• Replies 3 replies
  • Subscribers 69 subscribers
  • Views 1136 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

Not liking the noise because of the sound or when anxious?

NAS84722

Hi, just wanting your thoughts. When noise gets too much, whether it’s too loud or you don’t like a certain sound or it’s a particular environment. Is it the noise or can it be because your anxious?. Can some people hear the same noise and it bother them some days and not others? Depending on how anxious you are?. 

  • It's important to pay attention to and listen to your senses. We might not always understand what we're "picking up", as even matters of sound are incredibly specialised and require a good dive into physics to understand acoustics, and the impact on human beings. There are valuable reasons for liking or disliking sound and sometimes they can trigger deeper signals better understood by an anthropologist. But first, allow room for validity. If it isn't actually connected to something harmful, and you'd like to get past it, sometimes we can. But other times, it won't change and removing the source is the best course.

    Sometimes sounds are also a combination of something unpleasant compounded with social cruelties.

    I personally find crisp packets and crunching in a library sensationally an assault - it's not just rude, it sends domineering messages. And if a male is doing this, depending on how he's raised, no woman could ask him to take it outside, which makes it even more irritating. 

  • Yes, that's definitely how it is for me. A horrible noise is still horrible whatever the circumstances, but if I'm already anxious or close to a meltdown it's much harder to cope with the noise on top of everything else.

  • Yes absolutely it can be variable. 

    If anxiety is high to start with then the person is even more hypervigilant to noise. They will notice it more and likely find it more intolerable. Anxiety about the noise can also be a factor. If an autistic person is going into an environment where they have been exposed to intolerable noise before then they are much more likely to be anxious about going back into that same environment.

    The person may learn to internalise or mask their natural reaction to the noise in certain situations, not wanting to draw attention to themselves or perhaps to appear 'normal'. There is a limit to how much this can happen before building up to a meltdown. To the casual observer a person may appear fine one day and then react violently to the same sound the next day. It may be that is just the final trigger, releasing the build up of stress and emotions.

    If an autistic person is suffering from burnout that can decrease their tolerance to noise and specific sounds.

    If the person has achieved a state of hyper focus in a special interest they may not be quite as aware of the noise and therefore appear to tolerate it more.