Coping with sensory overload every day/stress

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Hi everybody, I wondered if anybody could give me some advice. I feel like I'm really reaching the end of my tether.

Every day these past few weeks I have come home from a new job, which requires me to leave house 4 days a week, in a state of extreme stress and rage. It's the traffic, all the cars, the movement, the noise, policemen whistling, ringtones beeping, people smoking right next to me, tasting pollution in my mouth... I was at the gym recently and I passed a weight from one hand to another and then felt shocked as a sudden cloud of aluminum-smell appeared in the air. I feel overwhelmed all the time, like I'm in a constant state of pain, because it is painful, a constant state of anger at all these people for making so much noise etc. feeling like the temperature is either too hot or too cold... I am seriously stressed out all the time, have come home crying on numerous times and last night I honestly felt I cannot cope living like this for the rest of my life.

I made an appointment with an Occupational Therapist but she said she couldn't help me now I'm an adult. Another has told me that's wrong, and last week I emailed her all my symptoms, and called her, but I'm still waiting for a reply/appointment. I have been getting massages the last two weekends, which helps, until Monday... I go to the gym twice a week and just get even more revved up. I have been on 5-htp and Inositol and B vitamins for months now, but I increasingly feel that depression is not the original problem, it's the sensory overload which is making me stressed and depressed and isolated, because I'm so distressed I can't face talking with anyone anymore most days. I carry earplugs at all times, but I try to use the MP3 so as not to increase sensitivity. I occasionally wear sunglasses even though the light doesn't hurt me, just to reduce the sight of movement etc. I am even thinking of buying an anti-pollution facemask but I fear this will breach the limits of subtlety.

I don't know what to do. Does anybody have any advice or can tell me they did something and it worked for them, just to give me hope? I can honestly say the one thing I have avoided trying until now is medication, because I have been told nothing can help sensory issues. I am now in the process of trying to make an appointment with the psychiatrist at the autism centre to see his opinion on this subject. Would medication help or will it just get me addicted to tranquilisers?

I am reading 'too fast too loud too bright' and trying to develop my own sensory diet, but honestly I really don't know what I'm doing or what i should. I would be so grateful if anyone could recommend anything. Thanks.

You sound a lot like me before I started taking my antidepressant. Now I have been taking amitriptyline for 19 years. I too was at the end of my tether. My family doctor prescribed mine. Like you I couldn't have made it much longer without it.

I think that a lot of us, here, are focusing on selfhelp and our internal dialogue, to accommodate an outward reality, which we can never find pleasant, no matter how many drugs we take, or how much counseling. It might be difficult or impossible, but the objective should be to change our living standards, at times, or just acknowledge that you're uncomfortable.