What triggers sensory overloads in you

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What triggers your overloads? Does length of exposure make a difference? Does a trigger one day have little impact the next? How much time do you need to recover?

Those are specific questions I don't usually know the answer to, because I can only analyze these things with hindsight. I can take a guess in each situation what might have caused it, but it doesn't really help me because the situation isn't preventable -- if it were I would have prevented it. I avoid or circumnavigate things that cause bad reactions. Can take care of myself & don't let myself become too overloaded in public. Being too tired is usually the reason if I do become overloaded -- most of my senses are sensitive -- olfactory, auditory, touch, are the most & taste is probably the middle & sight is the least because I don't pay a lot of attention to visual unless I have to -- only find functional things in my vision & don't enjoy sight seeing, but can appreciate something pretty, just don't go looking for it.

I would say my main sensory trigger is smell. Certain smells just make me gag.

Noise; constant loud background noise is very wearing to me

Crowds

Clothing being tight, itchy or otherwise uncomfortable, other skin reactions to types of contact

Visual noise in terms of a busy or messy looking environment

Too many things happening around me that my hypervigilance is trying to keep up attention to

Too many people talking at once

Being constantly interrupted or talked over so that I'm experiencing the clash between hearing their voice and still hearing my own voice and processing my own thoughts as I'm speaking -- if three things are trying to happen at the same time I feel like I'm about to explode from the stress of the multiple sources of stimulation and my attempts to process them.

Q1. Sound, sound, sound. Misophonia apparently runs sound through the wrong parts of the brain (?) and it's unbearable. Certain sounds drive all misophonics crazy - any kind of mouth noise (licking, sucking, slurping, gulping, smacking, etc) whispering, ticking / dripping, to name a few. Any of that going on and I'm all STOP IT or I have to leave. Also touch, especially by people and especially skin to skin. Cannot stand it. It feels like being crushed. My brain interprets it as being crushed. Any kind of eye contact, even only for a second, at times even peripherally as in I can see someone's eyes at all. Whites me out. Too much socializing, and no time in absolute privacy not being watched or overheard, so I can do what I need to do without hypervigilance. And lastly emotional stimulus. Am alexithymic so I can be under severe emotional stress and not realize, until I have a massive shutdown.
Q2. Length of time makes a difference with the social and emotional ones, as if it's cumulative. But even one noise is enough to snap me most of the time.
Q3. The noise and touch ones are constant. That will always drive me crazy. But what I can put up with in terms of social and emotional stimuli seems to correlate with other external and internal conditions. If everything is going badly, the proverbial rope will be shorter.
There's bound to be loads more I can't think of at present.
Q4. It varies.

I don't have a direct trigger. But the closest would be:
Food. Which I could barely tolerate, with lesser chance of figuring or desensitizing since avoiding taste-related challenge is too doable.
.. And cold. I figured 'how' to take levels of intensity and lengths of exposure but... I could get desensitized but it deconditions quickly. My cold threshold is low (I shiver at below 25°C while fully clothed), yet I could tolerate several hours at best even with ongoing physical involuntary reactions.


Constant overall exposure of multiple sensory stimuli, and multiple groups of socializing without a break, would take me more than half a day before it overstimulation and overload happens. Over 5-8+ hours of overstimulation before exhaustion occurs.

Going past through my limit will take me about a whole week to completely recover from it.
So far, I had reached the state getting sick and overall sensitization -- as in, in a completely vulnerable state, when motor engines DO sounds like roaring thunder and cold air burns. While in a constant state of some form of shutdown and a something that is tired -- which is neither physical or mental yet it drags down both. Yet meltdown never happens. Mostly I lost levels of control -- emotional especially.
I'm not sure how long I have to recover if it didn't happened past my limits of exhaustion while overloaded and overstimulated.

My most recent experience was about 2 months ago. Before that, it was about 6 years ago from those months ago. So I only have a set of my own data when dealing with sensory overload that had me in a state of sensory overload, and requires for me to recover. So I don't know how truly varied my body could react to it.

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Children do trigger a sensory overload, the younger they are the worse I feel around them. Their noise, unpredictability, energy...I just cannot stand it.

Crowds is my next thing. I don't like strangers standing in my personal space or walking into me. This is why I avoid shopping malls at weekends. And, again, children seem to make crowds more overwhelming.

Slow traffic queues is also an anxiety trigger for me. Because of my ADHD, I like to be moving fast, not 3mph on a congested road.

Things that put me quickly into sensory overwhelm include: loud noise including bad music, heat, being in the midst of people and having to track their conversation and facial expressions, and being in bright light. Those will fry me and it can take several hours of decompression to recover. I'm fortunate that I'm not overly sensitive to food tastes and textures or the feeling of clothing. And I don't know if it's a purely sensory issue, but I don't even try to drive on busy highways any more - it's just too much input to process.

it varies so much! Lately just simply fluorescent lights and crowds of people talking has been able to do it for me which hasnt been the case since i was young! ive been spending too much time at home.

Mostly, for a minor case where i just shut down its a prolonged exposure to flourescent lights and noisey people ( Like a shopping mall or busy area) for over a half hour will make me shut down.

a meltdown takes a bit more, a unevenly lit room where most of the room is too dark but there are lights everywhere, THAT will trigger a meltdown. Clubs, School dances, bowling alleys and concerts will have these things and they WILL make me meltdown.

Also cars on a busy street will make me meltdown.

Television.