#hyperacusis

Example: Sometimes I hate talking sounds. That’s usually lower frequency. Brown noise and it’s gone. Blocked out by the brown noise.

Lip-smacking/tongue-clicking in sentences? Mouse clicking? Higher frequency. Blue or white noise. Pink noise usually works too if those two are too harsh

Basic list is like this: Blue is the highest, white is equal, pink is a little lower, brown/red is the lowest. You just kind of have to play around and figure out which work best where and when.

If you have headphones/earbuds that allow you to still hear through them, you might be able to hear what you need to while also blocking out specific triggers. Sometimes.

so, this is all rather complicated and ofc I don’t expect some sort of diagnosis but hopefully there’s someone here who can kind of say what could be going on or give me some advice?

in january of 2025, i developed motor tics. they were mostly my neck going to the side, facial grimacing/rapidly closing eyes. and eventually i visited my family doctor and i was given a lot of vitamins/pills related to digestion, i was pissed to say the least, since at the time i genuinely thought that they must be mental health/nervous system related. and i took them for like a month and then stopped taking them (looking back, probably not the best decision) anyway, as time went on, i noticed myself doing them more and more, though yeah there were periods where they were very frequent and periods where they were less frequent.

now, there’s another part to all of this. ever since i could remember, i was the “sensitive” child. i used to cry daily at kindergarten and elementary school, i only ever stopped around 7th-8th grade. i don’t particularly remember a lot of what happened before middle school, though i vividly remember having to do p.e. in 5th grade, and sitting there, crying with my ears covered because of how noisy it all was. i was begging the teachers to let me sit in the changing room, just anywhere else but in there. i remember covering my ears near the loud ass school bell that would make me almost panic, in restaurants i was genuinely afraid of the hand drying machine. i’d wear headphones anytime i could, many times i’d be sitting somewhere, pushing my headphones into my ears and crying, just hoping, wishing that my classmates would quiet down. eventually, i found myself with some “coping skills” i guess, well: fidgeting. there was one year where I would excessively twirl the front part of my hair, and i mean that i was doing it constantly: in class, outside, in public, in private, those parts were so greasy all the time. it was comforting to me, feeling it’s texture, even at night when i was trying to sleep and my wrist was hurting, i just had to twirl with it. (actually apparently since i was a LITTLE kid, I used to twirl and play with my hair a lot, very comforting) another year, i used to scratch my scalp A LOT, as in there was blood under my fingernails and my scalp was itchy and red but that pain kind of kept me going, the texture of the bumps it made and the movement itself, amazing. ok this is getting ridiculously long, i also used to let my hair fall down my whole face and I’d stay like a shrimp, since the hair blocked out light and I’d sit and rip apart my split ends, for several classes every day. even as I grew older though, I would have those horrifying moments sometimes. sometimes all the noise, lights, touching, really gets to you, you know? tests were often hard to concentrate on, with the students whispering, teacher talking, pens clicking, paper flipping, electricity buzzing, i still remember one time when i was just rocking back and forth, scratching myself, twirling my hair, crying my eyes out and breathing heavily because i just couldn't focus on the test because of the environment, and the teacher just walking over to me and telling me that not everyone is good at her subject.

fast-forward to this year, i started excessively flinching from noise. i mean LITERALLY, from everyday sounds. someone sneezes? flinch. drops a pen? flinch, accidentally touches me for 0.01 seconds? flinch. and it’s BAD, like i do it so frequently that people ofc make fun of me, the louder the sound is, the worse my reaction is. and i found myself getting overwhelmed by noises WAAAY more frequently than ever before, i can’t handle it anymore. and i could never properly get if i really had tics or if i just flinched excessively, turns out i kinda do both? and like, my sensitivity to noise stresses me out, and the more stressed I am, the tics worsen, but sometimes i find myself flinching from a sound and then having tics after? i feel like I’m going crazy. and sometimes i find myself having “tic attacks”, especially when I’m already overwhelmed by my senses.

about a month ago, i’ve noticed myself having some vocal tics as well. though i was finally sent to a neurologist and he just told me to stop staying on my phone and not to stress out over things, i only have “motor tics” officially “diagnosed” I guess.

So much of it comes off as gaslighting to me and my actual lived experiences.

Young adults all trap together on the same ship for long period, sure have vivid night's activities...

he has sensitive hearing, he was also born completely mute.

it's literally canon in the comics...

His voice lines are actually from his memory. He whispers softly, rarely talks, and he's incredibly shy... his voice actor just doesn't know it yet...

He just lip sync to his memories... the engineer recorded medic's squeaks along with archimedes's cooing, translated it to an indigenous bavarian accent English using voice synthesizer, and used it as his voice lines in expiration date, the comics, etc... medic is literally silent, he doesn't speak, he just squeaks... he can control what it says, the voice synthesizer's emotions, how loud it is, and even make it realistic sounding laugh instead of his real quiet giggles...

Engineer did it, in the sandvich saga as well... medic cannot talk, he just lip sync to the voice synthesizer that Engineer made him. It sounds so realistic, people might forget that medic is mute...

Medic is not deaf, he just has really sensitive hearing. Medic's synthesizer uses really long lasting batteries to make sure he doesn't show his true, mute self...

"How do you know that?" I watched mvm, read the tf2 comics, and even see medic crying...

In the mvm trailer, medic lip synced quietly to archimedes, it was quieter than a single drop of water. Archimedes knew he was mute, because medic rescued him, adopted him, and he's taking care of him... medic taught him how to speak by giving him magical berries called "wonderberries". These peach colored heart shaped berries make birds speak for 24 hours... parrots eat them a lot. They're cheap, yummy, and birds eat them... but they're not consumable for humans...

Which means, sometimes archimedes and/ or his dove siblings and children are speaking for him, because their dad is mute...

In the 7th comic, medic did not say a single word... at all, which means he's canonically mute...

In the comics, there's a few scenes where medic was yelled on by people. His ears really hurt because he canonically has a rare disability called hyperacusis.

He's a poor mute guy who wanted love and care, but instead he was bullied and harassed...

Just look at this mute cutie...