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leniorose
Blue Jay
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12 Jun 2014, 7:26 pm

StarTrekker wrote:
SteelMaiden wrote:
Noise is awful. I want an "off" switch on my ears.


Me too. I've sometimes felt like I wanted to be deaf too, just to get some peace and quiet, but I know it would hurt way too much to do it, plus it would make life really hard, plus I wouldn't be able to listen to my music any more. I've been where you are though, and it sucks big time. KoR is right when she says sleep deprivation makes sensory issues worse; mine always get really bad in the middle of the semester when I'm going to bed too late and waking up too early.


Same here. I can also get overloaded with sensory information. And sherlock-holmes-type observations that I really wish I could ignore. Lack of sleep makes it worse, and I'm a night-owl in a city that doesn't offer night classes for high school. I live near a military base and I can always hear the artillery fire, war-games, and every 21-gun salute that they have.

For the most part I just bear it as best I can in school, and sit in the most secluded seat I can find.

When at home, I use earplugs or listen to music to drown it out.

For my other 4 senses.... it's hit or miss. My room is painted a pale mint, sea-green type of color with oil diffusers, and the sheets are all cotton. There's not much else I can do for my sensory issues regarding my room because we're renting the house.



EsotericResearch
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12 Jun 2014, 8:22 pm

I wear 33NRR earplugs almost at all times and definitely constantly when i'm outside.



ChameleonKeys
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12 Jun 2014, 8:55 pm

mezzanotte wrote:
I'm fascinated by this. How much can you hear with these aids? I'm curious to know how music would sound. Also, I've heard that when someone loses one of their senses, their other senses often grow stronger over time as a sort of compensation.


I am profoundly Deaf with a 120dB loss in most frequencies. With hearing aids I can hear, enjoy and play music (one of the few uses I find for the hearing aids) but I can't understand lyrics being sung. If I read the lyrics I can usually work out when most lines are being said, but I hear the melody rather than the words. I love bass and the rhythm. Out in public I hear thinks like busses or trucks but not most modern cars unless they need servicing. I hear some fire alarms and things like that. I can hear jets taking off when I go to the airport. Those are all useful sounds. The trouble is everything else is just a jumble of annoying noise and I don't really know what most of the sounds are, just that they're extremely unpleasant. So I probably do hear quite a number of other things, I just can't identify them as anything other than a source of irritation. So off come the hearing aids and sweet silence helps me calm down. I use my hearing aids for safety in environments where they can be useful and I use them for Music or occasionally movies if there are a lot of sounds worth hearing. Mostly I prefer silence though.

It's largely a myth that other senses compensate, though one study has shown that the Deaf use our vision/eyes more effectively. It's not so much that the other senses become stronger though, it's more that we become adept at finding clues to sound from other sources like vibration. If you give a blind person a hearing test, for example, they don't actually hear better than sighted people they just use their hearing more efficiently. It's the same with deafness.

I don't have better touch, smell or taste than anyone else but I'm much better an interpreting the information from those senses to find clues to what I might miss through my not hearing and my poor vision (I have Usher's syndrome so am legally registered as Deafblind). Despite being legally blind, I do have some central vision (I have tunnel vision) and light is really irritating and stressful. Friends with the same condition don't have the same problem - They're not Autistic so they don't have my sensory issues.

In short, those senses aren't more powerful to compensate I am just more consciously attuned to specifically useful aspects of those senses that other people might only be aware of subconsciously because they rely more heavily on the easy cues from full sound and sight. It's a learned adaption not something that happens without consciously paying attention to anything useful.

Does that help? :)



Deb1970
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12 Jun 2014, 10:14 pm

I have had the same problems all my life. When I'm really stressed it is worse. I use to live in apartment's. They are the worst. The noises from everything. The smells from the food. I use to go crazy, I would stomp on the floor and bang my fist on the walls. I used an insane amount of deodorizers to try and mask the awful smells. I was never able to adjust. I live in my own home now but I'm forced to live in my bedroom because the rest of the house is too loud. I live next to a busy street and the traffic noise really bothers me, My bedroom is the furthest from the street. It's oaky until the neighbor mows there lawn. I have to always keep the windows closed. My car drives me absolutely mad. The air conditioning went out last year and it is to expensive to fix. I have to drive with the windows down. I also can hear ever little noise the car makes. Today it is making a louder noise and I don't know what it is. I wont drive my car unless I really have to. Like driving to work and appointments. I too have thought I would be better off deaf but realize that I already have problems with communication and being deaf would make communicating worse. I have yet to find a pair of ear plugs that don't cause me to get a ear infection. I have problems with water in the ears and when using ear plugs they can not drain properly.


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