Does anyone else have really sensitive hearing?

[monetpompo]

first post ‪‪＼(^o^)／
do any of you guys have really sensitive hearing? i recently bought earplugs online because i feel really bothered if things aren't completely quiet. my mom's always talks on the phone loudly, talks to my dad, or sings while walking around the house. she also talks to me unprompted and bothers me. i can't get angry at her because i know she's trying to get a reaction out of me, so i have to avoid her so she stops bothering me. what i think is the worst is when she's still awake at 11 pm or 12 am and i'm trying to sleep, then i get angry i have no way to block out her noise. my mom never leaves the house, so she only talks to my dad or has her really loud phone calls. it makes me feel so dumb for getting upset about it, but i spend most of my time at home, so there's no way to avoid it. it makes me feel miserable to constantly hear noise in the other room, to have her talk at me when i walk into the kitchen to get food.

i'm also like this in public and in classes, where people's regular voices start sounding really loud to me and i wince because it hurts my ears. in high school, i put my hands over my ears because i hated noise and i would sulk outside of class since everyone sounded too loud to me. i know it probably made me look weird. i don't know if my noise tolerance would get better if i was around people more, but i just hate how loud people's regular voices are or when they're laughing at a joke. people's voices are the hardest thing for a person to tune out, but it feels like most people are just talking just to talk. i feel like people my age won't understand my problem since they seem way more social and cheery than me. i could never find any friends in my college clubs since i hated how much noise people would make in the small club rooms. i've been more bothered by this recently since i haven't been going out with my friends that much, so i haven't been socializing. i just want to stay inside. i feel like i hate people these days, even though i really want friends.

 

[RottenApple17]

Yes, I suffer from that kind of sensitivity and other types of sensitivity as well, it's part of being on the autism spectrum.
Life becomes very exhausting having to deal with this every day.

 

[divinemistress36]

Yes! I have to isolate myself a lot cause loud sounds fill me with rage and send me into fight or flight mode

 

[WhiskeySolstice]

Yep! I have autism; hyper-sensitivity is part of that shitty card-deck for me lol! I relate soooo heavy to what you're saying. Dont worry, it's not stupid to be upset about. It's genuinely so draining and grating when noise is loud. People who don't perceive it at the same volume as you would also be upset if they found something to be too loud. It's all about where that line is for you. Nothing dumb about it!

 

[yowai]

Yup and I'm also autistic, hate riding the bus when everyone's talking or walking in the city with loud cars constantly passing by
One of the reasons I stopped going to school and switched to being home schooled was because it was so noisy in there lol

 

[dontletthembribeyou]

I'm the same way, and I had the same dynamic with my mom when I lived at home. I have a hard time being in public because if a room is too loud, I legit start crying, lol. I don't know if this will apply to anyone else, but I noticed that my sensory sensitivities are much worse when I've eaten junk food recently, especially things with gluten or sugar. Those things are kind of hard to avoid though

 

[BRAINWORMS]

I have a misophonia and tinnitus combo.

 

[bankai]

Nope, I usually have to concentrate and eavesdrop really hard to listen to what people are saying.

 

[ToANewWorld]

Let me give you a pieace of advice.

You could be dealing with a condition called hyperacusis. Which is is not the only condition that causes sound sensitivity, but still, you really want to be sure this is not what you have and if you have it, you want to make sure to become extremely knowledgeable on how to navigate it without making it worse.

If, and that's a big if, you suffer from hyperacusis, the first thing you want to do is inform yourself what it is and how it works. Do not, under any circumstances go to your local ENT or Otolaryngologist seeking a diagnosis. My second piece of advice is to protect your ears as dilligently as you can from unexpected or prolonged loud noises. If you know a certain sound causes pain, avoid it. Believe me when I tell you if you ignore my advice you could regret it enough to want to take your life.

If you go to the doctor and you suffer from this condition, in 99.9% of cases you will be the first person your doctor has ever seen complaining about pain from sounds outside of medical literature. Not suprisingly most doctors have no idea about the condition and most of them will assume you are suffering from some sort of anxiety and stress. Outside of a very small pool of specialists in the entire world, there is next to no awareness of what hyperacusis is and how to treat it or diagnose it. Some doctors can even suggest doing things to your ears that could permanently worsen your condition, including cleaning your ears with a 100 decibel suction device.

Hyperacusis is so uncommon some rough estimates put it at 1 per 50,000 for the more "common" type of the condition. The rarer symptoms such as pain from sound are probably 1 per 500,000. It is that rare.

I recommend you read : tinnitustalk and r/hyperacusis for starters. I hope this helps but I pray even more you do not have this condition.

 

[monetpompo]

Yes, I suffer from that kind of sensitivity

Yep! I have autism

Yup and I'm also autistic,

I'm the same way

i'm sooooo happy people understand me and know how i feel!!! i thought i was so weird!!
my mom being loud and me not hanging out with my friends has made me really resentful of the people around me, so i feel way more high strung than i used to. when i would sit in my student center while on my laptop, i would grind my teeth listening to people talk around me because i thought it was supposed to be a quiet area. turns out, it was the student center, so i was supposed to be going to the library if i wanted to be on my own. that's just another thing that made me feel silly. when i tell my online friend about how loud people sound to me, he doesn't really understand since he doesn't have the same sensitivity as me, so i always thought that i was just being annoying or neurotic.

this is another thing, but i also have AFRID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder) lol. i often want to eat the same things over and over because i get nervous eating new things and like the familiarity of eating something like instant ramen or eggs over and over. sometimes i feel so anxious that my appetite gets really low and i want to eat nothing at all, and i'd rather just eat some sort of flavorless nutrient slop. sometimes i just feel so self conscious that i'm not "normal" and can't adapt to the things around me. i don't want to snap at people because i'm tired of constantly hearing everything louder than it actually is. i hope that my earplugs make me less frustrated.

 

[yowai]

i'm sooooo happy people understand me and know how i feel!!! i thought i was so weird!!
my mom being loud and me not hanging out with my friends has made me really resentful of the people around me, so i feel way more high strung than i used to. when i would sit in my student center while on my laptop, i would grind my teeth listening to people talk around me because i thought it was supposed to be a quiet area. turns out, it was the student center, so i was supposed to be going to the library if i wanted to be on my own. that's just another thing that made me feel silly. when i tell my online friend about how loud people sound to me, he doesn't really understand since he doesn't have the same sensitivity as me, so i always thought that i was just being annoying or neurotic.

this is another thing, but i also have AFRID (Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder). lol. i often want to eat the same things over and over because i get nervous eating new things and like the familiarity of eating something like instant ramen or eggs over and over. sometimes i feel so anxious that my appetite gets really low and i want to eat nothing at all, and i'd rather just eat some sort of flavorless nutrient slop. sometimes i just feel so self conscious that i'm not "normal" and can't adapt to the things around me.

Yeaaah and also I hate it when someone like my mom for example wants to talk to me when we're on the bus together and I get irritated because of the noise and just want to zone out till we get to a quieter place. I can't even hear her correctly because it just blends in with the rest of the noise even if she's directly next to me. Being diagnosed 7 years ago changed so much because now I understand myself better so there's less frustration and can communicate my needs with close ones, before that I saw myself as absolutely rude and miserable person and felt like noone else in the world knows what I'm going through

 

[derpyderpins]

Incredibly so. It's one of my major signs of autism. I jump like crazy compared to people around me when I hear noises.

 

[Pale_Rider]

I can hear lower sounds then other people. A different kind of sensitivity.

 

[outrider567]

yes, I wear earplugs all the time when i'm out, and have been wearing them at night for 50 years

 

[cemeteryismyhome]

YES. People think I'm stupid or "too sensitive". If they heard what I hear... it's awful.