Excessive noise... gradually?

Post Reply New Topic

Has anyone ever been in a situation in life where a gradual buildup of consistent noise, e.g. shouting and banging of doors in one's home, brought about a breakdown wherein any more noise cannot be naturally filtered (as the mind does, in small quantities) and one's cognitive functions are increasingly damaged?

(Or is the above simply a description of AS itself, manifesting as people age?)

If I understood that correctly (not entirely sure I did), this is indeed part - minus the (emotional) breakdown - of my autism and I dare say a common part of ASDs in general (as well as other disorders).

My brain gets overloaded from too many stimuli and sensory processing - due to my abnormal openness to stimuli - is slowed down to active concious (and often slow) figuring out of sounds, visual, tactile stimuli, so on.

For others, emotions or even physical exhaustion more commonly lead to the same issue of being overloaded by "too much going on" to cope with anymore after a certain point.

My (otherwise quite good) cognitive abilities are almost always affected to some degree by because I'm getting overloaded all the time, pretty much everywhere. My ability to talk is often temporarily affected. Moving can be too, too many stimuli interfere with walking/standing, so on.

Others seem to experience negatives effects (from being a little slow in a busy, hectic environment to a complete temporary loss) to calculate, read, think coherently, figure out a difficult (theoretical) problem, understanding other people, so on.

I spent most of my life in a loud, argumentative family. I became over sensitive to loud angry voices. There are some radio talk show hosts I like, but they sometimes get loud and angry. Although I share their anger at those topics, I can't handle the loud, angry conversations, and I start to get upset, as it is too like what I had to go through for most of my life, so I change the stations or turn off the radio when they get like that. I will also do that with TV shows, too. I have quite an aversion to it. Fortunately, I now live alone, so I don't have to deal much with this from the family any more.

Yes, my cognitive functioning is lowered much much much by the buildup of too many noises and too much eberrything around me over time, like from five minutes to ten minutes of sitting in a meeting. Once I have taken in too much, I can't take anymore, and that is when a shutdown happens, and I become really I can't think or do anything for quite awhile. If I try to do something during this time, like travel on the subway, I will make lots of mistakes that I would normally never make, like get off at eberry stop and not know where I am or where I am going. Then, I have to stand there for several minutes to figure it out and get on the next train to make the mistake of getting off at the next stop not my stop again and again and again. The most I did it was three times wrong, and the fourth stop was my stop, but I got off without realizing that either.

I am not sure what impact there is over time. I do think that my auditory and sensory processing abilities have got worse over time. However I am now working on improving them. So mine can and do change over time depending on what I am exposing myself to and how I am thinking about things.

In the short term there is definately a strong correlation between sensory input and functioning ability. For example if I am trying cope with an environment that has too much going on I will get overloaded and brain processing will rapidly get worse, and this can take a while to recover back to normal. I imagine this can happen on a broader level too - e.g. I suspect a year of frequently pushing my sensory limits would probably cause a long lasting reduction in my ability to handle sensory things.

I hope that was helpful, but suspect I missed the point of what you were asking

This is a good post. As a child, my father was constantly arguing with my mother and physically abusing her. I can't filter out when men yell. Period. It bothers me, and makes me want to hide in a corner. No matter who the man is, I always have the same kind of reaction. I have also become sensitive to too much arguing/slamming things/etc. I know those are just some of the things I can't listen to it anymore without feeling myself become very anxious and lose my train of thought all at once. I just bawl my eyes out, cover my ears, or leave the environment altogether. I hope this is what you were wanting to know about.

Yes, this is basically what I'm referring to, but I personally ended up unable to stand any kind of noise, including traffic... which often makes life desperate, as cars are inevitable (and people don't even care about sirens, which really drive me close to insanity every time).

In music, yes. But sudden, loud noises, especially shrill ones, still cause me to come unglued.
Rytmic sounds I can tolerate, but sudden ones, no. And I grew up in a loud/argumentive family too. Did not matter much for me, as I withdrew from those noises on principle. Emotional & sensory overloads together? FORGET IT!

Sincerely,
Matthew