Resently diagnosed 20 year old daughter with confusing sound sensitivity

Thank you. The more I read about people's experiences and behaviours, my daughter's is making more sense, and I can definitely see how I must have seemed to her with my inability to understand her. As you mentioned, I too, thought she was rude to me and her father, and her siblings, and it was inexcusable at the time. I feel that she was more free at home to express how she truly felt, and not hide it and mask it as she did when in public. Thank you again

You will learn that one Autistic person is completely different from another. We are similar, just not the same. Feeling like your daughter is pretending is very familiar. I thought my daughter was acting up sometimes, or making a fuss over something she could previously handle, or was just rude because she could be! But no, it was just differing parts of her nature coming out in new ways. She was younger, then, and we’ve both learnt a lot over the years.

Thank you very much. Yes I will follow her, and I will keep on reading here and informing myself. I really appreciate it.

Glad this all helps! I’d follow this woman: https://instagram.com/thearticulateautistic?utm_medium=copy_link or just look at her posts every now and then. They’re quite informative. 

Thank you so much for all your replies. You have made things so much clearer for me. It has been very difficult for me to understand how she feels. We do have big discussions about everything, however, I found it very hard to find information specific to my daughter, or similar. Most information I could find was generalised, or perhaps I didn't know where to look. I searched for a phone number, so that I could speak to someone but I couldn't find anything so I registered with this site, and I am glad I did. I am being kind but all this started very quickly and at times I thought she was pretending for attention. Anything about sound sensitivity that I could find, from what I understood said that some like quiet and some like noise. I couldn't find anything about people with autism who will listen to their own music loud, or won't be affected by loud music when they feel happy. This is a new journey for her and our whole family. She already has ear plugs and ear phones she uses, and I always tell her before I make noise, like vacuum or put the blender on, and always turn music down or off while we are in the car. I am so glad I asked for help here, and I am very grateful for each of your answers. I am trying to be more understanding, and I feel a weight lifted and relief in knowing that I can always ask for help here. Thank you all again very very much.

It’s absolutely possible & makes perfect sense to me. I’m the same with music especially. It depends on a lot of things - but in regards to noise, for me it’s mostly about control. If I’m choosing to listen to music I can have it at the volume that’s best for me. Often blasting music can be a way of blocking out all the other noises that bother me. It also feels good in my body, and is one of the only ways I’m able to relax.

With the cinema, I go in expecting it to be loud. I can prepare myself. But unexpected noise, especially when it’s an odd pitch like even sometimes an irritating low whispering, or noise that I can’t do anything about can be unbearable. For example, I can always hear the sound of my fridge whining even though it’s very quiet, but it drives me up the wall!! 
It may be that since she’s started learning about autism, she’s become more aware of her own traits and what bothers her, and is starting to accommodate her own needs (like muffling noise).

From personal experience, I’d say please do take her word for it. She has no reason to say those things bother her other than they do. It can seem odd to those who don’t experience it, I get that. But she’s definitely not picking & choosing what bothers her. It depends on so many different variables. Every autistic person is very different. As the saying goes ‘if you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met one autistic person.’ My mother didn’t believe or try to understand the way I acted growing up, and our relationship is much worse off for it. I have some recommendations of books about autism if you’d like to try reading them? I’d definitely recommend learning as much as you can & getting as many different perspectives from autistic folks as possible! 

Ask her what you can do to help, be mindful of her surroundings. Look out for things like bright lighting, a lot of people talking at once, very strong smells etc. They can be very difficult to deal with. (Although it’s not always these things, it can be anything even something that seems very small). To me those things can feel physically painful, and cause me to be really distressed/angry. If I’m in a crowded place for example, and I’m carrying too much, there’s too many people around me, I start to feel too hot & I can feel a tag sticking into my neck, it can easily cause me to meltdown.
If she seems to be struggling, ask if there’s anything she needs to be more comfortable. Just checking in with her and making her feel heard. Let her take her time, and any support you can give her to help her figure herself out, what her triggers may be and how best to deal with them, can make a big difference. 

As for twitching her hands, it could be a lot of things but it might be that she’s stimming. Stimming is self stimulatory behaviour; we all do it, things like shaking your leg, biting your pen or nails etc. But autistic people can stim differently, such as flapping our hands & jumping up and down, wringing or moving our hands/fingers a lot, even singing and dancing in certain ways can be a stim. It’s just a different way that we express ourselves, release energy, self soothe or regulate our emotions. It’s perfectly normal though :-) 

(apologies for such a long comment, I hope this helps somewhat) 

She can learn to be kind about this though.

Being a mother, I would buy her ear plugs or even nice head phones for her birthday - something to wear in the car and allow her to put them on when she needs to. It's OK to not like a thing. It's also not necessary to be unkind about it. What's important is to learn to articulate what the specific element is, the effect it's having and to separate what is painful from what is personally distasteful. 

For instance, IF the physics of sound were a oppressive, like a a harsh frequency which damages the hairs and can cause permanent loss at those frequencies - usually between 1kH - 5000, or the high pitched tone sound editors use in TV shows now for dramatic effect (which I turn the sound off for), download a frequency application. Or the loudness level, which can cause deafness, download a decibel level reader. These present hard scientific evidence of sound as a weapon. She could present this in a situation were it imperative. But if it's someone singing off key, or an awkward "mode" - like something foreign (I'm not a fan of microtones), or an artist she doesn't like, it may be more suitable to practice techniques to breathe through it and politely exit without causing offence.

It is Absolutely important she learn the difference and also important you never take offence with her, just continue to present ways to practice negotiating a new song or station. Find ways to be funny even! I've had to practice for years and better to have a patient mum to help learn than be shunned by society when we are internally - dramatically affected.  Everyone must learn fun ways to suffer for a minute with something aesthetically unappealing. No one should be forced to suffer harm.

But the better equipped she is at recognising the difference and taking a moment to collect her self and negotiate her way through or out, the better prepared she will be for far more difficult things the world may throw at her.

However, being autistic we are incredibly impacted by sensory elements. That impact can then cause immediate reactionary responses. It took me a very long time to learn to simply say "oh wow, give me a minute" and calm down, work out a response, etc.. Because I will always need a minute or days to recollect myself from impact - even in my mid 40s.

I don’t think this is confusing.

From my own point of view, I like my OWN music very loud.

As a child, I’d sit by the speakers at events where music (my tastes) was played. I liked the loud thumps of the bass going through my body.

But if I hear a genre I don’t like, which is someone else’s tastes, I cannot abide it. It grates on my nerves, and I feel very agitated. Often I will just exit the room. It doesn’t have to be loud for me to find it irritating.

I can go to the cinema, but often, some of the film is too loud. Again, this makes me uneasy and agitated, but I can cope, as it’s not the same ‘loudness’ volume for the entire film. 
I think because a lot of autistic people have excellent hearing, we can hear things inside sounds that others can’t. We can also hear things in the distance, like alarms that other people can’t notice, for example.

It’s not the volume it’s the tone and pitch of the sound that can be an issue. I can hear almost ultrasonic pitches that no one else can and they’re horribly screechy,  it might be something like that rather than being too loud