Pain when people talk

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Is this Asperger's related or not, does anyone else get this?

Sometimes (every week or so) when people talk to me it feels like every statement they make is a physical punch or jar to my brain - It is real physical pain and I also feel nauseous too. The moment they stop talking the pain stops - though I'm left feeling a bit "delicate". The odd thing about this is that I seldom get this pain hearing inanimate sounds and only a little with speech on the TV - it tends to be only when I've got to listen and understand what someone is saying to me.

Until now, I'd assumed this was some sort of migraine related issue - but I'm beginning to wonder? I do get visual migraines sometimes with the classic shimmering shapes which slowly expand across my field of view, taking around 20 minutes to go completely. Unlike what others seem to experience I never get any pain associated with this. No pain at all. Though I'm left with the intelligence level of a hamster for a few hours afterwards and not fit to do much.

Does anyone here experience either of these two very different migraine type things?

Not physical for me, but I can definitely get mentally jarred by it.

Sometimes...tho it's more lightheaded and nauseous, and it happens with lots of other sounds too.

Depends on who's speaking. Some high-pitched female voices are painful, as are others for some as-yet-unknown reason regardless of pitch.

Some words and some people can evoke a very physical response for me, yes.

I don't know if this is the same thing....does it have anything to do with the content of their talking?


1)Some times people say some very mean things about other people and that hurts me to listen to because I don't like it and don't know how to respond or have to try and hold back how I want to respond...there is some relief when I just "take the consequinces" and say what I am thinking.

2)Sometimes(most)what they are saying is so boring to me(chit-chat)that I feel like my head is going to inplode from lack of stimulation....and then to be expected to respond in an empathetic way....over-load.

3)Some times....there is to much external(other noises in the room) or internal(my own thoughts/interests)that I feel like a computer that is asked to do more then it is created to do...shut-down...but do to social expectations...that isn't allowed...I am expected to stay attentive or be called rude....that is painful.


There are probably other situations but these are what come to mind as the most common. Mostly I just avoid people whenever possible.People are painful to me in general.

sometimes when someone is talking it seems like their voice is a lightning bolt that goes straight through my ear into the side of my brain. I dont know if it is because it's too loud or too high pitched because those can change and it still hurts. I have to hold my ears close and it bothers people, maybe they think I'm being rude and insulting them in some way. At times I feel like the bionic woman.

I get pain sometimes when people speak. As with all my sensory issues, it becomes worse when my senses are overloaded or when I'm under stress. The laughter of certain people is also an issue for me, particularly the loud explosive laughter that happens in social situations.

It hurts me for a number of reasons:

Certain people's voices
trying to understand what the person is actually saying
having difficulty with the actual process of hearing what is said (auditory trouble)
having trouble figuring at the correct reply (even if I don't say anything, I still automatically think of a reply)
having trouble putting my reply to comprehensible words
the whole slew of nonverbal cues that I'm supposed to register, but I cannot
etcetera

All of this leads to pain as I become overwhelmed.

It can cause a migraine too, just FYI and all; the funky vision, nausea, and headache.

Sometimes I stop being able to process words so nothing makes sense anymore and the voices are hurting me. It's usually when people are talking while the TV is on, or there is more than one conversation happening.

Ditto on the loud explosive laughter. You hear it in restaurants with bars and it makes me cringe every time. Then it makes me angry. I hope I never disturb people with my laughter the way those drunken loud-laughing folk do. Rationally I know they're just having a good time, no harm in it, but it still makes me angry.

Other than that I don't really feel pain when people speak except in a certain situation. I can't listen to confrontation on the radio. It feels extremely uncomfortable, or like I'm receiving the negativity from the confrontation. For instance, XM Comedy plays sketches called Crank Yankers, where comedians prank call real people. I've never yet heard one that was funny, but I can hardly listen to them anyway because my entire body tenses up like I'm about to join in the fight. I've gotten to where I just change stations when a Crank Yankers sketch comes on.

Likewise when people argue on the radio, like on the BBC's World Have your Say. I WANT to listen to that program, but when the arguments between callers get too intense I have to turn it off for a minute, steel myself mentally, remind myself that the people can't hurt ME, then turn it back on.

My wife watches some of the daytime court TV trash because she likes to laugh at stupid people. I can't laugh with her, though... I'm too busy cringing away from the conflict and the yelling. Plus my contempt for the show itself is palpable, and that makes me want to look away, too.

Scripted conflicts, like arguments between characters in movies, have no effect on me whatsoever.

I've found different levels of pain (or lack thereof) depending on what my language processing is doing at that moment.

If it's trying to engage but having a certain degree of trouble really doing so -- a stage where I can often recognize words as words, try to process them, but not understand them or not fully understand them -- then yeah, it hurts.

If it just turns into background noise, it's actually less painful, although it can become painful then in a sensory way only, depending on the situation.

I sort of figured at one point that a lot of the pain is actually the result of some aspect of symbolic/language processing. But that's just me.

I get the same kind of pain when:

• Looking at words that I can recognize and process as words, but can't get the meaning of.
• Looking at words where I can see the letters as letters, but can't see the words.
• Looking at words where I can see that the letters are symbols, but not assign any particular meaning to them.
• Looking at obvious symbols of any type when I am having any amount of trouble understanding them.

So I've thought it must be some kind of symbol-processing overload.

I do have migraines, and they run in my entire family, with some family members getting one with headaches, some getting the aura alone, and some getting both at different times. I get both.

I don't know if this is related, but I get really startled when someone breaks the silence and I am not watching them when they do. Even if it's a small yawn, they make a sound, I jump out of my seat. But only if everything is quiet.

My family members tend to speak in loud, sometimes high-pitched voices and it really gets to me. They may be within one meter of eachother and speak loud enough for somebody ten times that distance to hear clearly!

i dont really get this pain you are referring too.

This pain is frequent while attending my classes. It is absolutly horrible sometimes and makes me want to be alone without social contact!