Menopause Matters Forum
Menopause Discussion => All things menopause => Topic started by: Eastside on May 25, 2025, 09:49:47 PM
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Hey all, I hope you're doing ok. I've seen posts about this from a few years back, so I guess it's a 'thing', but I wondered if anyone has noticed/is experiencing heightened noise sensitivity?
I have always been hugely triggered by people playing loud music - by that I really mean neighbours as opposed to loud music at a gig. This might be my OCD speaking, but I tend to split things into 'justified' and 'unjustified' noise, and loud music is often unjustified to me. This has been affecting me to an increasing degree, and is affecting my ability to move home and buy a place as my number one terror is being stuck near people who play loud music. This is closely followed by being triggered by door slams. Now it seems to me that the world is getting louder. I step out of my house and people are playing music out loud on their phones and people are having loud parties. In my house people get up early and I'm constantly woken up by doors being shut/people banging about in the kitchen. It's almost becoming a v stressful enterprise to go out as I feel like I'm assaulted by noise everywhere. To me, it doesn't cause me mild annoyance. It is actually intolerable and distressing. I should probably look into loop earbuds etc, but I just wondered if anyone else is experiencing similar? I guess it's misophonia or phonophobia or similar. And that such a thing can possibly get heightened in perimenopause. It feels like a very lonely experience anyway. Thank you
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Hi. I've definitely become more sensitive to noise this last few years, but wouldn't be able to pinpoint a cause. Mine is all noise really, whereas yours seems more specific around music and 'people' stuff.
I wonder whether hypnotherapy might be helpful to find a way to deal with it?
Good luck. You do have my sympathies with this.
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Thank you, and likewise you have my sympathies. All noises sound troublesome and I hope it's not making your life too hard. I would say it's all noises for me too, but not all of them affect me to a large extent.
I hadn't thought of hypnotherapy, but I think that's really worth looking into. I'm waiting for talking therapy and will of course make the noise thing a central focus. But maybe other treatments like that might help. I wonder if there are changes to the balance of some people's hearing or something because it feels like my ears and hearing have become more 'exposed' and I'm therefore hearing everything more acutely.
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Yes - I really struggle with neighbour noise which can make me feel really anxious. I developed noise sensitivity related to a specific noise during a traumatic time in my 30s but since menopause it has got a lot worse, I feel hyper-alert sometimes. I'm having CBT sessions to try and change my response to certain sounds.
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I've bounced my thread on noise!
4 me it's builders who have radios playing loudly outside when they are working indoors >:(
as well as dogs barking - I know why the 3 near us continue to bark because a lot of people walk by then disappear: dogs think that they have 'seen off' intruders. However!
I hate mowers and strimmers ........
we back onto a busy road and I HATE drivers who speed >:( >:(
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Yes I have noticed this also in the last couple of years. I didn’t know if it was peri related or not but I feel myself getting stressed like I can’t think straight if there’s something loud going on around me. I used to be able to juggle multiple things going on at once and multi task but now I can’t. I tell my hubby to turn the music down in the car for example as I can’t hear my own thoughts. Either a peri thing or am age thing 🤷🏻♀️
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Don't get me started on muzak in shops >:(
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Thanks all. I'm sorry you're having this too. Tribbins - all of that for me too. I think a big part of my issue is feeling that people are being selfish. And that makes me angry and highly anxious and distressed. I hope the CBT is working for you. In my heart, I know that I need to change my cognitive responses too. But often the sense of injustice overrides the feeling that maybe I could let it go e.g how dare that person do x,y,z and then it feels distressing because it's out of my control. It's interesting you mentioned a traumatic event. I'm pretty sure that noise sensitivity can be related to trauma/nervous system dysregulation. Two friends of mine had unstable childhoods too and are both highly sensitive to noise. But then hormones or age must come into it too.
CLKD- again, I'm with you there. For me, it gets so bad that I have to try to stop it. E.g if builders were playing music I'd probably have to ask them (nicely?!) to turn it down. Dogs are also an issue. I try not to tune into that as that could literally drive me insane. 🤪
Yes, drivers as well as they often bomb along playing loud music. But at least that's temporary, unless they park and do that. My old neighbour used to park his car, open his car doors and blast a very expensive stereo out so you could hear the music all the way up the road, while he sat on his wall and enjoyed a beer 🍺.😂 You literally could not make that up! As you can imagine, we were a perfect match! 😍
LittleClaire, that sounds familiar. I can't concentrate at all if there are loud sounds in the background.
Hmm. I may try to look into it a bit more.
I also wonder about using loop earplugs etc. But then my concern is whether you then would struggle even more when exposed to loud sounds because you had tried to hide from them, and whether it's just better to try to find coping mechanisms for the sounds as they are.
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Some are plainly out to aggravate because they are aware that nowt will be done! When the builders were opposite I had the Planning Officer out several times ....... oh and they would shout above the radios from upstairs to down :bang: :bang: :bang: :beat:
Eastside - 4 me it's the lack of consideration followed by the loss of control. And I know what I can be capable of when roused ;D and it wouldn't be pretty :o Never mind banging saucepans for the NHS :whist:
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You and me both! 😀 I think I must be becoming known around here for telling people off for playing their phones out loud on public transport. Drives me to the brink. And people in my house also have had several 'visits' from me when they've woken me up early 😄
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This has been affecting me to an increasing degree, and is affecting my ability to move home and buy a place as my number one terror is being stuck near people who play loud music.
When you find somewhere you’d like to buy go there if you can as much as possible at different times of day to see what is happening around there.
We were like stalkers before moving here often sat in the car with fish and chips just observing. Terrible I know !
Speak to people/potential neighbours too on any pretext.
You can’t control a change in neighbours at any point but can have some element of control to begin with.
We were afraid of making a ‘wrong’ move for us.
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Speak to Posties in the area too ;-). As well as checking the local 'who's been in Court this week' pages, some local rags list them.
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Oohh that all sounds good. I don't think it's terrible at all to stalk the property. It's a huge investment and it'll be your home. So I'm glad you did that, and good that you enjoyed fish and chips at the same time! 😄.
That's totally my view as well. You can't control a change in neighbours but you can aim to at least start off on the right foot. I fully intend to meet neighbours and scope them out.
Also, I learned from dealing with my neighbour from hell when selling my mum's property that if you pose a question through a solicitor during the conveyancing process it is apparently regarded as a legal basis on which you can take action if the person lies. In other words, if you ask an estate agent about neighbour noise/anti-social neighbours regarding the property you are buying, it doesn't count legally if the vendor lies. But if you ask through a solicitor then you can (technically) sue if the vendor lies. That is in the UK and off the back of the form that vendors have to complete about the property they are selling.
Asking posties and checking court details is a good idea too. Come at it from all angles 😅
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Not that most people would sue, I imagine, as it would be very hard to prove, I'm sure. But I'd be making a point of asking officially through a solicitor anyway, as every little helps.
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Our last buyer asked a whole lot of extra questions on paper through a solicitor.
A lot we had to prove or she sent someone in to check eg asbestos in an artex ceiling which we had never heard of. It wasn’t there.
Once signed off our attitude was that she could no longer try to sue us.
I don’t know if you can get a seller to prove non noisy neighbours maybe someone on the forum has done this.
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Youre not alone..I've always had misophonia, people eating etc and thinking back ,always hated bright artificial lights,. could smell things others couldn't, strong food dislikes(oversensitive taste buds?). Since perimenopause my tolerance for sound has gone through the roof.Ive had run ins with the man on our housing estate who voluntarily cuts the massive acres of green space in a ride on lawnmower and takes hours and hours every week.I dread the summer as am in fear of this noise and can't enjoy the garden as he is liable to kick off at any time. Also have a neighbors son who blasts out music. It's also the sense of injustice that agets to me. If someone is having works done on their house,.hammering etc, I find that really annoying but I can tell myself it will only last for a day/week etc and it's not 'unneccesary ' noise. And I'll try to keep busy ..But the music doesnt have to be inflicted on my ears I'm insanely passionate about biodiversity and wildlife so the lawnmower is evil in my eyes and grass only needs to be cut every 3 or 4 weeks . Since perimenopause I've also had chronic sciatica and do feel a virtual prisoner in my home a lot of the time, so itshard to disentangle whether it's menopause or situation that has made my noise tolerance worse. I've even wondered if it's similar to autism where they can be overly sensitive to sensations. Even in my 20s I was drawn to the idea of a floatation tank and total lack of stimulus. I've no solutions here. I did cbt for other issues before and the misophonia came up and I was told to practice listening to the noise and breathing through it but like you, I have this attitude of why should I have to tolerate this..Is it also to do with control? I don't know
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Minusminnie. Thank you for that. I think it'd all be problematic but, anyway, I'm not even at that stage yet because of the anxiety. But I hope to get there soon.
Bungo. I'm really sorry to hear what you've been going through. Everything you say mirrors what I feel too. I am ok with smaller scale noises, but not the bigger ones you mention. I too have wondered about the link to neurodiversity. I think there is also a link to past trauma, OCD, anxiety and the perimenopause, though I don't expect they know exactly how. Yes, I can imagine that reaction from CBT. I'll see what they say to me. I get so activated and anxious that I don't think it'll be a case of just breathing through it somehow.
Yes, I have a feeling for me, at least, it is about control. There have been times in the last few years when I've been triggered by situations where I feel someone else is affecting my quality of life or upsetting me when they have the power not to, and I don't have the power to stop them. I feel like I need to control the noise situation because of how distressing it feels. But, unless someone is compliant, it's not always possible to control.
It's very hard being very noisy sensitive in a noisy world where it doesn't even seem to bother some people. I've noticed that when people chat in the library, it's only a small subset of people who will challenge that - me being one of them! 😄😉. I guess some people don't want to intervene for safety reasons etc, but I wonder if the people who do intervene are those for whom noise is a problem and somehow intolerable to their senses or morality, or both!
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There are specific questions to answer when selling properties, one relating to 'disputes with neighbours' ........ it also asks whether alterations have been made which if the answer is 'no' can cause problems for the new owners [as has happened locally - alterations made without building regulations to which the seller stated 'no'].
U can request the Solicitor to ask specific questions i.e. relating to noise issues.
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Thank you, yes I know about those questions. I had to somehow answer them in relation to my neighbour from hell when I was selling my mother's property 😱😱. I shall definitely be asking questions.
Thanks for all your help!