and rocking after such events. I learned to reserve the violence to inanimate objects after receiving punishment for directing it toward an adult when I was a child. I was very frustrated as a child and would look for things that I could secretly smash and kept a catalogue of them for when I might need them. I catch myself doing that now sometimes and feeling puzzled by why I do it. I had forgotten. Thank you for reminding me of this part of my covered-over past. I have much more control over sensory input now. Some noises, If i cant escape them, feel like being physically assaulted.

This was the bane of my life but, somewhat bizarrely, a meltdown seems to have fixed it for me.

My neighbour’s son would kick his football off the fence between our gardens or against the side of the house for hours on end. It had me near tears so many times. I even rearranged my house to try to be away from it and took to wearing my headphones a lot more.

But one dinner time the ball was going bang bang bang again and I was getting very wound up then the ball came over the fence and hit my window. I went straight out, threw the ball back over and calmly said that I was sick of then noise and this would be the last time he’d be getting his ball back.

Two minutes later an angry father arrived at my door, ready to give me his opinion of me. He didn’t get a chance. I’m a small quietly spoken person. He is a tall noisy person. But a torrent of pure rage came out of me and he basically fled. I don’t even remember anything after it. My brother witnessed it all and said he walked me back to the sofa and I just sat there completely blank for a while afterwards.

But the ball kicking has stopped.

It's actually very comfortable. One shapes the putty into a fat oblong shape. This goes around the outside of ear opening, pressed around and shaped to seal off the noise. Never inside the ear. The only good ones are silicon which is very nice on the skin. I still use them for sleeping.

I like the sounds of kids playing. But not screeching, drives me crazy. I can't stand electronic beeping noises. I have that Google Assistant on my phone that goes off accidentally now and then and it really makes me angry. I can't stand the noise it makes.

That, is a very cool story!! Kudos to your uncle. I couldn't borrow him could I......!

I have an uncle that used to work as a coach driver. It's going back several decades, but there was a boy on the coach with a penny whistle making an absolute racket. My uncle stopped the coach, marched up to the boy and broke the whistle in half, much to the shock and stunned relief of the other passengers. 

Hope you find a way to deal with the noise!

I don't think kids now are any better or worse than they were when I grew up in the 70s and 80s.  Ever were there the noisy, boisterous kids, but being a shy, retiring type, labelled a swot, geek, nerd, I kept away from them as I suspect did many of us.   As for them having a whistle, that sounds old school! There was always a whistle in one of the Christmas crackers when I was growing up.  I guess complaining about the noise makes a change from people complaining about them being glued to their phones which is the standard older generation gripe these days.

Someone else mentioned more ADHD which is surely to do with greater awareness. Ever were there the kids described as hyperactive or 'naughty', my memory from the time is that a lot then was blamed on E numbers in food and lead in petrol, or too much television.   Had there been more awareness of autism I probably would've been diagnosed before I hit my teens rather than in my early 50s.  

So, yep, it's a pain and we need to find ways to cope and co-exist but ever was it thus in my view.

I think that at age 53 myself, having grown up in a rural area opposite a primary school in Ireland, being 30 years in supermarket retailing and living 21 years on a Manchester Council Estate, it’s a generational and cultural thing - children these days have far less respect than they used to in my day and parents have simply given up trying to discipline their children for fear of prosecution for attempting to do so - barking dogs is the biggest problem here and the council take the view that it’s the person who is making the complaint whose own perceptions of noise is wrong when one goes down the formal route of making a complaint about this form of ASB where they also maintain that people have no right to make any complaints about noise, because they just can’t be bothered to properly investigate the problem as an important part of crime prevention and more serious issues arising, of which noise and other forms of ASB are a warning sign - I simply gave up trying to do anything about it and now wear noise cancelling headphones all the time 

Unfortunately unless you live on a hill in the middle of nowhere, there's always gonna be a fair amount of noise, living amongst other people packed in like sardines is hard work! Wearing headphones inside your house seems pretty much inevitable really unless you can somehow switch off or screen it out. My partner can screen things out, and sleep through a hurricane! But I can't screen anything out, I hear a pin drop half a mile away!!!

I was thinking what sounds are okay if any, we have a cockerel crowing nearby, that's ok and kind of reassuring, same house also have a big crowd of ducks quacking, that's reassuring too, I worry if I don't hear them now!  But the noise of human beings and their activities is just painful somehow!

Where I live is really quiet and always loved it for that reason, however in the last few weeks a neighbour has concreted their front garden and they now sit out there all the time and then have a young child. It’s just general noise of chatting, laughing and the child playing, nothing offensive but I’ve found it really unsettling. I don’t know if it’s just the change in noise level that I need to get used to or just that I really struggle with background noise. I really don’t want to be wearing earplugs in my own home! 

I can’t imagine how much children screaming and whistles blowing would aggravate me! No wonder your head is mashed! 

I think i know the sound of pretty much every tool used around when work is done a n impact driver close is bad but worse is stihl chainsaws and sthil saws 

Ear putty sounds painful...

oh yea, and the little trucks that idle outside for ever. Most maintenance noise puts me on edge.

But.. I can close the windows, doors etal and put on those magic headphones.

I used to use ear putty before they existed (headphones that is).

Yeah, because the music coming through the tannoy is rarely something you'd actually choose to listen to either so a double assault!  There's a lot going on in the supermarket senses-wise. I see people walking about with big chunky headphones on sometimes, I'd feel too paranoid and self-conscious to do that!

Yes, the dreaded leaf blower is awful, the strimmers are even worse. You get a fine day here and two dozen people are all mowing and/or strimming at the same time! (disgusting) all with petrol driven mowers/strimmers so the stink is an abomination too

I was thinking as well how other noises upset me a lot

Like supermarket music playing in the background.. I find that really complex and overwhelming sometimes espech when there's so much noise from people.

I noticed this yesterday.

I use noise canceling headphones, sometimes ALL day. The sound that most drives me to distraction is the leaf blower, along with the smell of gas and exhaust. I have not lived around children very often, other then as a child, by design. The ones of my youth were very noisy, indeed.  I just stayed away till it came time to turn the tv on and they all fell more or less silent. I lived my days and afternoons out in the middle of nowhere alone with the animals and pants. I walked the cow paths and foot paths, the roads and the stream beds. That was heaven and no one even noticed I was gone. In Hawaii the children are, overall, very sensitive and solicitous towards older people, very different from anywhere else I have ever lived. Iy is a very precious culture.

My uncle had tinnitus for years, it really made everything in life so much harder, he could never really tell what anyone was saying other than my auntie, she had to be kind of an interpreter, somehow he was used to her voice. Very isolating as with any hearing problems. I feel for you.   It's hard enough dealing with external noises.

I do find some pitches of noise intolerable, I have tinnitus so the higher range can feel like putting a knitting needle in my ears. I was in a Supermarket last night and a young girl was doing the high pitched scream and properly going into one, I thought actually I shouldn’t judge, maybe a young autistic person, mum finally said, “ okay you can have the chocolate,” immediately the behaviour stopped and my suspicions of autism stopped as well. The reward wouldn’t stop a meltdown, it was a tantrum or manipulating behaviour.