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.