I’ve decided that I’m going to do a serious of posts on my Autistic traits. I think that it’s probably best to start with the sensory differences, because holy hell they fucking suck. Thankfully, for most of them, they’re relatively mild. In other words, I’ve certainly got sensory issues related to vision, smells, touch, and taste, and while they can be really annoying from time to time, none of them hold a candle to sounds, they’re a real gaddam nightmare.

Sounds

Let’s start at the top: loud noises. Loud noises, especially if they’re prolonged, make my entire body tense up. It feels like there are walls closing in on all sides and my world gets smaller and smaller, like I’m being crushed into cube. I can’t think, I can’t focus, panic-mode engages. I get irritable. Actually, I get fucking angry: it feels so violating, and often for such dumb-fuck reasons. Case-in-point: loud cars, trucks, and motorcycles. Those pathetic little children so desperate for attention that they feel the need to modify their vehicle to be as loud as fucking possible. When they drive by and that loud, clanging, mechanical scream hits my ears it makes me want to lie in the ground in the fetal position. It’s completely overwhelming. The only thoughts I am capable of mustering in these moments are thoughts of anger and hate. Why would someone do this to me? To others? Would they be okay if I walked up to them and screamed into their ear at the top of my lungs? I’m sure they wouldn’t, so why is it different when they’re in their fucking mechanized monster?

Anyway, I don’t want to get off track, but that is how I feel during, and after these moments. It usually takes me a few seconds to recover after the sound has passed. And while my ability to form thoughts starts to return, and the physical pain of the sensation starts to fade, I’m left feeling energetically drained. There are of course other loud sounds, really all loud sounds, that do this to me: blenders, leaf blowers, lawnmowers, chainsaws (and other power tool saws), loud music, jets (and I do mean jets, like when the military planes fly over Boone), dogs barking in close proximity. I get the same physical pain and cognitive breakdown from all of these kinds of things. When it’s happening, it’s incredibly debilitating.

So that’s part of it, the worst part of it: the loud sounds.

But it does not end there. Another major sensory sensitivity related to sounds that I have is simply getting overwhelmed. Example: crowded rooms, restaurants, etc. Anytime when there are a lot of noises happening at once, and even worse when there are a lot of people talking at once. I can’t focus. Honestly, all it takes is two different audio stimuli occurring simultaneously that ruins my ability to focus and can often lead to a cascading breakdown.

So, if I’m in a room with even a small group of people, who are just talking at a regular, or even quiet volume, but there is more than one person speaking, my brain attempts to lock-in to all the voices. I’m also processing any other sounds present in the room on top of this, but voices are especially difficult to filter out. It’s like my brain is a radio and it’s trying to receive ALL the available channels simultaneously. What I mean is that it takes immense amounts of energy for me to focus on what the specific person who is speaking to me directly is saying. I probably only catch about 50% (at best) of it, because my brain is simultaneously trying to decipher and pay attention to all of the other sounds, words, conversations, etc. that are happening around me. This, beyond being energetically exhausting, sets off a cascading series of anxieties that end up becoming a feedback loop.

[I’ll note that it’s hard to get into the following without introducing some of the other facets of my Autism (the social differences), which I’ll have a more detailed post about later].

The feedback loop in these situations goes likes this: I can’t concentrate on what the person is saying to me. I realize this, so try and focus harder and block out the other sounds. Now I’m focused on my desire to focus and this is where the cascade occurs:

“Pay attention to this! Seriously, you’re missing what they’re saying, pay attention!” Of course, now I’m focusing on my need to focus, and I start realizing that I’ve missed more of what the person said. Do I stop them and ask for clarification? No, I think that I heard about half of what they said, I’m sure I can fill in the blanks. Shit, they’re still talking and I missed more of what they said. Wait…are we just sitting here blankly with a look of mild panic on our face? Engage social cue: nod head, perhaps smile slightly, make some eye contact. Fuck, I hate eye contact. Was that too much? Too intense? Or, was it not enough? [Recalibrating…] Uhm, when did they stop talking? Wait, did they ask me a question? Shit, I’m feeling really anxious right now. Do they know I’m feeling anxious? Probably… Fuck, now I’m anxious that I’m anxious. I probably need to say something...anything:

“Oh...yeah...I hear ya!” [narrator: he did not, in fact, hear them]

On the topic of auditory distractions, some people can listen to music while reading, or studying, etc. I can’t. Not unless it’s really atmospheric, at a very low volume, and has no vocals, or at least no vocals that I can understand (i.e. must be another language that I don’t speak, or gibberish ala Sigur Ros). But really, instrumental is usually all I can handle. In all honesty, I usually just prefer pure silence. Absolute, dead silence. Like, I wish I could be in the vacuum of space kind of silence.

Other noises can bother me, too. Not as much as loud sounds, which are just straight-up debilitating and disabling, but they can certainly be distracting and energetically draining. I can often hear certain kinds of lights, electronics, things in the distance, the sounds inside my own body (not always, but sometimes), and more often than not, if I let it in, that fucking ringing sound: the ever present “eeeeeeeeeeeeeee” from my tinnitus. God damn it. Just typing this now brought it to my awareness.

There’s one more group of sounds that really get to me: sounds that are persistently random. Example: One of our ceiling fans (the one in the bedroom, because of-fucking-course) makes this clicking sound. But it’s not rhythmic, it’s somewhat random, my brain tunes into the random trying to find a pattern. There is no discernible pattern. It drives me nuts. Another example: mice in the walls. I mean, it’s bad enough having mice in the fucking walls during the winter, but the random, intermittent skittering sounds drive me crazy. I have to put in earplugs, which really only dampen the sound.

So, yeah. Auditory sensitivities. Such fun. Sounds are by far my most intense sensory sensitivity and the most taxing on my day-to-day wellbeing. I’ve found some workarounds, but nothing is perfect.

I’ve started putting in earplugs when I go into stores to dampen the sounds. It helps, but then inevitably someone tries to talk to me and I have to stop them, remove my earplugs, and attempt to reengage. Also, when I’ve tried this in restaurants, Renee has told me that I talk incredibly quietly. I’m already a mumbler (because, to me, my voice is so loud), but with earplugs, I sound even louder in my head, so I compensate by speaking even more quietly. Gonna have to work on that one. Noise-cancelling headphones have been helpful, but what I really, truly need to decompress and rejuvenate myself is to float blindfolded in empty space. No sounds, no gravity, no sights, no sensory input at all. The closest I can get to that is are sessions in the float/isolation tank in town. I’ll make a post about that at some point later.

For now, if you’ve read this far, I just want to say that: if I’m not being very good company, if I’m seemingly spacey or asking you to repeat yourself, it’s not because I’m not listening. It’s because I’m literally listening to everything—whether I want to or not (and I really don’t want to...)—and I’m desperately trying to focus on what you’re saying.