Does your sensory overload get worse

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when you are preoccupied with something? I can tolerate the large amounts of commotion I have to deal with at work, especially during certain times of the day (like lunch time) when people are moving in and out of my personal space, loudly talking over each other, scream-laughing etc., much more on days when there is nothing I'm upset or worried about. But if, like today, I'm thinking about my broken phone and whether it can be fixed and the fact that I'm behind on the bill and can't even call them to ask for more time and I don't know if they'll work with me to fix/replace it unless I can pay right now and meanwhile people might be calling me about important things etc. etc. etc... and they're doing all that around me, it is a painful level of stimulation. I don't like it any day, but some days I really can't stand it even a little bit.

Yes. It's been getting worse as I get older. But it also get worse when I'm in deep thought, trying to be deeply focused, but so many things are going on. I just spent 15+ minutes walking around the building to find a dark, relatively quiet place from which to work. I'm still being dogged right now by the sound of the HVAC howling, and women in hard-soled shoes clip-clopping across our hardwood floors.

"Why can't you just wear noise-canceling headphones?" I can, for a time, but the sensation of squeezing on my head has me worn down in 20-30 minutes.

I feel like when I'm at my office job, I'm constantly at high risk of a shutdown. My shutdowns tend to happen at work, or events at work seem to be prominent "last straws". I work at an awesome company with beautiful office space, and yet there's not really a place for me here from which to be productive.

I'm at an impasse. I'm really good at what I do, but the highly social nature of my field precludes me from just working from home all the time.