Published on 12, July, 2020
My teenage daughter is awaiting diagnosis of ASD due to a number of different issues.
But one of the problems she has is that she can hear any tiny noise, even noises other people cannot hear, and hates bright light.
The noise issue is the hardest one to help her with as it is small noises that she can hear, so I try to be as quiet as I can and not rattle things or make unneccessary noises, but sometimes small sounds just can't be avoided, like my joints cracking or the sound of a page turning, or a pen on paper. It's impossible to be totally silent.
She does play music or watch tv quite loudly and even likes subtitles on so as not to miss a thing.
She goes to senior school and has to deal with the noises there which she does find overwhelming and so comes home tired and irritable.
I do understand that hearing these noises causes her distress and I wondered how other people who have such sensitive hearing are dealing with this?
We all have hypersensitivity, of all of our senses. When our senses are being assaulted, either by too much or too many, we go into overload and can meltdown if we can't quickly reduce it. At difficult times, I use either ear defenders or headphones (with music - music is IMPORTANT) to cut out the background noise.
This is the short version of a complex equation.
If I have more than one noise going on, let's say the telly is on and someone is speaking, I don't hear anything other than a combined and overwhelming noise, which quickly builds to an oppressive level.Believe it or not, a single source of loud noise can actually be helpful - there's only one and it drowns out the rest.
It isn't 'noise' as such that is the issue with sudden loud noises, it is the sudden. The pain is real, and physical, and shocking. To give you an analogy, you would experience the same effect if someone unexpectedly crept up behind you and hit you hard with a cricket bat. How angry would YOU be if someone or thing suddenly assaulted you? The angry reaction is perfectly normal, for us.
It is a given that our hypersensitive senses necessarily pick up things that 'normies' don't notice. Hence, we see small things that others don't. We smell smells that others can't detect. We feel irritation from 'normal' clothes (so textures are very important) and too much, or the wrong kind of, light. As for food, well you've got the combined taste/texture thing there...
I keep my curtains closed all of the time to keep the light levels down. I use low power bulbs but often prefer to sit with the light off. I use lamps rather than the main ceiling lights. If I am out, I wear shades a lot. I avoid noisy and/or busy places.
The best thing you can do is listen to your daughter, read and research, and talk to us on here so that you gain an understanding, but the most important thing is that your daughter gains an understanding and identifies those strategies that help her to cope. It is very important that others help her to fulfill those strategies, but they don't necessarily have to know why, just that it's necessary, for instance if she needs a quiet refuge to use at school.
Hope this helps give you a better picture of what goes on for us, it's everything, everwhere, all of the time. Even WE can't predict, so if she behaves one way one time, and the opposite way another time, this, for us, is also normal.
It's all about reducing the sensory inputs, so use whatever she is comfortable with using, to combat whatever the current superirritation is. If she has choices and is made to feel comfortable with using them, so much the better.
Don't forget that ALL teenagers have a 'credibility' button - it not only has to work, it has to look 'cool' in front of her peers. On the other hand, her self-care should be encouraged, teenage is a bad time to be singled out as 'different', but if the difference can be presented as her 'individual style', and she can carry it off, all good! School needs to make allowances for her specific needs and should be overt about being seen to do so. It's an anti disability discrimination issue.