Hello everyone.
I'm 56 and for my entire life I have felt different, a couple of years ago I watched a program called "Chris Packham - The walk that made me"
He described how he had been diagnosed with autism in his 40's, and almost everything he described leading up to that was very familiar to me, certain experiences were identical.
I spoke to my GP and was very fortunate to get an assessment quite quickly, which resulted in a diagnosis of ASD.
Day to day most of my symptoms don't affect me much, I'm used to them, and at worst has gained me a reputation for being "Mr Grumpy" which is fine by me.
However I do have 1 issue that really affects me, and that is noise.
If I'm in the office which is open plan, I feel that I can hear and understand every conversation in the room, its normally inane chat about sports or what was on TV last night.
I love loud heavy rock music concerts, but if people around me are chatting I cant help myself tuning in, and it ruins the concert for me. Luckily I dont encounter these vary often, I work from home most of the time since covid, and only visit the office once or twice a month.
My biggest issue on a daily basis is dogs barking, I seem to be surrounded by dogs, in fact we have a dog, but if he is outside and he barks, I bring him in immediately. Partly because in my head I feel that the noise bothers everyone around me the same as it bothers me.
I'm on edge all the time waiting for barking, our neighbours have a dog, and I find myself constantly checking to see if their back door is open, because the next thing will be barking.
It may only last a few mins, so is not unreasonable, but every time its like being physically assaulted, I get a massive rush of adrenaline.
I have spent a fortune over the years on earplugs, but they dont work, I just find myself, straining to see if I can hear the noise.
As an example I remember a few years ago a neighbour was having a party (another big trigger for me) I went to bed and I could hear the bass from the music, again not unreasonably loud, but still I can hear it. I put some ear plugs in and eventually after about an hour managed to get to sleep. I woke at about 2am strained to see if I could still hear the thud thud thud of the music, and I thought I could, I got up and looked out of the window to see what was happening, and it was all quiet and in darkness, which was when I realized the noise I could hear was our cat lying on our bed purring, and immediately the rage vanished.
I have recently referred myself for talking therapies, and had my 1st appointment, the therapist suggested coming on here to see if anyone has similar issues, and can suggest coping strategies, other than going to live in a cave on an uninhabited island somewhere.
Thanks
