Hypersensitivity

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Everytime i'm in a place where where is alot of background noise it's really hard for me to understand what somebody is saying. I can hear them but my mind doesn't comprehend at all and I end up asking them again. Sometimes it takes 3-4 times to get it right. It feels embarrasing sometimes anybody else do through that?

I do terrible, with high levels of background noise. I feel that I have to get out of the room, right away.

YES. I think it's some sort of auditory processing issue. One person's voice just blends into the cloud of noise and i can't hear what they're saying, even though everyone else there seems to be communicating just fine. I can hear that they're saying something, but i can't pick out all the sounds because it's like the other noise is cancelling it out or something.. Sometimes i'll be able to pick out just a few words, and i don't want to keep asking them to repeat themselves over and over again so i try to guess at what they're saying and make ambiguous responses like "mmhmm." I already have a hard time knowing what to say when i can understand people, so when i'm only picking out a few words it's realllly hard. It also has sort of the same effect if there isn't any other noise but the person just doesn't speak clearly or in a way i'm used to. Over the phone is can be hard too. At work a lot of the time on the phone at work it's like "dfjkf jfhjfureu dndjcchdfj nintendo dfjfirfnfhf game fdvjf jrrhdid what dfkjfirfjf fjdkjdkfhnv" and i'm like "uhh.. you want a wii game?"

Yeah...can't make sense of anything with a lot of chatter or music going on. I don't even need the background noise to be mystified as to what people are on about!

In quiet conditions, my hearing is rather acute and I've absolutely no problems understanding the quietest whispers across the whole room. It's completely the opposite while driving a car, walking in the street or even watching tv. People are confused when they suddenly have to repeat things to me 3 to 4 times but they always seem to accept my explanation about being unable to extract voice from noise.

I don't have a problem with that UNLESS there is a song playing faintly in the background. I must have an obsession with music because I will do whatever to try and pick up what the song is. I will lose all focus on the person I am talking to until I can ID the song. It's really quite weird! I don't know anyone else like this.

I've had this happen - it's very embarrassing, someone will be saying something to me and repeating it and I have absolutely no idea what they're saying.

I am functionally deaf in a loud nightclub. I do use a lot of hand signals and miming simple words. I don't even pretend to try to pay attention to conversation in an environment like that. When someone says something to me I look at them like they are crazy and cup my ear with my hand. Then I turn my head so they can say it directly into my ear if it is important enough.

Yes. That's called auditory processing disorder, and I have quite a few issues with it. Thankfully, I'm pretty good at filling in the gaps. In a quiet room with one conversational partner, I can pick up nine out of ten words; in a group in a noisy environment, I can easily lose nine out of ten words. But you'd be surprised what information you can glean even when you only have one word out of ten available. Or, well, maybe you wouldn't be surprised...

Asking people to repeat things is generally not too rude. And you can look at their mouths to get extra information, if you can process both audio and visual at the same time, like how people use lip-reading if they can't hear (though I use it mostly to figure out where words begin and end).

I have the same problem. Whenever I'm trying to follow a conversation with constant noise in the background, it doesn't take long before the words of the person I'm talking with begin to sound like a bunch of garbled audio, making it necessary for me to ask for a frequent repeat.

What?


WHAT?


I'm sorry, I can't understand what you're saying, there are too many people talking in here...


WHAT?


Why are you mad at me?


::sigh:: Stop mumbling and SPEAK UP.


Well! How rude!

I usually have to ask people to repeat things about 3 times, especially when I'm not expecting them to say anything in the first place.

If someone's going to talk to me, they require my full attention. I can't even walk and talk at the same time.

I'm hypersensitive to two things:

Noise when I'm trying to sleep. I use earplugs and I leave a fan running.

Repetitive unwanted experiences: same person at work coming to me at the same time on a same day asking the same question over and over. I have low tolerance for that. Same traffic light changing yellow > red just as I come to it, over and over and over every single damn day. Or the same store with the same slow service over and over. I don't know why this bothers me, but it does.

If I am in a dark room in the middle of they day that is letting light come in through half open blinds I get nervous, dizzy, and nauseas. I stopped feeling this when I got out of school it was the only place I encountered it until I had congestive heart failure and thats how my windows were in the icu room I was in. We have blinds in our bathroom but we keep the lights on durring the day to prevent this.

I have very sensitive hearing. Its only bothersome tho when I am trying to sleep and at work. There is the music in the background, the other register going on occasion, I end up hearing other conversations of customers in line and at the other register, then some one will page over the loud speaker and to top it all of I have to pay attention to the customer in front of me.

So its more so all the noises distract me and I have to make myself pay attention but ritalin has helped with that. But I can totally relate trying to hear with a ton of background noise it makes me very mad more so when it gets busy. People really dont like it when you have to ask them to repeat their cigarette choice 2 times. Im so glad I am not alone.