I’ve been getting worse and worse in later years. I can’t concentrate to get any work done.
The open-office layout at work. Shouting across the office rather than getting up and going over to talk to them. People using their outdoor voices indoors. The big trucks leaving their engines running outside my window as they’re parked. The helicopters flying overhead. The Harley-Davidson motorcycles. The souped-up cars. The fire and police sirens as they tear down the street at the end of the block. That dog that won’t stop barking. They guys downstairs shouting and slamming into something(?) while playing their Wii.
Shoot, I haven’t been able to watch TV except on mute with captions for years-too much noise. I listen to NPR in my office, on low, more white noise than anything else. And if I am trying to sleep, a TV on 3 bldgs. away, I SWEAR I can hear it. Even the fan on my laptop is too damn noisy.
I’m fortunate that my office is usually pretty quiet. But if the guy from across the hall is around, forget about me getting any work done.
A worse situation is at home. There’s a tenent in the building next door who smokes. When she smokes, she talks. And she goes outside to smoke. And she smokes a LOT. When my window is open her voice goes right up into my apartment. Not loud enough to hear what she’s saying, just enough to know she’s there. It’s like a fly buzzing around my head.
I did go over one night to talk to her about it, and she was very polite. But the next night she was at it again.
This is one of the reasons I live 12 miles outside a small town. Only seasonal neighbors, not many passers by, highway is far enough away to be unnoticeable. We just got back from traveling, and being in airports and on airplanes is highly stressful because of the constant din. Unfortunately, my noise-cancelling headphones died, so I had to make do with earplugs. The headphones will be replaced ASAP. I use them at work, too.
So it’s not just you. I would be very unhappy surrounded by city (or even town) noises.
Noises that other people don’t even notice drive me batty. Even just background stuff, like a washing machine or a garbage truck idling on the street. GAH!
I’m OK with city noises. The trolley, cars, even my upstairs neighbor who recently got a puppy. It’s human voices that get to me. The din of a lot of people in conversation is OK. It’s when one voice drones on and on that I start to get stabby.
Can’t stand noise of any sort. I use earplugs frequently, with headphones over them. Maybe I’m slightly paranoid about damaging my ears, but I’m mostly merely annoyed, by any sort of interruption to my aural sense.
White noise (like fans running) annoys me - I’ve always been perplexed by people recommending it as a way to help go to sleep. But white noise is nothing to the rage that gets generated by chewing and sniffing noises.
This description of Misphonia really rang true for me - leg tapping also really annoys me, as did a former colleague who used to twirl a lock of his fringe.
I am so with you. I am frequently overwhelmed by noise. Sometimes its loud noises, sometimes is not loud but prolonged noise, sometimes is low level but persistant. When the power goes out and all the humming stops, the relief is profound. Near the end of the day after a whole day of noise, I feel exhausted.
I have a hypersensitve neurosensory disorder. Lots of sensations bug me. Factors like hunger, lack of sleep, low blood sugar, stress, or sensory overload from other senses can make it worse.
Two words my friend; EAR PLUGS. Not the sissy foam kind. You need the turbo safety kindwith a firm core so that they sit firmly in the ear canal and create an air tight seal. Here’s the thing. You can still hear things you need to, like the phone ringing or somebody calling your name, but most of the background noise is gone. You can find them in hardware stores, Walmart, motorcycle stores, wherever.
I told my study buddy when I had my earplugs in and gave her a nerf gun. If I was missing something she would pop me one and I could take them out and listen. Also, people tended to leave me alone when they knew I had them in, sort of like a ‘do not disturb sign’.
Another thing to try is to much on something dry and crunchy while wearing earplugs. Swimming laps in a pool for exercise is great because its rhythmic and blocks out sound. Locking yourself in a quiet room for a while helps. A brisk walk or running up a few flights of stairs helps too.
The object is to either try to either rest your ears, or increase your other senses to remove the neurosensory focus from your hearing to something else.
Oh yes. I’ve never been to Vegas, but after having been to Atlantic City, I will be avoiding it at all costs, all those binging and beeping noises and flashing lights were very jarring. It was OK for the first hour or so, but it got worse after that.
Loud noise doesn’t seem to be a problem for me, I can enjoy concerts and nightclubs. White noise, bodily noise (sniffing, coughing, audible breathing) and too much background noise are the things that bother me.
At Christmas I was dismayed that had trouble setting up the computer that I got my mother because my sister had the TV blasting. I just could not concentrate.
I can hardly stand to eat at restaurants like the Ceesecak Factory. Reflective floors, walls, and ceilings. Constant mrrmmmrrrmmrrmmrrrmmrr of a roomful of people, and unending “clink, tink, clink, clink” of silverwear hitting plates, glasses being bumped, and tables being bused/set.
I suffer from derealization, and one effect of this is difficulting in ‘backgrounding’ stimulus. Because everything ‘feels’ just a little off, my mind can’t ignore it, and I have to consciously deal with every noise, smell, sight, etc.
Not sure if that helps, but it reminded me a little of what you described.
Oh, definitely. Last five years or so, I’ve become much more sensitive to noise and lights. I can get a migraine from one loud, unexpected noise or a series of not-so-loud but really aggravating noises. Same thing with flashes of light.
I can sleep during bike runs with Harley’s reving outside my tent. I can sleep while I’ve got kittens tearing up my bathroom. I can read a book while tossing handfulls of paper into the industrial sized shredder. I can not manage to answer work emails if there is music playing.
Cashiers love me because I have to shut off all of the motion activated noise things before I can check out. They have to listen to them all day long, so when I shut them off before getting in the line, they think I’m a hero. Its because I won’t be able to count over 10 or remember my pin with them going. Don’t tell them that, please. I do like being a hero for them.
