I am ultra-sensitive to noise - it’s not that I have super-hearing, I think. It just that I am much more bothered by noise and they are unable to fade into the background. Usually (as far as I think), once noise becomes constant enough, like traffic on the road, you just phase them out and filter them off, and you can just doze off.
I can’t seem to do that. The only way I can sleep is to have a completely quiet room. I’m not sure if it has anything to do with me having general anxiety disorder (but then, doctors have been chalking up everything that I am experiencing to stress and anxiety) , but just in case it’s something else, I thought I just ask here.
(I dunno if this is a medical question, but besides the inability to phase out noise and very reactive to them, my hearing is otherwise normal - no pain in th ear, no green slime oozing out or anything like that)
Pert near every complaint is described somewhere and has experts with opinions on it as well as sufferers with their stories.
Like almost everything else, its sufferers even have their own website (well, technically it’s a site created by a treater, I think, but it’s aimed at sufferers):
Sounds like one of Roderick Usher’s complaints, from Edgar Allen Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher.
Check your foundation for cracks. And drain the tarn.
I have this problem too. After four years of misery in college dormitories and three in an apartment, I said “what the hell” and started renting a house. I’ve sworn I’ll never share walls again.
When I describe the noise my neighbors made–and I ALWAYS had one set of neighbors who were obnoxious–people are usually shocked and say that it was DEFINITELY the neighbors being assholes, and that I should have called the police sooner and more often.
The neighbors, on the other hand, have always met me with verbal abuse and often escalation of the noise, telling me I’m being unreasonable. The string of rotten neighbors were, in chronological order, American, Bulgarian, Indian, Colombian, Bulgarian, and American. The Bulgarians, both sets, were by far the loudest and nastiest.
When I travel, though, and stay in hotels, I KNOW that I hear things other people don’t, and that I either shouldn’t hear or should be able to tune out–the television next door, the wedding party four floors away, the snoring upstairs. I have to drug myself, to stay in hotels.
Another person here with sensitivity to sound. My wife thinks it’s part of fibromyalgia syndrome. It’s odd because on very rare occasions loud noise doesn’t bother me, and all of a sudden I can understand why people like ultraloud music- it’s exhilarating, if it doesn’t make you sick.
That said, I did have to chuckle at the bumber sticker that read: “It’s not too loud- you’re too old”.
In babies and children, this is called “Sensory Integration Dysfunction”. It’s very common in preemies and can be diagnosed when any sense - hearing and touch being the most common - seems “turned up to 11”. The physical processes work as they should, but they’re interpreted by the brain as overwhelming and anxiety producing. SID can be present on its own or as part of a larger syndrome (like anxiety disorder). There are things therapists can do to combat it, and many kids outgrow it, but not all.
When I was a wee flodnak, loud noises were actually physically painful. This was something of a problem, you might say, because I was also fascinated by steam trains, and steam locomotives are beautiful machines, but quiet they ain’t.
One of my nephews claimed the same thing (my idiot brother, unfortunately, just scolded him for being a crybaby ) and one of my sons as well. My other son doesn’t mind loud noises unless they startle him. All three of us, fortunately, seem to have just grown out of it.
I wonder if it’s somehow tied in the sensory integration problems - the nephew and the son I’m thinking of both used to ask to have tags cut out of their clothing, for instance, and the son still refuses to wear jeans - something about the way they feel just drives him nuts, even extreme-stone-washed, ultra-soft, practically-disintegrating-right-there-in-the-store jeans.
no,no,no.no,no…you have it all wrong… A “nosie” is when you stick your face right up to the toddler’s face and say “give me a nosie”. Then she shakes her little head right and left, and when you bump noses, you win…you get to hear the happiest little giggle in the world.
It doesn’t make up for lack of sleep due to noisy neighbors, but it is cuuuuute.
oops, I just noticed this is GQ. Sorry.
Now back to our regularly scheduled thread.
My wife hates noise. We had double glass windows installed in our apartment to keep out the road noise from the street. We do sleep better at night because it is more quiet. We sold our last apartment because there was a dog upstairs that thought everyone should listen to his barking. It was more than even I could stand.
This sensitivity to sound is common in William’s syndrome.
I personally suffered a low frequency hearing loss in one ear at about age 30. This has caused a lot of problems similar to those described in the OP. I find noisy environments (say a loud restaurant) nauseating, and can’t pick a single voice out of the din (cocktail party effect) very well. Because I hear normally in one ear, people seldom notice I don’t hear well when they only interact with me in quite environs.
Does it help to mask the offending sounds with white noise (like a fan), or does the white noise bother you as well?
Do you have AD/HD? AdoptaTeenSon does and if he forgets his medication he gets what we call “noise overload”. Too many conflicting sounds and sights combined together will drive him right out of his mind. Depending on the circumstances I’ve either given him his regular AD/HD medication or slipped him a small dose of an anti-anxiety medication to smooth the rough edges. Both work equally well.
Do you take medication for your anxiety? If so, have you noticed a reduction in the degree of anxiety caused by the noise?
One of my son’s specialists has diagnosed him with Sensory Integration Disorder, in addition to his other disabilities. SID is also common in people with autism, which my son has. He is hyper-sensitive to tastes, sounds, smells, light, and tactile sensations. He craves intense taste (spicy, bitter), and the tiniest sound distracts him. He sniffs, touches, feels and licks everything he sees. It’s a little weird at first, but one gets accustomed to it. We have lots of sensory devices around the house to help him out.
) and one of my sons as well. My other son doesn’t mind loud noises unless they startle him. All three of us, fortunately, seem to have just grown out of it.