A few mask thoughts from vacation

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I just got back from vacation and I took full advantage of it to unmask as much as possible. This stuff is probably not news, but for some of us it is.

I thought that after all those plane crashes in the '90s and 9/11 that I was anxious during take off and landing. It turns out that it had nothing to do with anxiety, it was just noisier during those bits of the flight, and some good ear plugs made short work of it.

In general, people don't care if we wear earplugs, so long as we hear what they're saying. Even with the tether for my earplugs on, nobody cared that I was wearing both earplugs and sunglasses at Disneyland, but it made such a massive difference in terms of my enjoyment and ability to tolerate my wife's pushiness.

And generally, the further away you get from where you normally live and work, the more room there is for trying this stuff out to see how it works for you. I had no idea how much of an issue low level sound was across the entire day, but it is a massive problem. Also, earplugs + sunglasses + a hooded sweatshirt is apparently far less of an issue for people on an airplane than I would have expected, but it cut down drastically on the amount of stimulation during boarding and deboarding.

On a side note, I was also a bit surprised how OK everybody was with my wearing ear plugs at the wedding service. But, I was able to focus and participate so much better. That may not apply to every wedding, as this family has a bunch of people that are either autistic or just have autistic traits.

Over time, I do think that moving the goal posts a bit does seem to be the easiest path to figuring this out, but I'm probably going to start wearing the ear plugs at the store I work at when I'm not working and see how that is.

(I got the unfortunately named eargasm ear plugs with the optional extra filter and I was amazed at how much less noisy and drained I was during the dancing, but it does seem to be a bit of an issue if I have to keep putting them in and pulling them out)

I also have discovered that much of my anxiety was sensory issues in disguise!

I really dislike food shopping in supermarkets and waited far too long to buy yellow lens sunglasses and headphones, for some reason I thought they would make me stick out more, thus give me more anxiety. I still dislike shopping but my anxiety is barely noticeable when wearing sunglasses and headphones (listening to music).

Been trying to source ...things to reduce input since , I was little but with no diagnosis at that time . i spent much time in places even in the home, where sounds and inputs were a minimum. Been wearing filtered coloured glasses since 18 .. Just in the last few years have i discovered ,noise canceling earplugs, finally spent the dollars on Bose Noise reduction Ear buds
, generally use my longer hair to cover them , but it gets a bit warm , After all this time nobody seems to fuss about my earbuds being in ..And they due give some allowance for spoken words to come through , although a bit softer than normal. Think if I had these years ago, I might have saved a big amount of stress on my nervous system,aswell as affecting PTSD like symptoms in a good way. Thanks to the Bose earbuds. But now there are many noise canceling earbuds on the market. ..If i could get are having things covering my entire ears would have opted for Noise canceling Headphones ,with bluetooth capabilities .(for music)

I'm usually keen to be able to see and hear my surroundings if it's an unfamiliar or crowded place, just to make sure I can react quickly enough to sudden "hazard" situations. I've never yet worried about what people think of sunglasses, though I only normally wear them when there's bright light around. I've found sticking rolled-up bits of tissue paper in my ears takes the edge off harsh sounds without making me hard-of-hearing. One of these days I'd like to try musicians' earplugs that are supposed to just cut the volume without muffling the sound. Again, if I feel the need to stop up my ears to any degree, I'll probably just do it regardless of who might notice. The environments I'm usually in probably wouldn't care if I walked about on my hands.

Wants to see ToughDiamond walk on their Hands...... >>>>> .......