(no subject)
hello.
i am choosing to spend a little bit of my day explaining something that most people around me think is ludicrous, unworthy of discussion, & that basically doesn't exist.
i consider myself part of the communities around the world that are discussing really important things like consent, physical boundaries, awareness of taking up space & how it affects others etc. things that are too often looked over, taken lightly & mistreated. i feel like these concepts are not exclusively physical as in 'touch', but physical as inclusive of the other senses too - especially hearing.
i am not about to assert that my ailments are as, or more, pressing than the long list of physical 'touch' boundaries that are crossed every day without consent & without discussion. i just want to make clear something that is important to me, & is important to a lot of people around the world, in the way they experience their space, & how comfortable they are walking through the world. i find a lot of discussion that goes on around these issues of boundaries has strong links to mental health awareness, & this is particular condition seems to fall into the 'anxiety disorder' category, & is also often identified as the first sign of developing obsessive compulsive disorder.
okay, alright, get to the point.
it's called hyperacusis, or "Soft Sound Sensitivity Syndrome" - although i think that is a bizarre & inaccurate name for it, because it is neither exclusive to sound nor softness.
i don't think it is very uncommon at all. think about how you respond to certain sounds or movements - somebody obsessively clicking their pen, jolting their foot/knee up & down, tapping on something, jingling their keys/bracelets, & so on. pretty annoying, yeah? & it seems like the people doing it have no idea they're doing it.
well, for people with hyperacusis (or 4S) the aversion to these sounds/movements is vastly exaggerated. the sound of someone chewing (food or gum), coughing, or sniffing, is unbearable, & causes a lot of physical & emotional distress, much like any other anxiety disorder. a little below the surface it just looks like a social anxiety disorder.
over time you can no longer deal with being in crowds at all (because there's a good chance someone in a crowd will be doing one of these things, often more), & when you are forced into situations as simple as catching public transport, sitting in a class, sitting around the dinner table, or at a party, it can get pretty hard to cope without some kind of help.
i am someone who has to wear headphones a lot, but the crowded situations i can do this in are limited. i am studying, & in lecture halls or tutorials i can't exactly drown everything out - & in these situations it can only take me a couple minutes to get stressed beyond the ability to focus anyway. it's here that people with 4S feel helpless, hopeless, & totally alone. because when you tell someone that the sound of sniffing makes you want to punch someone, a lot of people will actually laugh at you.
because it is not as common as other generalised anxiety disorders.
because it is not as well known as something like social anxiety, or OCD.
because chewing gum/tapping feet/sniffing every 10 seconds is just normal, right?
i don't think so.
they relate 4S to anxiety & to obsessive compulsion, but when you think about it, who is the one who is truly suffering from compulsions & anxieties? it is the people making these noises/movements - the people who can't stop clicking their pen & don't even realise they're doing it, the people who can't stop tapping their feet, the people who breathe loudly, chew gum like a horse chews hay - these things aren't normal. they are an expression of a LOT of pent up nervous energy. & as they seemingly have no conscious control over the actions, they are compulsive.
& it makes complete sense. living in a city, i can understand why people are so nervous all the time - a mixture of sensory overload & a totally sedentary life. wake up, sit down to have a coffee, sit on the train/bus, sit in the office at work (or in the library/lecture theatre at school/uni) for the entire day, sit on the train/bus back home, sit down for dinner, sit down to watch a movie, sit down on the computer, go to bed. & all the while being bombarded with sensory information - news, pop culture, music, ads, facebook updates, phone calls, emails, conversations, background conversations, endless noise of traffic screeching, letting off compression brakes, honking, yelling, it goes on.
i think as someone with 4S i can just notice how nervous everyone seems to be all the time, & that's what makes me nervous. i cannot deal with crowds because they are filling spaces with anxious energy, agitated movements, & it is totally unrelaxing. it would be, & is, okay, when those nervous energies are energies of passion, excitement, inspiration & joy. but not when they are unconscious leakings of pent up dissatisfaction, stress, imbalance, & frustration. that makes me really fucken nervous. & i don't think that is totally illogical.
alright, so i might just have an anxiety disorder, or the onset of OCD, or Aspergers, or migraine, or head trauma, or a chronic ear infection, but that doesn't mean all this stuff is no longer valid.
many, many people around the world experience this kind of stress every day of their lives, simply by walking outside. & with little to no treatment available anywhere in the world, except for graduated exposure/desensitisation (the best treatment they have for PTSD), what are we meant to do?
in my social circles i can explain myself, but a lot of people shrug it off, or laugh, & even the majority of those who accept it, don't respect my requests at all. the few, few friends i have that do respect this small request (because it is, really, small), i am eternally grateful for, because it makes me feel safe, it helps me open up, & i don't have to leave the room. why don't people take this seriously?
i don't think it is a disorder. i think it is a tuning in to the world, & how absurdly loud it is, all the time, for no good reason. how people don't realise how loud everything is, how loud it makes them, how stressed it makes them, & then how it makes them do all these things. because i can tell you 99% of everyone i hear sniffing don't need to be - they're doing it as a nervous reflex, or an expression of ego, to make their prescence in the loud loud world heard. as soon as i spend a lot of time with someone, explain these things to them, they find themselves too 'tuned in' & being very bothered to it as well. it may have its roots in disorder, but i don't think it is an unreasonable one in any sense.
i hope this can shed some light on what it is i've been trying to say for years, because i am totally fucken alone on this, there is not an awesome community i can snuggle up to, ever. the closest i can come is being in part of the communities that are aware of consent & physical boundaries - but a lot of them don't take this seriously either.
i dream of a world where i can walk into a room of people i love & immediately know that i am safe from crippling anxiety, that no one is going to cross my physical boundaries. that i can stay in this space. i dream of a quieter, calmer world.
outside of that, i might just have to move to bellingen.