There's this bloke who works in the office at work, and he sometimes lets out these extremely loud sneezes, and I can tell he amplifies it to make himself heard (he's very extroverted and loud anyway). Every time he sneezes I jump 6 feet in the air, and it takes me about 10 minutes to recover from the shock.
There's no deep breath before he sneezes, so that makes it even more sudden. I'm a heavy sneezer but I involuntarily take a very deep breath before I sneeze, and my sneezes don't make people jump. I just go like "atch-iss-ho". This bloke goes "WAASHHOOOO!! !!" louder than a bomb, drowning out all other currently occuring noises in the office.
Also the other day I was waiting at a bus stop, and I didn't realise this guy with a toddler in a stroller was standing behind me. The toddler suddenly let out this loud, ear-splitting screech, and for a split second my brain couldn't register what it was, and thought it was some sort of loud alarm or siren starting up. This made me jump so bad that I couldn't help muttering, "Jesus Christ!" I just couldn't help it.
I hate being around people that are likely to make sudden loud noises without warning. It doesn't help when people laugh when I jump. Does anyone else jump easily at sudden loud sounds?
_________________
Female