Loud voices painful -so I guess I'm the freak?

Post Reply New Topic

Bad time for me right now. My family taking the side of loud people. I guess we are the ones all alone?

What happened is that I go to a weekly Al-anon meeting because my younger brother the alcoholic lives with my mother (she is in big denial). I needed that support of those people to help move out of the house (I may have to move back if anything happens to my job, which I dread). They say that after the meeting, to hang around and talk to people afterwards. I never really do so because some of the people get loud and I find it to be very painful - not "feelings" painful, ACTUALLY painful!

Last night a newcomer asked me a question and I tried to answer her but found it impossible because I could not even hear myself speak. Even though I was covering my ears, trying to move closer, asking to go somewhere else, but no one seems to care. I also got upset ("Its so f****n' loud in here! I don't normally do that).

Later, I spoke with someone on the phone whom I will call "Scott". I asked him if he found it painful and "No, I like the camaraderie" I can't believe the loudness is not painful to him. Also, he talked about how "if you have expectations, you will only had disappointments" and that I should not expect people to accommodate me about this noise issue because I will only have resentments. Am I really asking for something that is such a hardship for other people?

I went to visit my mother this morning and she had the TV on loud, one reason I no longer live there. On C-SPAN there was someone whose voice was making my skin crawl. She asks me whats wrong and I tell "he's making my skin crawl" and of course she rolls her eyes. This is why I try not to tell but what if people goad something like that out of me?

Later I talked to my sister who helped me get the diagnosis and she just says "life is tough" because I have this problem and people are loud and I am the wrong one because I ask them to keep it down. Of course, one of the worst offenders is her husband, Gary, who is a physician so he gets away with a lot of things. Not only is he unbearably loud and talks all the time (also smelly, has bad breath and spreads germs) but that is a another thread. She told me to get earplugs, which is OK in a factory but what if someone wants to have a conversation with me?

I'm feeling left out - all because I can't stand the noise.

I hear you... no pun intended.

I ain't a fan of loud noises either... though they don't cause me half as much trouble as the light...
Oh the arguments I've had about the lighting in the office... why everyone insists on having it on full blast in the middle of the day AND all the blinds open to let as much sunlight as humanly possible right into my freakin face.
I wear sunglasses all day every day (something else I had to fight for), and it STILL blinds the hell out of me, makes it increasingly difficult to get my work done, and is gradually causing deterioration of my vision. I spend a goodly portion of every day hiding in dark corners just trying to wipe my eyes dry as they end up streaming because of all the bright lights.

Seriously... what the f**k is their problem? The monitors are back-lit. The screen is easiest to see when the rest of the room is dark. It casts enough room to SEE the rest of the room by! How is this not blindingly obvious to anyone?



O'course this isn't even getting started on the aggro I get from strangers just BECAUSE I have to wear sunglasses all the time.... (not having to make eye contact is a big bonus for me, but they seem to hate it... stuffed up bastards). Wouldn't be a problem if I could just get a night-shift job.

I can't stand loud noises. I'm so glad I have my own house now. My husband is at least considerate of my hearing. My dad would play his flute and piccolo, my brother would play bass-heavy music, mom liked bluegrass... all of which was insanely painful. No one took me seriously. On long car rides, I'd spend the time kicking at the speakers, trying to break them (you'd think that would have given them a freaking clue!)
Of course we're the ones in the wrong. Everyone else can handle it, so we're the ones who have to adapt. Earplugs can be a lifesaver, same as sunglasses! We can't expect anyone else to understand, it's like explaining quantum physics to a cockroach.

one of the most attractive parts of my imagination of death is that it would involve everything going quiet.

My wife likes to watch a TV show called The Apprentice. If you have never seen it, it's basically a collection of loud, stupid, obnouxious people shouting at each other for 30 minutes and then the most stupid one leaves at the end. I try to just ignore shows she watches if they dont suit me but I simply cannot be in the same room when that show is one the TV. I feel my anxiety level go through the roof and I just have to leave the room. I litrally cannot understand why anyone would choose to watch it.

I live on a college campus.

I feel your pain.
And I get looks, guys, like I'm a freak. There is scientific evidence that it is physically painful for us. Now, if the average person would only listen to science.

Even the elevators at our school beep so loud at every floor that I have to hold my ears.

I think neurotypicals simply life partially deaf lives. G-d bless 'em. It must be bliss.

It's probably just that they assume that everybody else is NT, too. Most of the time that's a valid assumption, so it usually pays off... except when it's not valid and they end up pretty clueless.

It's nothing to do with NTs specifically; more to do with the fact that they're the majority. That means they have less experience than any other group with interacting with people who aren't like themselves, and that leads to the "everybody is like me" fallacy that is causing us so much grief.

It might be a lack of empathy, but it's not a lack of compassion. If a neurotypical who is a decent person comes to understand that noise truly hurts you, they will want to make less noise. It's just the understanding it in the first place that's difficult for them.

Ironically, that's the same problem we have when it comes to understanding them... Getting the information about their state of mind in the first place is tough; but once we've got it, we feel pretty much the same about it as anybody else might. But NTs just have less experience with having to find a way across this gap, than we do. So it's like they're just starting to learn the things we've been working on our whole lives. I feel like we have to be at least a little patient with them.

I can relate to you.

I'm seen as a selfish person/freak at work because I can't stand the radio that is on (sometimes blaring) in one of the rooms where I work. I sometimes turn it off when I get the chance (when no one is around). Or if I can't turn if off, then I simply refuse to do the tasks that are to be done in that room, thus making others do all. I don't care about that because it's not my fault. If they have their way about the radio, then they should understand that I can't work there. But instead of understanding, they think I'm a freak and selfish. They seem to think all the people have the same noise tolerance. If they like the noise, others should be ok, too - that's what they seem to think. I already had very bad relationships with my colleagues without this problem, but the radio issue is making it even worse.

It's tough. It's either you endure the noise and have a stressful time or you cut the ties with noise-insensitive people.

I am reading this thread along with my morning coffee, almost in tears because I cannot take all the movement of my hubby in the kitchen. I had been thinking that I need to write about this - how, for example, the drawers sound like dragons. The he crumpled a bag, stirred his coffee, ate his cereal loudly.

At night, he has the t.v. on. I can't stand it, I can't stand weekends. He watches so much t.v.. It hurts my head - not headache, though one can arise after a time. Brain ache, intense ear pain, a pressure in my skull that threatens to blow the top of - a feeling of being beaten and just wanting it to "stop."

To me, loud voices are unintelligible, and just noise. My brain cannot process the message being spoken in a loud voice, because it's too busy being overloaded by the "pain" of the volume. This is especially true on the phone, and I often get asked to "speak up" by the person on the other end of a phone call because I hold the phone away from my head in order to be able to hear the person at a comfortable level (consequently my mouth is too far from the microphone). When in person, I just gaze at the person speaking too loudly, and have no idea what they just shouted about. It might as well be a screeching noise from a malfunctioning machine of some kind. On TV or radio, the same applies. Too loud = noise that is not perceptible to me as anything but noise.

Charles

The only loud voices I cannot tolerate are from the television (news anchors seem to have a higher-pitched voice on TV than in real life) and people with naturally high-pitched voices - it literally feels like knives being jammed into my skull.

For me, the biggest problem is not actually the volume, but the amount of people talking, the situation, the content of the conversation, my relationship to the people talking... imagine me being in a room with 30 people everyday who talk loudly about stupid s**t while I'm trying to learn. It becomes impossible.

Also, I find it INCREDIBLY annoying when people make sound that is completely and utterly unnecessary. Why do you have to laugh so insanely loud and shrill? Why do you have to do 50 high fives when you meet your friend? Holy crap! At times I just want to punch someone.