Other people laughing at your discomforts?

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I was in the supermarket today and it randomly has loud bells go off. So I spend half the time in the store trying to keep away from the bells. When they go off it stuns and overwhelms my sense of hearing.

I was just looking for something near one of the bells.

The bell goes off and as I'm walking away recoiling in discomfort this bloke starts laughing at me.

I was well pissed-off about it. I couldn't tell if he was taking the piss or if he didn't know the right reaction and it made him uncomfortable?

What a missed opportunity to punch that guy in the face.

I've been laughed at all my life for my discomforts, mostly by friends and family of all people. To list all the examples would take pages.

I think if you visibly react to something that most people are silently cringing at, sometimes they will laugh because they think you are making a joke about the annoyance. Of course, I could be totally wrong, and people could be laughing at me too.

I titled my head, screwed up my eyes and gritted my teeth for a second or two, walking on. So, yes, it was a visible reaction.

I knew a guy who had Tourette's, and he had this odd tic that would pop up out of nowhere sometimes. People who didn't know about it thought he was doing it on purpose to be silly so they'd laugh. I always felt bad when that happened, but I'm sure they didn't mean anything by it. He was a funny guy and did try to make people laugh, so it was an honest mistake.

However, I've had people laugh at me when I fell down and/or injured myself. Those people definitely needed to be punched in the face.

I hate it when people do that to me. I've had similar things happen to me many times. The fire alarm goes off and I cover my ears....somebody laughs at me. It's the same for me with those bells that you've mentioned but I don't cover my ears. I try to hide my discomfort that's caused by them. Somebody laughs at me. I see a group of rowdy teenagers hollering, laughing and screaming to each other. I walk as far away as I can. Somebody laughs at me. I hate it.

The laughter was… flat. It didn't look as though he was especially amused.

I've had people laugh when I was startled by a loud noise, like a firecracker going off. I think it's mean-spirited but also a natural reaction. It's like when you are watching a comedy and someone in it walks into a lamppost, usually because they're craning their neck looking at a pretty girl. It's instinctual to laugh at that, that's why it's in the movie. To be funny.

But I still think the person who laughed at you is a complete jerk. In real life one is supposed to modulate one's reactions when they might affect another person.

Hard to know for sure, but I'm leaning towards the guy being an a-hole. Or, being completely f'ing thoughtless, at best. For all he knows, you're a veteran with PTSD (I gather that PTSD causes "hypervigilance"). There's all kinds possible of reasons to react that way.

I recall an article by a vet with PTSD, who, due to some gunfire in the movie, dove down onto the theater floor and ended up covered with popcorn. I image if someone had laughed, his wife (who was there) would've verbally ripped them a new poop-chute.

It seems like people tend to interpret almost everything anyone does as a deliberate social message to the person watching. It's as if there is no such thing as actually being in pain or accidentally falling down. Everything is somehow a deliberate pantomime, and actual reality isn't the important part. Or, maybe that's the assumption when the observer's experience doesn't match up with what they're seeing someone else experience (failure of empathy?).

So, covering one's ears or cringing from loud bells doesn't mean, "I'm in pain," it means, "oh look, look! I'm pantomiming that I'm in pain because I want everyone to see and acknowledge it! Look! Look!"

Or something like that. I could be wrong.

Anyway, what happened in that store sucks (and what CR talked about; that also sucks when people do that).

My own family STILL thinks my sensory issues are funny, so I wouldn't be surprised if random strangers are the same way. That just seems to be a reaction when people don't understand something.

Some people (or maybe a lot of people) have very poor impulse control and no desire to censor themselves. They don't seem too bothered by how their actions affect others, so why should you worry about anything they do at all? If they get to walk around being insensitive pricks all day then you get to react however you want when a grossly unpleasant sound causes you pain. You have just as much right if not more to be there as that fool does. If you laughed at his childish inability to censor his blatantly offensive impulses he wouldn't even understand why you were laughing. it's 2015 and the only thing differentiating people like him from the village idiots of old is a smartphone in their pockets and an HD television in their flats. He's just a high-tech low-life like so many others we have to share public spaces with. Don't let them get to you.

I have people laughing at me, even when I'm not doing anything to make them laugh. Well, usually it's other girls of my age who do this.

I don't think people should laugh at somebody else's discomfort. It's nasty. If I notice someone feeling uncomfortable by their body language, I don't laugh. Even if I did, I wouldn't let them hear. But generally I don't laugh. Even if I think they look a bit weird and other people are staring, I still try not to react in any way.

It's like when an NT hears an odd sound coming from somebody, what you don't usually hear, they always have to turn round to identify which person the unusual sound came from. Like last week in a busy shopping place, I was walking through a hoard of people waiting for a bus, and I caught sight of a young man who was clearly Autistic. He had his fingers in his ears and was making loud groaning noises, and he had a carer or parent with him. As soon as the man walking in front of me heard the Autistic man make the noises, he immediately turned round to see who the noises were coming from. The noises weren't threatening. I've heard weirder noises coming from teenagers.