sensory overloads and playing music

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Dear autistic fellows,


This might be my brain psyching myself out, I have no idea, but just answer


Do you guys get the same sensory overload things that you get just from interacting with the world when you play music (as in, play an instrument)? If not, how do you get around it, if you get around it?

thanks!

Last edited by necroramo on 17 Apr 2010, 2:23 am, edited 1 time in total.

not sure i understand the question...

for many years i would come home from work or school and put my headphones on and put a record on the record player and play that side over and over and over. it allowed me to zone out, go to other places, to totally relax. i think 'd have lost it totally if i had not had the chance to do this after dealing with the world "out there".

iPod with earbuds does wonders. All the extra sounds are muffled, and the music helps me focus. It always helped me when doing math homework or something like that - with our without lyrics. I can get more stuff done that way. If I listen to the music too closely though - where I can hear every sound, instrument, etc... my vision dims and all focus is on the music... weird.

Im gonna try studying with my ipod and earbuds this weekend. I have a lot of trouble concentrating and get distracted easily. I always play music on my laptop but then I get stuck playing games or on the web.

I used to listen to music with headphones and a small radio
recorder (walkmen) to not hear all the nasty noise in the
halls, and they only made a "no music in school" rule my
last year and I would run away from teachers that would
steal radios for breaking the rules... but I needed to use
it in the halls.

Do you mean listening to music or actually playing music? I've experienced both. When I get overloaded listening to music, it's usually because I'm already overloaded and haven't realized it yet. Those times, no matter the genre of music, it might as well be nails on a chalkboard or jackhammer noises coming through the speakers. I just have to turn the music off when that happens.

When I'm playing music, it's more complicated - I'm usually in rehearsal when I get overloaded, so it's not like I can take the time to go sit in a quiet place for half an hour to calm down. If that happens, I sometimes just excuse myself to go to the bathroom, go into a stall and just close my eyes for a minute (sometimes if the bathroom is busy this doesn't help, though), then take the time to wet a paper towel with cold water and wipe my face. I don't know why, but the cold helps a lot. Sometimes even that doesn't help, and I have to go back while I'm still rattled. If that happens, I just stop paying so much attention to what I'm playing and think about something else entirely - sometimes making up a story that goes along with the music, sometimes just counting the beats (One, two, three, one, two, three...). Anything that will distract me for the rest of the rehearsal.

But if it's really bad, I'll just tell the director/conductor I don't feel well, and leave so I can take the time I need to have a meltdown and calm down from it. Because sometimes there's just no working around it, unfortunately.

Sorry if my ramble wasn't what you're looking for.

this is exactly what I was looking for.

what do you think triggers an overload while playing? help me.

I have to be in the mood to listen to music, and then I'm very specific about what I want to listen to in my own collection though sometimes even my favorite stuff is a total overload for me. I do wear my mp3 player everywhere is public, since the music in 99% of stores drives me nuts. If I find the music irritating, I can't block it out and it causes a total sensory overload. At work they sometimes play the radio on night shift and it is that annoying middle of the road schlock - it drives me up the wall! I can't concentrate onmy charting or reading anything. Of course, if the majority wants it on I am forced to listen to it. Arg.

Hello all-

In regard to music, my daughter, who has PDD-NOS, actually has pretty severe melt downs when the music is too loud or overwhelming. While in church, my wife has to usually stay in the nursery with her, because she can't handle the organ music, accompanied by the congregation belting out hymns at the top of their lungs, which are amplified acoustically by the high peaked ceiling. Luckily, it was a minor miracle on Easter morning that she was able to handle the church service. This is sad, because her preschool teachers have told us how she loves singing in school.
-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Most times I play I'm in rehearsal, but won't get overloaded from that, what does overload me, though, is when we actually perform and have the sound amplified by some big speakers. I use earplugs to prevent overload on such occasions. It may decrease the quality of my music, but I can't really seem to care. When I started playing, though I really didn't understand what I wassupposed to do, but now my mom also plays and she keeps track of the important dates (as well as that we have a mailing list for news now).

It depends, and it might be different for you. And for me, an overload doesn't mean a meltdown - it's a shutdown. I stop talking, stop really seeing things, stop listening, and stop all social processing whatsoever - I'm pretty much just cut off from everything happening around me, even if I'm walking around talking, and I have to go home and hide under my blankets or in my closet until I stop feeling that way. So sometimes I don't have any idea what triggered it, because

When I do notice, though, it's usually just the fact that I don't know how to deal with (a) criticism, or (b) competition. When the band director points out something I'm doing, sometimes that overloads me because other people notice me, and if it's something I've been working on, I get really, really frustrated. The competition aspect usually only occurs at the beginning of the semester, when we get assigned parts to music. By default, I usually grab first part, because I'm the best in the group, and so I figure I should take the hardest part. Only the band director likes to give everyone a chance to play first part, so I get really upset when it gets taken away, and I have to remind myself that it's because he's trying to get everyone to play, not because he thinks I'm not good enough. That's enough to overload me for the day.

Other times, it's the music itself. If I don't like it, but we play it a lot, then I tend to overload. If I've been listening to music all day, sometimes rehearsal is just too much, and trying to listen critically is what overloads me. Sometimes I'm just being too critical of myself and need to stop playing for the day - only you can't stop playing and leave in the middle of rehearsal too often (we get knocked down a letter grade for too many absences). Or it can be because the rehearsal is too long, and I'm tired and stressed and

And I'm in college now, so I've been doing this for quite a few years. If you really want to play, you just learn to cope, and over time, you get fewer and fewer overloads because you get used to the way things are done, the way you're supposed to interact, etc. It helps me to take a minute before rehearsal and sort of "check in" with myself; I've gotten to the point where I can tell whether this is going to be an overload day or an okay day, and if it's going to be an overload day, I just make plans to compensate. I might meditate before rehearsal, or I plan my bathroom break, or just don't let myself try very hard for that rehearsal. If you know why you overload, you can learn to prevent it, or at least to cope with it so that it doesn't drive you crazy.

So, it can be one particular thing, or a lot of things combined. A rehearsal/performance is just stressful by nature: it's got social maneuvering/drama/conflict/etc., it's got performance stress, it's got criticism, and it's got a lot of noise, not all of it very musical, especially when people are warming up before hand. There's no getting around that.If you really like playing, it's definitely worth it.

Sorry for the long answer, but I hope it helps. ^^;

My car's got a 1250w Power Acoustic gothic series amp and a 10" Kicker sub. Needless to say I can easily drown out the world around me when I'm on the road......I don't get pissed off as much. But I'm pretty sure I piss off a lot of down home country boys here haha.

I have played recorder for years, and sometimes I find that playing is intensely emotional and gets too much. I stopped playing when I was suffering from severe depression. I think making music (as opposed to listening) taps into a lot of emotion and a lot of emotional memory.

I bought a mandolin and strum some chords or pick out a melody without the emotional drain.