Noise sensory overload causing stress

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I have high functioning autism and one of the biggest challenges it gives me every day has to be sensitivity to sound and other senses. And the biggest thing which makes living at home difficult for me is living with parents, especially my dad. He shouts, a lot, and pretty much blows a fuse each day. Whether its shouting at the computer or about work etc.

Now when this happens, I feel very anxious and upset and angry at the same time, and this happens each time I hear him shout, or if other people in my house are shouting. I'm guessing from a NT's point of view this could just be seen as pretty annoying or they can empathise and maybe try calm them down, but each time I hear shouting I experience the same emotions all at once - the anxiety, sadness and anger. I feel like I have to hit stuff when he shouts and get angry myself and feel I can't stop myself, like I'm obliged to do it. Then it makes him more angry.
This is pretty much happened my whole life with my sensitivity to loud voices whether its my dad or not. And as I'm at home in my room most time I experience so much stress when it happens and when my mum's only home I feel relaxed, the opposite when my dad's here. I'm trying to get out more and make friends but finding it difficult. Last year I tried to live away at university but moved back because I was sensitive to the loud roommates I was with.

So this whole noise sensitivity is actually limiting my life very much and I just feel edge at home with anxiety there will be a shouting match, and I've never had much support for my autism and there isn't much help at all locally. So I'd really like to take the opportunity and ask people with autism/aspergers if their experiencing similar things. And importantly, how to cope with noise sensitivity or it will always be a problem. I feel like I should always carry some earplugs everywhere I go..

Don't discount the idea of ear-plugs, or headphones etc. As long as you're careful not to use them when it could be dangerous (e.g. crossing the street, driving) they can be a really good way to get a bit of relief from the barrage of noise that most other people seem oblivious to.

Another idea is to use headphones, and try to find an alternative noise that will mask what's going on around you, but without being so distracting. For some people that will be music, for others recordings of nature, or even just a single tone or "white noise". One of my favourites is just the sound of an old fashioned mechanical clock ticking - it not only masks the external noise, but is a sound that I find very relaxing in its own right.

If you can access the countryside reasonably easily, I also find that immersing myself in nature is very therapeutic for my sound sensitivity. It's like it empties the bucket of anxiety that builds up through constant noise exposure - which gives me greater tolerance for it when I return to "civilisation".

Thank you for your advice, especially about immersing in nature. I do live in quite a forestal area so I'll try that. When I used to take the bus over a year having earplugs would certainly have reduced the stress I had using it, as it can be very noisy, especially if the school kids get on! I know that there's discreet earplugs out there so I wouldn't be self conscious using them.

Only thing is though I was worried I would use them as a safety behaviour and then I might train myself to be sensitive to the noise more without them. But for relief they're certainly helpful any case.

I haven't found that headphones have made me more sensitive when I don't use them. At least not so far - I was only diagnosed a little while ago, so I'm still at an "experimental" stage with it myself, on the advice of my Occupational Therapist.

One thing I do find useful is to have a volume control easily to hand - I use those headphones with a control on the cable. That allows me to slowly "cross-fade" between the headphones and the external noise, so that there isn't a sudden jolt when I take them off. If you find ear-plugs more effective, you might be able to use a similar trick by getting several pairs with different degrees of noise reduction (usually given as a figure in "decibels" or "dB" where a bigger number represents less noise penetration).