The Deafening Silence of My Anxiety: ADHD and Sound Sensitivity in Lockdown

“For me, anxiety plus too many mixed sounds equal brain malfunction. So, you’d think that an eerily quiet neighborhood would be bliss during this pandemic. But it’s not. With my anxiety level up, the quiet only highlights how loud it gets inside my head.”

CYoder

March 21, 2022 at 4:54 pm

Thank you both for your notes. almeidamomma – it took me many years to understand this let alone help the people around me understand how I experience sound. Thank god for TV shows (have you seen “Atypical” on Netflix?) and media that can help us know ourselves better!
almeidamomma

July 28, 2020 at 12:26 am

Oh! I could sob for the sheer shock of seeing the title of your article!! I have never heard (read) another individual discuss sound sensitivity!! I have tried to discribe this to my husband but he just looks at me like I suddenly favor Medusa! We finally settled on a sort of vision he kinda understands. We were watching something on television one night and there was just a cacophony of noise in the same room with this young lady who had Autism. The noise made her throw her hands up beside her head and kind of like pull her head neck and head down toward her shoulders.
I jumped up and said “THAT! THAT is what a lot of noise SOUNDS like to me!” I think he gets it now, but most other people don’t understand it is actually painful … at least for me it is. Thank you!
rachelh

July 7, 2020 at 5:40 pm

I feel the same way – also in NJ!