#sound input

ARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGG YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

THIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSS

Bad =/= Loud   this is not a hard concept

Why do they have this misconception?

Surely they must understand that some sounds are bad without being loud?  Their favorite example is nails on a chalkboard, that’s not a LOUD sound, it’s just bad! But also there are some other REALLY AWFUL sounds that aren’t loud at all, that I’m sure allistics would agree are awful!  Like microphone feedback.  Horrible sound!  Even if it’s quiet, still horrible!  Babies crying.  Awful sound, drives everybody crazy!  Doesn’t matter how “quiet” it is, still awful!

I can’t handle whispering AT ALL, any noise that sounds like a wet mouth is just NO.  No chewing, no whispering, no whistling, no humming, NO MOUTH NOISES MAKE IT STOP.

Meanwhile, some REALLY LOUD sounds are beautiful.  A thundering waterfall!  So loud I can’t even hear you talk! (that’s probably why I love it, lol!).  Crickets!  Super loud, also comforting!  A live orchestra!  Super loud!  But beautiful!

Yes, all the time.  I know exactly what you’re talking about.  Many autistics call this Bad Sensory Input, with the capital letters, to distinguish it from regular bad input.  The difference between the two is that bad input is just an unpleasant thing, like maybe someone singing really badly, everyone thinks it’s annoying and wishes it would stop, but they can ‘ignore it’ and go on with their life.  But a Bad Input, such as the Bad Sound you experienced, is too intense and too painful to ‘just ignore’.  The intensity with which Bad Sounds can hurt is so strong that it’s on the level of trauma- which is why you can remember it so clearly so many years later.  It’s absolutely horrible to experience, and crying is a very accurate response to sensory overload!

This kind of sensory input sensitivity is very common among autistics.  Becoming overwhelmed from intolerable sensory input is one of the things that leads to autistic meltdowns and shutdowns, and leads to the more “visible” autistic behaviors: screaming (to make it stop or drown it out), covering your ears, curling into a ball or trying to hide, running away, fighting, kicking, punching, and as you mentioned, crying.  ALL of these behaviors are related to sensory overload, and a person’s brain trying to STOP the horrible sensation from continuing to assault it. 

Y E S.

SomeTimes you just need All The Things To Stop.

Oh gosh, I totally understand.  While it’s not quite that bad for me, the minute I start hearing a leafblower I’m throwing my headphones on.  In my apartment complex, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the landscaping days, and so for those days, I basically just live in my headphones.

I could never wear earplugs either, and they don’t even do anything.  You can still hear it all through them, because sound is a vibration and it can come right through your skull.  Earplugs don’t do it for me, either.

My savoir for Bad Noises is headphones/earbuds.  I used to do earbuds, but I wear them so often that I was getting ear infections from them (if you leave them in your ears for 8 hours straight with no breaks, the inside of your ear gets hot, which helps bacteria to grow).  So I have headphones, the over-the-ear kind, that do not squish my ears but swallow them up completely, and it’s heaven.

Now what to play on them? The answer is white noise.  My favorite app for white noise is A Soft Murmur.  You can switch between 8 different sounds like rain, wind, or crickets, or just plain white noise (think of the shhhhhhhhhhh that a radio does when it has no station).  

So the landscapers come, I throw on my headphones, and put on the white noise, and I am safe.  Safe, safe safe safe, safe from all the sounds, and it’s heaven.

If you have a little money, you can even buy noise-cancelling headphones.  These are AMAZING, as when you put them on, even if you’re playing NOTHING, they will still block sound.  And sometimes I do that, I just put them on, turn on the noise cancelling, and play nothing at all.

My headphones are on right now in fact, and have been for the past 5 hours, playing a 21 second song on a loop over and over and over and over, and it’s basically white noise, and my brain is SO happy, it is safe from the Awful Sounds.

You don’t need to move, or make the entire world stop making noise.  You just need to protect your ears.  Try earbuds with whitenoise, try headphones with white noise, try all different kinds, try playing songs on loop, or there are TONS of AMAZING youtube things if you type in “white noise”, you can get wind chimes, you can get a thunderstorm, you can get trucks on a highway.  

I completely relate to this.  I also will turn my headphones up to maximum and my phone up to maximum in order to drown out sounds, and if that’s what I have to do to protect myself from Bad Sounds, then that’s what I have to do.  

I have learned that certain Good Sounds block out the world “better” than others.  For example, a song may have loud parts and quiet parts in it.  In order for the quiet parts to be blocking the world out, then I have to turn it up so high the loud parts are hurting my ears.  This isn’t the best situation, so when I’m in a desperate need to block out The Whole World, I turn to white noise.

White noise is steady, unchanging background noise.  The sound a radio makes when it doesn’t find a station is the classic.  There are TONS of amazing websites where you can stream all kinds of white noise, such as rain, wind, cars on a highway, crickets- you name it, you can find it.  There are also apps you can download for times when you can’t stream.  The one I use the most is A Soft Murmur.  It’s free, it’s very simple to use, and it also has an app you can download for free (you can pay money to get extra sounds but the free ones are already great).

So I use this when I need to make the world Just Shut Up.  Because it’s a steady sound, not going loud-and-quiet like a song, I can turn it up juuuuust high enough to block out the world and no higher.  This protects my ears AND my brain better than a song.  It’s also less overwhelming than a song.  Very often even my favorite samesong is Too Much, and so I go for the nice shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh of white noise.

Another really, really good thing are noise-cancelling headphones, but for these you have to spend money.  But they are WORTH it if you can save up.  These block sound even when they’re playing NOTHING, as long as they’re turned on.  If you have these, then you will not need to make your headphones as loud in order to block out the world.

Sometimes, as an autistic, you have to trade off between the health of your body (your ears) and the health of your mind to avoid a meltdown.  Having your headphones too loud for a short time to stop a meltdown is worth it, for me.  Once I have calmed down or once the Horrible Sound has stopped, then I turn them down again. (I check now and then by lifting one ear up to see if the noise is over).

Also, I have noticed, that many headphones and phones have a REALLY quiet “maximum recommended volume level”.  The truth is, the device doesn’t REALLY know how loud the file you’re listening to is.  So if you feel it’s not hurting your ears and isn’t really that loud, then it’s fine to go above that.  I do it for quiet songs all the time.  

So protect yourself from the bad sounds, my friend.  Use the white noise, use noise-cancelling headphones if you can afford them, and turn it up when you have to (but don’t keep it there, as soon as you’re out of the environment, turn them back down).