Overload.

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Thanks to all the noise I've now got a headache and I feel like falling asleep. It's 12:55pm. I can't focus on my textbook and I'm reading the same sentence over and over while trying to keep myself from having some sort of anxiety attack or angry outburst or something (I'm not sure). It's like my brain can't decide what to look at and what to listen to so instead it stops working properly.

I look around me at all the people making the noises (people at university). They're laughing and talking. Conversing. I don't understand how they can enjoy this. This noise. This way of living. Maybe they don't. Maybe they're all sitting there secretly wishing the world would just shut up for a while. Just like me.

Also, to the person sitting at the table next to mine: please stop looking at me. It makes me anxious.

(How can we know that people on the autism spectrum and NTs don't process stimuli the same way? How can we know our way of perceiving things differ?)

It seems to me that perhaps it can be fairly assessed that NT people do not process stimuli in the same way that ASD people do because, for one thing, they rarely have the more intense reactions ASD people may have to things like noise, etc.

While any NT person of course will occasionally be annoyed or even really angry and fed up with a noisy situation or other over-stimulating, aggravating situation, sure, the ASD person may generally have a more intense reaction and is generally more impaired by the situation and their own difficulty in coping with it.

NTs may get upset at the same things, but appear to be more able to process that and dismiss it, and continue living their lives, chatting in the noisy room with minimal discomfort, etc. They don't seem to have consequences for putting up with the stimuli (meltdowns, shutdowns, extreme unease, needing to end the experience and get away, for example).

An ASD person noticing the same sensory input would experience far more debilitating reactions to it, such as simply not being able to function until away from the stimuli.

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Hope you see this before logging off: Is it possible for you to go to somewhere quieter and more private to study, like maybe your hostel room?

The thing is I can only study at university. I can't focus on studying at home. Sometimes, like today, it's really difficult to find a good place to sit (I prefer to sit at the same table every time but that doesn't always work out) and then things often, but not always, get really difficult for me. This oversensitivity (though I don't know if I'm oversensitive since I've got nothing to really compare it to) I experience is a huge problem for me sometimes. It's pretty much always bothering me a bit but some days it's pretty awful (like today).

I tried staying at university for another hour but I basically just sat at the table and stared into the wall and then I started to draw a picture I like drawing sometimes (a picture that was shown to me during my assessment). Couldn't focus, my head was hurting and I felt really tired. Gave up a little while ago and cycled home. I don't know why but when this oversensitivity thing happens I feel really annoyed and depressed and right now I feel like the smallest thing could set me off. Like I said, it's quite a big problem for me sometimes since I can't really study when I feel like this, which means I feel like I'm falling behind. I wish there was some sort of support to get for things like this.



Thanks. My boyfriend (NT) sometimes says he gets really tired around noisy people as well but he seems to be able to "shake it off" quickly. I, on the other hand, can't really get over it and only get tired, angry and feel like I want to cry. I don't go back to normal until I've been able to get away from the thing that's bothering me so much.

Make a small investment. Hearos foam earplugs coupled with a good set of ear defenders. You can get them both at Home Depot. Get the ones with the highest decibel number that you can find. Ear protectors/defenders are the insulated plastic earmuffs, the kind they wear in construction sites. Although more expensive, some of them have an MP3 plug so that you can also listen to your own music but their decibel numbers are not quite as high unless you spend lots more money. But I got a regular set for $24.00. When I wear them together with the foam earplugs, it helps a lot. It can be a bit painful especially at first but you get used to that and it's worth it to cut out a lot of the noise. If you wear ear rings you will want to take them off with the ear defenders. That should help a lot.

Hi Skibum: long time no see! LOL

Whenever I become overloaded in a sensory sense, I tend to go into panic mode (usually without exhibiting, for public consumption, physical signs of the panic).

In these instances, I might make rash decisions, bump into things. freeze up, pace, or withdraw to another room.

Most definitely, I react to sensory overload with more intensity than the average "NT."

I actually prefer listening to music when I study (one song on repeat over and over because then it sort of becomes a predictable and non-distracting background sound, do you know what I mean?). I'm ok with sounds I can choose and control myself. Do you think a really good pair of noise-cancelling in-ear headphones would work? Not sure which ones though.

Try the ones from Home Depot. They are $54. They have the MP3 player plug. There is another pair for $150 that might work better but see if the home depot ones work for you first before spending a ton of money.

Hi Kraftie!

What are they called? We don't have Home Depot (I don't live in the US) but perhaps I can find them someplace else.

I will find some on the internet and send you the link.

Here are some examples
http://www.theeardefender.com/

http://eardefenders.org/2011/07/peltor- ... mp3-input/

http://www.doublealpha.biz/ear-defender ... reme-pro-x

I had found a great pair that I had wanted to try but I can't find them again right now. I will have to look for them later but you can see what these are and see if you can find a set that will suit you.

Thank you. I wish there was something more like this though (random picture I found on google): Click here. Perhaps there are no noise-cancelling earphones like that?

Those would be more discreet. The problem with noise cancellation is that for it to work you have to provide a seal for the ear. Either an entire and complete seal in the external ear hole itself, there is one plug that does a great job at this but it is messy and it is just a plug, you can't play music through it. I have some and they work very well but like they are sticky and messy and it takes a while to learn how to make the seal to put them in correctly. And they are made of beeswax and lanolin, they look and feel like play dough but they can leave residue in your ears which is not a big deal. But they work great if you don't mind dealing with them. But of course you can't use them for music. The big ear muff ear defenders work pretty well because they provide a decent seal around the entire ear. If you don't have a seal, it will not block any sound.

I know NTs don't process stimuli the way we do just by watching how they react in situations that cause me problems. No one else in my family ever wears earplugs to places where I wouldn't survive without them; nobody where I work freaked out and shut down when the large hunk of metal fell on the floor, making a horrendous clanging crash (if you've seen the movie Mozart and the Whale, think about the female character's reaction to the metal rings clanging on the bottles at the fair; that's pretty much what I looked like.) Other people on the bus may be annoyed by the screaming baby, but none of them look like they want to throw themselves out the windows because of it. If NTs were as sensitive as us to stimuli, 85% of the clothing we have would not exist, because the fabric would bee too scratchy or the wrong cut or too tight or too loose, etc. There would be no such thing as "fashion." I wish NTs could experience the sensory world the way we do for just a week, then maybe they'd understand.