Sensory Awareness Month Post 9 - Too Loud!

It's Sensory Awareness Month! Today's sensory reality check is about noise!

Hypersensitivity to noise is an area that affects me more than my "Sensory Kid". There are times that the non-stop buzz of auditory chaos completely overwhelms me to the point I have to either remove myself from the situation or, if possible, remove the noisy "stuff" from my environment.

As a parent, there have been many times that the constant kid chatter, especially in the car, has nearly sent me over the edge. Several years ago, my husband Matt came up with a very good theory of toddler/preschooler verbal vomit: that they have all these great and interesting ideas, thoughts and insights but have not learned how to keep them inside their head...so it all comes pouring out...NONSTOP! It has always made a lot of sense to me, but it did nothing to keep me from feeling like I was going just a wee bit crazy. I have wondered if perhaps this was due, at least in part, to the fact that I am an only child, so I grew up in a pretty quiet and peaceful environment. It was easy to find silence and solitude at home...now? in my crazy world with three kids, two dogs, cell phones ringing and chirping, television blathering, music playing, background conversations chattering...not so much.

Moving along, there are other members of my family who are easily overwhelmed by noise...the sound of a toilet flushing in a fairly small bathroom, the sound of thunder (this is a combination of anxiety and the actual noise itself), fireworks, pots and pans clattering...and the list goes on. It would seem that the common denominator in most of these is that they are noises that cannot be avoided. Where the shift occurs between "just noise" and sensory overloading noise is, again, in the ability to filter the noise out: this is where things shift occurs from just not liking a lot of noise and not being able to tolerate that very same noise.

When the flushing toilet causes one to cover their ears and thunder requires noise-deadening headphones, problems with noise jump to a very different level, especially when this happens every single time: from order to disorder.

Just a few thoughts for the day.

Have a great one!

Heather