STFU

Call me quirky, call me weird.  What ever you want.  I have a habit of being in tune with my body.  I suppose being diabetic and having a mother who was a nurse groomed me to be aware of what was going on inside and out of myself.  I have a deep interest in medicine, biology, physiology, psychology, etc..  I have not taken formal classes on much of these things, but I have done tons of my own research.  The average human being has a number of ailments and oddities about their bodies and minds; most of them are unaware of their "issues" or simply ignore them. I find mine fascinating and study them, and in many cases embrace them. I am no hypochondriac, I am not paranoid or afraid of illness.  I simply like to know myself and learn...and laugh at my weirdness.

One such weirdness is my sensitivity to noise.  I can't stand noise at all.  I yearn for silence, I seek it out.  Noise makes me anxious, stresses me out, annoys me, makes me tense.  If I can't have silence I eventually become irritable, angry, or burst into frustrated tears.  It takes awhile to get to the breaking point, but I get there.

I'm not just talking about loud noise like machines, loud music or T.V.'s, shouting, barking, etc..  No, I'm talking about any sound. It all bothers me, it always has.  I've learned to tolerate normal everyday noise...but even that eventually gets to me.

It's not so bad that I can't function normally in society.  But it does bother me daily. It gets worse when I am already stressed.  And it is more tolerable when I am not stressed. I can spend a normal day with normal noise, but by the end I just want to be in total silence.  The noise wears on me like nails on a chalkboard and if I can't gain some silence to recuperate, I feel like I am going to be crushed under some invisible weight and rip my hair out from the noise I can't escape.

I avoid using household machines like vacuums (another reason I hate carpet), blenders, etc. Because the loud noise brings on such instant anxiety.  I leave the room when the T.V. is on and I am not interested in what is showing.  When I'm alone and want to watch a movie, I have the sound fairly low and put on the subtitles.  I'd rather read a book than watch T.V., it's quieter. I sleep with a fan on to drown out the other noises that wake me and keep me up at night.  The "white" noise from the fan is soothing, but if I knew there were no other noises, I wouldn't want the fan noise either.

 As for music, I love music, many kinds, but I am very picky about it and I don't usually play it loud.  My favorite form of music is baroque and classical.  Mozart is my composer of choice, his music is interesting, thoughtful, relaxing, smooth.  I found it interesting to find out that Mozart also was very sensitive to noise and became anxious at certain sounds.  I suppose that is one reason his music is so soothing and agreeable to the ear.

When I was younger I avoided parties or going to crowded places.  These things always include too much sound.  Music, talking, laughing, shouting, and other noise.  When I became older I discovered that if I drank enough booze, I didn't care about the noise and even greatly contributed to it.  But this of course is a bad habit and ended as soon as my health decided to let me know I was killing myself.

Living with roommates was a challenge when it came to noise.  I loved my roommates and was happy to have ended up with 'mates that ranged from fairly quiet to just as silence-loving as myself.  Toward the end of our 'mating situation the noise was starting to grate on me.  We ended up moving into our own place just before I cracked under the noise pressure.  Just may have saved someones life there...and kept me out of prison.

At this very moment it is just my husband, me, and our cat.  I'm home alone all day and boy do I relish the silence!  It is pure heaven!  No T.V. on, no talking, no noisy machines.  Just me and quiet.