How do you respond to sensory overload?

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I'm curious if anyone has found a solution for auditory sensory overload caused by people talking at them, such as during a meeting. I find this even more overloading than The Sweet Sounds of Walmart.

somehow, not long after entering grade school, i taught myself to withdraw from the environment & focus on my thoughts exclusively. much later, i found this has a name: pratyahara

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pratyahara

i think it started when i was trying to read in a noisy environment. it's a kind of trance, & the longer i'm in it the deeper i go. i am not unaware of what's going on around me, more like i totally ignore what it means. it helps to have a mental process going on, whether doing math, playing with words (anagrams, palindromes), or constructing some other thoughtform. i can also do it with remembering.

to a degree this is like the shutting-down kind of "meltdowns"; & in truth, until considerable emotional distress i feel a great need to go somewhere quiet (& preferably dark)--in fact i can feel it starting by itself, kind of like standing on a slope that gets steeper. the difference, if there is a difference, is when i do it voluntarily it has a pleasant quality, akin to drunkenness.

emily dickinson has numerous poems, i believe, about the same experience.

Hi everyone. I've found this thread interesting. I'm an NT who recently has had brain surgery. Since then I have had issues with auditory overload. I work in an environment where there is roughly 200 people around me all talking at once. After the operation, returning to that environment was very challenging, it took all my strength not to yell at people to shut up (even though I know that is not possible given the environment in which we work). I've been back at work now for 2 months, so have managed to realise when I am starting to get agitated by the noise. It was also an issue when I was being asked to do several things at once, my brain could not focus on more than one thing at a time (prior to the operation I was excellent at multitasking, and again, this is something that is improving as the swelling of my brain goes down.

The reason I am posting this is that I had an episode of auditory overload last night when I was at a social gathering. There was a lot of people there, several conversations going on in front of me and behind me. I've had issues at social gatherings in the past (prior to the operation) but that's due to my height and not being able to hear conversations properly so I end up hearing muffled talk the whole night. Last night was similar to this, but it felt like it was amplified. The more I tried to focus on one conversation with all the noise, and the fact that I was unable to do so, made me more agitated, so I ended up withdrawing from the conversations. There also wasn't anywhere that I could escape to to get some quiet time which exacerbated the situation. It almost felt as if I was having my own version of a melt down (what I have witnessed with my AS partner). There are now certain situations I will avoid to reduce the chances of this happening (such as avoiding loud shopping centres unless absolutely necessary), but social gatherings like the one last night, is something that I do not wish to give up because I thoroughly enjoy my friends company, even if I have a bad time showing it because of issues like this. I know people have said how they deal with their situations, but I'm just wondering how people would deal with something like this, when they have no way of avoiding the noise?

If I can't get away from the auditory overload, I will almost certainly have a shutdown. Same with olfactory.

I can more easily cope with bright light and other things because of sunglasses or limiting contact.

Just now my sister and niece had a screaming argument about five feet away from me in the kitchen while I was trying to have a conversation. I couldn't even get out before the shutdown set in, and now I can't talk...

I usually go somewhere to hide and pace around. I hate stimming in public unless it's something small and unnoticable, so I usually go somewhere where I can lock the door so no one would notice me pacing.

I've said that I never had the extreme sensory sensitivities myself, but maybe I did to some extent, especially auditory, and without a resulting meltdown. I always hated the very loud and noisy teen hangouts, and later, beer joints. I really could not imagine why people wanted to go there, and when they did get me into one of them, I couldn't understand any of the conversation at our table or booth, while the others could seem to focus in and distinguish it -- and I sort of sat there and suffered. Since then, I've simply avoided very noisy places, and was able to, fortunately. At my daughter's college, I went to a comedy "concert". I sat back up in the back of the balcony, and they had the amps turned up so loud that I got a horrible headache and left at intermission -- even though the artist was someone I enjoyed on records, I couldn't cope with the noise. I'm guessing that experiences like that were auditory overload, I just didn't know that it was indicative of anything. I guess I did realize that I was more sensitive to noise than most people, but, as I said, didn't result in a "tantrum" or anything more than, at worst, getting myself out of there.

I don't really get auditory or visual overload, but sometimes even small noises make me jump if I'm not prepared for them.

I do get "people" overload - too many people, even small crowds make me uncomfortable. Also, I find having to speak at any length in public is completely exhausting.

I have olfactory sensitivity. I can't deal with perfume and cologne. I've thrown away perfectly good food because the container was handled by someone without a nose and a heavy hand. Personally, I'd prefer the smell of horse manure to perfume. I have to cover my nose in public until the perfume smell is gone. Smells can make me angry.

I have to use specific soaps, shampoo, dish washing detergent and laundry detergent, otherwise I'll be in a really bad mood.

That said, there are some smells I appreciate - mostly natural smells.

To use the example of a airport which for me includes stress, often eating badly, getting questioned when I'm tired, Sound, visuals, lots of people and no escape. I combat this and meltdowns with.

Granola bars and water to stay hydrated and keep my blood sugar level. I try to eat better but it's there if I can't
Sunglasses, I don't always wear them but I really go anywhere without them.
Earbud and an MP3 Player with this http://magnatune.com/artists/rejuvenescence meditation track. The earbuds
double as earplugs. I often keep some tv shows on my phone or laptop as a distraction.
I haven't had a meltdown in about 3 years, I used to get a bad one every 3-6 months.

To cope with auditory stress I usually use headphones and play music on my mp3 or netbook. Otherwise I either shut down or go mental, which usually doesn't help.

I have only had a year or so to differentiate the sounds that can make me go into overload mode. So far I've identified people listening to music so loudly on headphones i can hear noise, screaming children, people talking too loudly to me or just in general as well as anything that is loud and unexpected and/or unwanted.

I haven't had anything visual or olfactory wise that I remember makes me go into overload.

I thought about my episode on Saturday night, and have determined that to avoid such situations occuring, or at least minimising the chance, I am going to make sure that I am situated at gatherings in a position that will ensure no one can sit behind me. This way a conversation cannot go on in multiple places at the same time. I must say, this was not annoying me all the time that night, but it was when I stopped participating in a conversation, that I noticed it and it got to me. I think this is because my brain didn't have something to focus on and therefore picked up on noise easier. Who knows, will give it a try anyway next time and see how I go

Hi had a small one today. Our work got shut down because of issues with air conditioning, so everyone decided to go to the shopping centre next door. In hindsight, I probably shouldn't have gone, but it was 4 hours between work shutting down and me being able to get a lift home, so had to do something otherwise I was on my own, which I didn't like the idea of as it felt unsecure. Anyway, we went over to the shopping centre, and all was good for awhile because I was participating in a conversation. Once the conversation stopped, I started to notice the noise around me, the incessant talking, kids throwing tantrums etc. This again irritated my brain, so whilst the incessant talking was going on, I pretended I had a message on my phone so I could look away and be distracted by something else. Luckily this helped, as the urge to yell at the children was rising. If the children were being rowdy and not supervised, I could understand telling them off, but I wouldn't do it if their parent was around and actively trying to calm them down. Luckily my lift came in enough time that I did not get overly agitated and shut down like I did the other night. Just thought it was interesting that I mentioned shopping centres in my last post, and it was the only option for a few hours today. I did notice there is always the option of moving to other parts of the shopping centre which are less noisy, but that's few and far between, which is why I only prefer to go to them now if I have an aim, rather than wandering around like I used to.

When I have true sensory overload and I don't believe I can (easily?) fix it, I basically blank out, where nothing really reaches me.

More often, though, I get angry. I may try to stop it, by asking someone to stop whatever, or I may just try to ignore it, which only kind of works

It must come down to whether I think it's at all under my control or not. If I don't think it is, I blank out. If I do, I get angry/etc.

Lately though I've actively been working on controlling my emotions and so I am better at handling things in general. I now have more of an 'overmind' personality that watches all those silly little personalities I've been running in my head for so long. Nowadays the overmind is more often amused at my lesser personalities' reactions to simple little nonsense.. well, more often than before (which was never).. uniquely annoying events can still provoke me, but then the overmind learns to recognize yet another thing, and so forth. And everything seems less 'purely unique' all the time

Enjoy

I find when I get upset like this, my usual reaction is to start grinding my teeth, and then I feel myself trying to fight off the urge to cry. This is really embarassing when I'm in a public place, and I assume people can see my facial expression (i.e. the clenched jaw, moving my tongue around my mouth in a way to try and stop the urge). Usually by the time someone asks me what's wrong, I'm ready to burst into tears or something of the like and can't properly formulate what is going on. This doesn't just relate to my auditory issues, but also anxiety issues which I've posted about in another thread.