Could you endure noise more as a child?

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Moog
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03 Apr 2013, 11:18 pm

Moog wrote:
I don't believe so. I can't really recall a time when it was different.


Actually, I was much worse off with it as a child.


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rapidroy
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04 Apr 2013, 12:02 am

The human ear i beleave I heard has a reduction in acceptable frequancys at some point during development(late teens I think). That should go for both NTs and aspies and explains why kids can scream and make high pitched noises(NT ones anyway) and the parents are driven crazy.

During my teen years i began to have proplems with people yelling, having headaches due to both sound and light, last week I went to a concert in a packed coffee house, it had been a few years since I had been in such a setting that packed and honestly I shutdown so fast and bad from the sound of dozens of people loudly talking and the loud music, I could not recall having issues like that the last time I had been there with simular attendance. I'm to the point were I will likely start carrying earplugs in the same way I always carry sunglasses. light and sound sensititvity is really getting worse for me, maybe I should look into it more.



goldfish21
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04 Apr 2013, 12:21 am

I don't remember noises ever really bothering me as a kid. Sure, it makes sense why I really felt the sounds of loud thunder during a storm - and while it was a bit frightening at times, it was exciting and I liked it. Now, at 30, I think my ears have been more sensitive over the last year than ever. I had some pretty wicked insomnia for weeks due to listening to traffic drive by allll niight looong, even with ear plugs in. Its a bit better right now and I don't use ear plugs every single night anymore, maybe every second or third one now.


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04 Apr 2013, 12:40 am

I've always had problems with noise; I've spent my entire life covering my ears while flushing toilets, and only recently realised that nobody else does. When I was younger, I didn't really realise my sensitivity was different from other people, until the day we went to a monster truck rally and my mom brought earplugs for everyone, but I was the only one who used them. At pep rallies at school, I used to spend the entire time with my hands over my ears, envious of the (probably severely autistic) boy who got to wear headphones to block out the noise. Now I carry my earplugs with me on a string around my neck (I wear sweatpants with no pockets all the time) so that I'm never caught in an overwhelmingly loud situation without them. Certain noises, like vacuum cleaners, coffee grinders, hair dryers and sudden traffic scare me, and it takes me several seconds for the unease to pass when I hear those things unexpectedly. Because of this, I startle ridiculously easily, to the point where I've been teased about it, by kids I don't even know but who spotted my reaction no less.


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Skilpadde
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04 Apr 2013, 3:01 am

In some cases yes, in other cases no.

As a child I was terrified of thunder and fireworks (the sounds of them, not the possible injury) up to somewhere in elementary school. I'm not sure exactly when my fear of the sounds were lost, especially as they transformed into fear of injury by lightning or fireworks so I continued being afraid of them (and I still have great respect for both).

But in elementary school I was able to sit in class and do my tasks despite the very noisy environment (although I easily got lost in daydreams). By the time I re-enrolled in high school in my early 20's I wasn't able to focus if the slightest sound reached my ears unless I was in hyperfocus mode, and my concentration was so much poorer than when I was a child. Still is that way. I can't focus on reading or writing anything if there is noise or if people are talking, even quietly, or nearby (not in the same room). I'm easily distracted and I easily get lost in thoughts/dreams. The last part hasn't changed but I used to have better concentration skills and I wasn't that easily distracted.

I'm also more sensitive to some sounds now like the dreadful sound of metal utensils against plates without glazing, or the clatter of plates against each other when someone else do the dishes or put them into the cupboard.

By far the worst sound I've ever heard was the sound of the vuvuzela. Even with the TV on the lowest sound setting, I became completely disoriented and dizzy within a few minutes. Now I'm bothered by the whistles children use around the national day, but when I was a child I used those whistles too and wasn't the least bothered.

So yeah, some sounds definitely have more impact on me now than when I was a child, or even in my teens.


I've also become more sensitive to light, like when the sun shines on snow.


My problems with taste and food and consistency are the same as they always were. Some of the issues have changed, but the problem remains my most challenging sensory issue.


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briankelley
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04 Apr 2013, 4:13 am

Yeah, I can't seem to remember being bothered by it as much before adolescence. Maybe that's the time I actually started concentrating on things?
Of course when I was little, other things like having to be stopped from walking out of the house in my underwear, took precedence. When I reached adolescence, I became more aware of things I used to be oblivious to. That's when things started to get noisy...



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04 Apr 2013, 4:21 am

No, it was just as bad when I was a little kid. I cannot stand the background noise of football, basketball and baseball games. I can remember once when my dad turned on the car radio "I want to get some scores" I begged and screamed "Daddy Noooo!". This had to be back in 1965 when I was 7 years old. The background noise has been hell to this day.



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04 Apr 2013, 8:30 am

Yes, I completely relate. When I was living in an apartment, I would have meltdowns over what most would consider a reasonable amount of noise. Noise and smell are the two largest sensory triggers for me, I think.



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04 Apr 2013, 8:36 am

I got less sensitive to very loud sounds but more sensitive to soft sounds. I was terrified of vacuum cleaners, hair dryers, lawn mowers, power tools,etc., as a little kid (age 2-8ish). As an older child/teenager I couldn't stand the sound of chewing, swallowing, breathing, ticking clocks, crackling paper, coins rubbing together.


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04 Apr 2013, 9:05 am

Never had that much of a problem with loud noises as a kid, probably disliked them as much as much as the next man. What I do struggle with a lot is multiple noises or background noise.

If someone is talking to me and someone else is talking nearby then I can't hear what is being said at all, gets quite embarassing at times. If the TV is on in the background then I can't hear people talking to me, all the noise becomes very jumbled and confusing. I suddenly get all tense and can't think clearly.

Is that an aspie thing?



Moog
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04 Apr 2013, 9:24 am

Biscuitman wrote:
Never had that much of a problem with loud noises as a kid, probably disliked them as much as much as the next man. What I do struggle with a lot is multiple noises or background noise.

If someone is talking to me and someone else is talking nearby then I can't hear what is being said at all, gets quite embarassing at times. If the TV is on in the background then I can't hear people talking to me, all the noise becomes very jumbled and confusing. I suddenly get all tense and can't think clearly.

Is that an aspie thing?


I get that as well. I used to think I had a hearing problem. But really it's a 'my brain can't organize signal from noise as well as other people' problem


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04 Apr 2013, 10:26 am

Mootoo wrote:
I just don't get why I became so much more obviously sensitive to sound as soon as I were in my mid-teens. I mean, spending more than a decade around people who frantically shout and bang doors must have something to do with it... but *how* could I withstand that, and I can barely stand someone outside of my window just normally talking right now?

It's to do with concentration - I can't currently watch a film if the odds are that one of my neighbours will end up either audibly closing a door or even coughing, since, if that happens while watching a film I'll end up having to rewind, and I'd rather not watch anything than to do that as I always end up not enjoying the remainder. In the past I was able to play video games while someone was in the same room while talking on a phone (as I remember).


It is wonderful to see a young person inquiring into the dynamics behind his own brain function. If there is a contradiction, then perhaps that is a clue to something interesting.Hmmm....Let's see... from reading this thread it is possible to extrapolate that the noise sensitivity of many here may in some way be biologically based, but also is in some ways a subjective psychological phenomena. Some clues to the latter---it can get worse OR better over time., The fact that it often appears or intensifies at adolescence suggest perhaps a hormonal shift, but also that is the time when a young person begins to individuate by separating from his parents. To individuate is a form of encapsulation. This may be hard to understand in the beginning, but it has to do with subject-object relations: a person can sometime encapsulate around particular sensation as a form of self protection, so in this sense, individuation is not completed. What causes it? Probably unbearable emotional pain..

I have sound sensitivity, too, and have to carry ear plugs, and also light and smell sensitivity etc. etc. etc. It can get better or worse over time and also depending on context and the way I am feeling a particular day and also the weather. What is interesting is that sometimes I can tolerate my own noise but not the noise of others. For instance I love the sound of my high heeled (not too high) boots clicking on the hardwood floors when I am bustling around the house in the morning with lots of energy and getting ready to go out, but the soft sound of my roommate walking above me on the carpeted living room and hallway of my art studio (and he is very quiet) I can barely tolerate,

What you have described about having to start the movie over if there is a noise does not bode well, This is not to judge you at all, as I have my own versions of this, but it is a form of OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder. which, if it gets worse, and it can get worse over time, could eventually seriously disrupt your life. OCD can become more prominent as a person progresses in age and encounters more trauma, so I suggest to young people who are experiencing this to begin to discover and find out now what this kind of repetition compulsion could represent to you. It is obviously some form of protection presenting itself in the form of trying to ordering the world around you, and is not only just how the brain works, as it is also subjectively interconnected to some kind of meaning.



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04 Apr 2013, 1:29 pm

Biscuitman wrote:
If someone is talking to me and someone else is talking nearby then I can't hear what is being said at all, gets quite embarassing at times. If the TV is on in the background then I can't hear people talking to me, all the noise becomes very jumbled and confusing. I suddenly get all tense and can't think clearly.

Is that an aspie thing?


I have that too. If I am trying to talk to someone, and there is another conversation going on next to us, my brain just can't filter the two apart. I end up having to move so that I can concentrate on what I am supposed to be hearing. I can't stand having two separate audio inputs in any way. I know of people who can have the TV on and then music in the background - that fries my brain in about 5 seconds.

I absolutely hated fireworks as a kid. Well, I liked the pretty ones that just made a gentle whoosh sound, but hyperventilated and cried at even the thought any of the loud ones. I could just never understand how those were supposed to be fun. And I couldn't go to school discos, the music was so loud it not only hurt my ears, but I could feel it vibrating through my whole body, and I got nauseous.

Such a pity there wasn't a diagnosis around when I was little, now I look back I think it was so obvious. I was also really sensitive to smells. Whenever my dad painted the house I had to go and stay with friends for a couple of days, the smell made me so sick.



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04 Apr 2013, 1:54 pm

When I was a child I was less irritable by noises. I've always been afraid of the bells ringing at school, and I still am now, which is why I don't want to work in a school (a silly reason, I know, but it's just the way it is, I have a fear of electric bells).

I had a few issues with noises as a child, like balloons popping and that sort of thing, but I didn't get so irritable of noises as I do now. Like now I get upset if I hear normal household noises when I'm in my room, it always seems to just blow my concentration, so I have to wind up wearing earplugs or listening to loud music in my headphones, otherwise I get highly agitated, causing me to become argumentative. Noises like the cat miawing, the kettle boiling, people shuffling or talking outside my room, people banging, tellies murmuring, etc, makes me agitated, and none of those noises did agitate me when I was younger. If I could afford to live on my own or with one other person I would, but at the moment I can't, and anyway even if I did move out, who knows what the neighbours might be like? they could be noisy and things could be worse.


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04 Apr 2013, 3:43 pm

I was had much much more severe sensory issues when I was little. When I was little noise would hurt, it would make me cry. Now I just find it irritating, especially if I'm trying to concentrate. It also puts me more on edge and raises my stress level. I'm fine when I'm in control of my environment though, such as when I choose to subject myself to loud music through headphones.



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04 Apr 2013, 8:24 pm

Yes and no. No because there are things like loud music that I could not handle as a child but now can. Yes because I am more sensitive to persistent background noise like a group of people all talking. Also before my teens I was hypersensitive to cold. Then it flipped. I am now hyposensitive to cold. The only thing that is at the same level is sensitivity to light.


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