Hearing everything, and inability to filter background noise

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I have a similar problem, though I think I've managed to deal with it better in the last couple of years. My preferred place to talk would be in a quiet room but since that's often not an option, I find that if I concentrate on the thread of the conversation, instead of all the noise that's going on all around me, it's a lot easier to follow the conversation. It doesn't always work, and it doesn't stop my ears from buzzing and my head thumping for ages afterwards, but it's manageable.

I still have problems with phone conversations, though. I absolutely have to be in a quiet place when on the phone, otherwise I have to ask the other person to repeat everything they say about five times. Not good.

I have the same issues, I have a hard time filtering,
when I am at work I have to many times listen to beeps and pings and all sorts of loud and sharp noises,
they hurt my head badly, I can hardly hear anything others say when that stuff is going on, let alone pay attention to them.
I am lucky though, i many times can go out side and give my self a break for a while.
one thing I am learning though is that the more stressed I am the more the sounds get to me.

Yes, absolutely, if there is background noise going on, especially TV, and it is at a certain volume, I hear that instead of the conversation. It's like a tape recorder, I can't filter background noises out. When people nearby me are whispering at a meeting that is all I hear. Sometimes I think people around me must think I have a problem with hearing loss because I have to ask them to repeat things. I also cannot focus if there are two different radios on to different stations, and I cannot listen to the radio and drive if there are passengers in my car.

The other side of the coin is that I am extremely sensitive and can pick up sounds others can't hear or which don't disturb them. Someone coughing on the other side of the room might just as well be coughing directly in my ear. Or if they are drumming on their desk. Public toilets used to freak me out when I was a child because of the roar. It was not until I read Dr. Grandin's description of this phenomenom that I realized that I was not just imagining them being louder than the one at home. I really did experience an increase in volume. I can also hear music coming from people's headphones a couple of cubicles away and sometimes can even tell you what they are listening to. I freaked out one co-worker who did not realize her headphones were that loud. She was sitting several feet away, and I said, "You are listening to -----". She said, Oh my God, you are right!

I have never been tested other than the standard hearing tests I received as a child which weren't designed for this sort of thing, so I don't know where I stand on the hearing spectrum.

Oh yeah, add to that short term memory difficulties and I find myself asking questions that I just asked two minutes ago.

I find that if I control the sound that is coming in, and it drowns out the other sounds, then it works.

When I need to focus on a conversation, I will fiddle with my rings or my bracelet. Most people won't even notice me doing that. (When I was younger, I chewed a lot of gum). When I'm driving, I can't have the kids making lots of noise or jumping around it would make me dangerous... One thing that I'm thinking helped was my standard transmission; it seems I am less able to drive in the automatic transmission than I was when I had to keep track of a stick shift and clutch as well as the brake, the acceleration and the mirrors.

At night, I have a white noise machine so that I don't have to lie in bed listening to the crickets and the frogs and the raccoon walking down the sidewalk and the cat on the back porch in addition to my husband's breathing.

During the day, I often will put on the radio so that I'm not lost in the traffic or the sound of my husband's typing in the next room or worse the voices in my head (lol, my hubby just asked if I was sure the voices are "in my head" and my response was "no"). The only problem is that sometimes, I'll play the radio so loudly that nobody else can hear anything but the radio. Today, someone came into the shop and I didn't notice until I saw them in out of the corner of my eye!

I have to mute the sound so I can concentrate on the phone and I have to be careful that I'm not actually in a conversation with someone on a bulletin board like this or I lose the verbal conversation. It's not just audio. Things will catch my eye and attention and I'm gone into whatever that is forget what I was just doing. If someone comes into the room talking, I'll completely lose the ability to understand what the person on the phone was saying.

My hubby says I'm not really good at multi-tasking even though I am really good at jumping from one thing to the next because I've learned to. (He doesn't take into consideration how annoying it is to be dragged away from something I'm into doing.

So, yeah, not being able to filter anything, seems pretty common to me.

One thing that I think I really like about bulletin boards is that if my train of thought gets interrupted while I'm reading (or writing) a post, I can easily go back and reread it. (I also like being able to edit before I hit the post button, hehe).

It's funny you should mention this.

I was in the pub having a meal before and they constantly play tinned music these days. It seems to be the 'in' thing; I find it very irritating because it stresses me out and means a lot of extra work. I have registered my dislike of the music at the level it's at (it makes it hard for me to hear people - I feel as though I'm competing with some warbling git like James Blunt) but I fear I am vastly outnumbered by... pretty much everyone else. It's experiences like these and others that lead me to feel ostracised.

I sometimes have trouble with hearing and touch. It varies though depending on apparantly random factors. I tend to hear background sounds better than foreground. If someone is talking to me in a noisy environment, I can hear the sounds they are making but cant make out what the words are.
The touch thing does not happen often but is usually bad when it does. Sometimes the skin on my back and arms gets so sensitive that my clothes irritate and hurt. The only solution is to stay home and wander around naked, but then I cant lean on anything or sit back on the sofa. it gets very tiring. Once or twice it has been so bad that just breathing moves the skin enough to rub.
Not cool.
Yet strangely enough, I can use and abuse my hands and feet until the cows come home with no effects. Odd.

I do the naked thing too. Which is only embarrassing when someone comes to the door and you're in the kitchen unclothed.

I have a similar issue - only I comprehend voices. Usually just not the ones right in front of me. I can hear and follow three distant conversations at once, but have to really concentrate to comprehend the person talking to me. I have lots of trouble with verbal task lists, often I have to resort to singing the list to myself until I get it all done.

It does seem like CAPD a bit. I can't seem to NOT listen to all the other conversations or noise going on around me. I also seem to identify the separate noises - paper being shuffled, stapler being used, door closing, chair creaking, belch, tapping pencil on desk... makes it hard to concentrate on the task at hand.

My company bought me a pair of noise canceling headphones and I often play white noise or music through them - and can STILL hear conversations. I have to turn the music/noise way up to block things out.

My girlfriend points out very often that I also seem to have a similar visual issue - as I will point out things the most people miss or don't pay attention to - such as animals on the side of the road, birds. Comes in hand upon occasion. I remember one time my mother lost a small diamond out of her ring. Several people were scouring the area as I walked up. I asked what they were looking for, she told me and almost immediately I pointed and said, "That one?" - from six feet away without even bending down to look. But often, it also creates problems. Such as being too much of a 'perfectionist' : "Nobody is going to see it!" "What do you mean!?! Its like a neon billboard!!" ... I guess they are right... nobody ELSE will notice it. LOL!!

Very happy to find I am not the only one...

I’m constantly asking people to mute the TV set when speaking to me, even if it’s quiet (which it usually isn’t), because I simply can’t focus on two speaking voices at once. It’s just as problematic when there's someone else in the room talking to someone else either in the room or on the phone. I know I have CAPD, since I frequently have trouble comprehending what a single person is saying to me even with no background noise, but with background noise, it's impossible.

Yes, I sometimes have difficulty hearing when there is a lot of background noise.

I had the same experience. I had my hearing tested by an audiologist because I was having difficulty understanding people and thought there might be something wrong with my hearing. My audiologist was surprised at how good my hearing was. It was fairly normal in the low-to-mid range frequencies, but was above normal at the high frequencies. My high-frequency hearing was well above the 0 line.

After hearing about it I thought I might have CAPD. One other hearing issue I've had is what I've called a cognitive delay. Sometimes a person will say something that I didn't catch, and by the time I say, "What?" in response I'll have heard and understood it. It doesn't happen all the time, but it's annoying when it does. Someday I will have to go and get tested for it to see if I have CAPD.

I don't believe I have this as bad as others, but I do need a white noise machine at night (a fan works well for me), and I've even made a semi-successful career out of noticing sounds that other people miss.

Like many of you, my hearing is very acute compared to "normals". If the background noise is too loud for me to hear your voice, I won't be able to understand what you are saying no matter what you do. However, assuming I can actually hear your voice, I have the opposite problem of most of you. I can focus in on a particular voice or sound very readily. However, I do this at the cost of being able to hear what else is going on. If I am talking to someone and concentrating on what they are saying, I won't hear or interpret anything else. "You mean the guy on the other side of me was talking about carrying out a terrorist attack and I didn't notice?" The same goes if I am listening to music or anything else. I will hear things that interrupt my train of thought, like a knock on the door or a fire alarm going off, but it will take me several seconds (or minutes) for me to figure out what I just heard. - LJS

The only noise that I cannot tune out when talking to somebody is the horrible sound of toddlers screaming and shouting.

I HATE TODDLERS!! !! !! !! !! !! !

yeah

I can't wear ear plugs or IEM's any longer as they hurt my ears and make me sick. But i am thinking of trying some custom ear plugs and IEM's. maybe some white noise like the wind blowing would help. i always like the wind.

http://www.jhaudio.com/collection-promusic.php#8

http://www.jhaudio.com/jha-gear-accessories.php#14

I cannot think at all with any noise but wind, maybe trains, rain, thunder... that sort of thing going on. i can't even fill out forms with too much noise going on. why is it that forms are always such a pain to fill out?

I definitely have problems filtering out background noise. For instance at work there's so much going on sometimes that my brain just shuts down. It's embarassing sometimes, but it happens and I try to make the best of it. Worst case scenerio (which is usually at work) I have to ask the customer to repeat what they said, sometimes more than once. I find that when I'm in a situation like that were theres different noises coming from all different areas and I feel overstimulated and overwhelmed I tend to use my tongue as a distraction (yeah I realize that probably sounds strange....) I'll run my tongue along the back of my upper teeth and along the bottom teeth after the top, then I rub my lips together as if I put on chapstick, and I tend to (gently) bite the inside of my lip (or more like grasp it gently with my teeth) and rub my tongue along it back and forth. It's like I get so focused on that that it helps prevent me from feeling too overwhelmed. It doesn't always work, but it helps calm me down in a situation where I can't necessarily control the noise level. I really think it's more of a comfort thing.

At home I have to keep the tv quiet, even if there's nothing else going on (I also get overstimulated by loud noises). If I'm in the car I can have the radio on, but only if it's just me in the car or another person but only if they're not talking, if there's another person in the car talking, the radio has to be off completely.

As far as the cell phone, if I'm on the phone it has to be in an area with virtually no noise. If I'm home I go into the bedroom, shut the fan off and shut the door! And talking on the phone in public is terrible I hate it. If I have to do it, I will, but it's hard because I pretty much miss most of the conversation and ask the other person to repeat themselves a lot.