Seeking info Re: aversion to elec noise

[liveweyerd]

I almost can't stand electronically generated noise. That means a radio, tv, stereo...all of it. I just left the back porch where I would like to hang out with my honey and do a crossword puzzle because the radio is playing and my immediate reaction is to get away from it.
I am very comfortable with silence and often prefer it. I entertain and educate myself with books.
Real people noise.....crowded parties etc etc does not bother me.
I did find myself intrigued by a PBS program this morning, it was Joseph Cambpell lecturing on mythologies which area of interest I am fascinated with and have read him before. As soon as that program was over, I was done with it all.
Living alone it was no problem, I was queen of my castle. I gave away my tv over 10 yrs ago and only played the stereo when entertaining.
Now I am married to a man who has tinninitis, which means silence to him drives him crazy, he hears crickets in his ears all the time.

Can anyone shed some light on this phenomenon. I all ready take anti-anxiety meds and this has not increased my tolerance for elec noise one bit.

I have never met anyone else who has this strong aversion.
A gf once told me that it reminded her vaguely of an autistic symptom, that it was overload to me.

[equus]

Is it phobic? Do you have a fear response to it?

If it is then phobias are highly treatable - don't live with it because you don't have to.

If it isn't just that you find it uncomfortable there may be some stuff which could help. I used to be a behavioural analysist with autistic kids (for about 3 yrs) but behaviourism is global - not just kids, dogs, horses but very much you and me as well. There could be a couple of very safe easy things that might help.

[liveweyerd]

Fear doesn't strike a chord.
It's more like nails on a chalk board.
A radio in the car makes my eardrums sound like bad speakers.
It just jangles my nerves. I find it irritating. And annoying.
Hubbie says that elec noise has a different pitch to it than live voices and live music and that maybe it has something to do with that. So that pitch makes me want to howl like a dog???

[sh777au]

I'm the complete opposite...in that I almost have to have electronic noise in the background to protect me from my own thoughts....I enjoy watching a lot of T.V. & even when I'm not watching it I have to have it on in the background.
I suffer from Paranoid Psychosis. My Mum can't stand background noise & she suffers from Clinical Depression & my brother who is Paranoid Pschyzophrenic almost never watches T.V.

Yours Sincerely,

[Phinneas]

Originally Posted by liveweyerd

It just jangles my nerves. I find it irritating. And annoying.

Have you read the book The Highly Sensitive Person by Elaine Aaron? I am reading it now and it explains so much about me and how I live my life. I, too, don't own a TV, get jangled with noise, electronic especially. I personally don't like big crowds and I need quiet alone time each day or I get majorly out of whack. The premise of the book is not that we are sensitive emotionally, so much as sensitive to the energy of other people and our environment.

Don't know if this will help, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

hugs,

phinny

[dmajor7th]

I'm sensitive to pretty much all noise. What I really have a problem with is filtering out background noise. Like if I'm watching TV (or trying to sleep-or even just sitting here) and someone bangs or people are talking in the hall it drives me nuts and sudden noise gives me a heart attack. I've never heard of anyone who is sensitive to only electronic noise, but can take other noise. If I'm trying to sleep-I can't hear the TV in the other room or it will bother me, but so will any other noise. I am sensitive to smells as well and sometimes I'm pretty sure I smell things that aren't there. And it's usually bad smells-once in a blue moon, flowery smells. Weird. Your situation with you having an aversion to electronic noise and you husband not being able to stand silence because of tinnitus, that really must be difficult for both of you. Do ear plugs help at all-like if you are watching TV, try it with earplugs on and put the captions on, but with the sound on, just not too loud. So your husband can hear too, but you might find a slight bit of protection from it. I hope you find a solution.
Cate.

[equus]

If it was a phobic response I would have said get proffessional help!! I know phobias are very treatable but I wouldn't want to try and help over the net. Especially as I don't have any experience in that.

Okay everything below is based on behavioural theory - I've never applied it with an adult, but in theory it should be applicable.

Your OP suggested that you have some tolerance to electronic noise, albeit low, ie - you play music while entertaining and can cope enough to concentrate on a tv programme. Is this correct?

Secondly you have gone to lengths to avoid electronic noise and previously spent a high degree of time without it. Is this correct?

Lastly you want to increase your tolerance to it for your own life reasons, it matters to you to be able to be happier than you are now around electronic noise. Is that correct?

If all the above are true than I think what I would suggest is 100% safe not to make things worse. If anything in the above isn't correct please don't try to do anything because it might be important to know what I've misunderstood first.

Whether it's of physical or learned origin doesn't change the fact that electronic noise has become aversive to you and you try to avoid it. Aversives are defined by our behaviour in response to them, if you're not trying to avoid it it isn't aversive, someone who says they find gossip aversive but never stops gossiping has misunderstood what aversive means. It would be truer to say they find thinking of themselves as a gossip aversive - because that is what their behaviour shows they try and avoid!

Aversives follow certain principles and one is that their effect tends to reduce with habituation (their effect being your behaviour in avoiding them). I'll give examples but they are from obvious things in real life - DON'T think I'm going to suggest you put yourself in distress!! I'm not - that would be high risk. But because we're talking about well known aversives the examples are unpleasant, also involving a behavioural perspective on abuse so miss the next para out if that's a no-no.

Take traffic levels - if you have lived around quiet roads and then enter a city the traffic levels may well be highly aversive (ie you keep avoiding crossing without the aid of lights and avoid travelling on foot). But although the traffic may always be disliked (as long as no phobia developes) eventually habituation takes place. Have you ever been to India etc? I remember being completely unable to cross roads in Sri Lanka but after time I could - it still wasn't pleasant but the aversion had reduced, I would even cross to buy fruit!! Another example would be shouting at a loved one for their behaviour - at first this may appear effective but over time the 'shouted at' person habituates and does less to avoid the tirade. This is often why violence escalates as the person dihing it out raises the stakes to regain the original (pre habituation) effects. It's also why violence in parenting can be so dangerous where the parent believes it is their DUTY to regain those initial effects and control - the child will habituate to whatever aversive is being dealt out, but in the early stages (pre habituation) the parent has learned it is an effective method of control, guess what often happens?

This is why it's so important that these are changes you want to make for yourself. You can habituate to electronic noise (without being in distress) but do you want to?

If you do I would suggest you find a level of electronic noise that perhaps makes you feel SLIGHTLY uncomfortable, or annoyed but does NOT cause distress. Choose a piece of music you like, play it at however low a volume it takes but play it often and try to pair it with activities you do enjoy. If you find the 'noise' distracts you don't let your distraction distract you as well - in other words don't dwell on being distracted, accept that some minor discomfort is part of the process. Be careful to set your target at a level YOU KNOW you can achieve no matter how small that is. The only risk in this is if you set the level to high and put yourself in enough discomfort that you chose to go back to avoidance. Avoidance is a learned behaviour and the idea is here that you reward yourself for NOT avoiding WHILE the sound is playing. Don't reward yourself after turning the sound off, reward yourself while it's on. After you've turned it off enjoy the success of having completed your goal but other than that carry on as normal.

Does that make sense?

[liveweyerd]

Thank you heaps and bundles! I am going to think everything said over carefully before I respond.

[liveweyerd]

He uses closed captioning alot. At first I still disliked the visual imagery, I can't say that I like it now, but it doesn't aggravate me as much. I like the idea of rewarding myself while tolerating it....to some extent. Honestly, I really can't come up with any real reasons for why I would want to watch tv or movies. I don't feel like I am missing out on anything. Over the last 3 months I have learned to watch an early morning news variety show with him. My reward is my morning coffee made for me and the good morning conversation we have.
I would like to read that book Phinny suggested. I am high strung and must also eliminate caffeine. And I take xanax for anxiety.
I have a few movies I really like, the common denominator is that they are all musicals.
Amadeus, Evita etc. Music is also more attractive to me if it is a dvd concert. We did that in Argentina, it was the only English available to us, but as soon as we got back to the states I lost all interest in those too.
I guess what I am dealing with is that it is unfair to ask someone to adjust to my ways, which I was perfectly comfortable with, especially when it is just as irritating to him as the noise is to me.
Watching the dvds, we were drinking wine. Entertaining also usually involves cocktails.
But then again, I am not all that hip on alcohol. It is stupid to drink when I have depression and I hate being around drunks. Left to my own, I would never bother to enter a liquor store. I do like good wine with a nice meal out.
I guess my only real motive is accomodation.
Silence is golden.
I easily watched the Joseph Campbell lecture, because it was one person speaking in a college classroom on a subject that highly interests me. Not much background noise in that setting.
So, yes, I am going to work on habituation, I understand that concept. But only in small doses. Mostly I see hours spent in front of the boob tube as a huge waste of time and disapprove of much of what is depicted in modern media. I do not want any violent images in my head.
Last night he watched the 1st half of a Ted Danson movie in which the dead were seen by him and communicated with him. I immediately said I could not see any of that. Because of my son's suicide and my history of susceptibility to night terrors and nightmares I will not feed anything into my head that my affect me and feed into that vulnerability.
I don't understand why violence is accepted as entertainment in the first place.
But, paradoxically, I read the forensic science novels. I learn science from them and enjoy the mystery. The difference is that they don't create visual images in me.
Movies? The book is always better any way.
I am rambling. But thanks for your thought provoking responses. I will continue to try to think this through.

[dmajor7th]

Liveweyerd, I'm wondering about something. If this problem started or got worse after starting the xanax. I have read about a therapy where you wear headphones with a low level of noise, but I can't remember the name of it. I've looked up noise sensitivity to electronic noises, but can't seem to find anything, all I can find is tons of stuff on basic noise sensitivity. Apparently noise sensitivity and tinnutus can be related. I know that you can tolerate other noises but you might want to look at this and see if anything fits with you. http://www.entnet.org/healthinfo/hea...yperacusis.cfm
Good luck.

[liveweyerd]

thank you, I will look into that site. I was relieved to hear from you, that there are other people who don't like noise. Hearing loss does run in my family, so maybe you have something there, that the sensitivity to noise is related to general hearing problems. I will have to think specifically and carefully about the noise irritation and xanax. I do know that my aversion to tv predates it and actually goes way back into childhood. After dinner, I would go to my room and be completely caught up in reading and writing. My mom would insist I come out to the family room to be with the rest of the family. I would snug up in a bean bag in front of everybody and continue to read and totally ignore the tv, the bean bag sheltered a view of what I was doing, or I thought it did.

[liveweyerd]

looked the site up...I found several hits! Yes, I have PTSD, depression, a long history of horrid migraines and TMJ. The migraines have been both stress and hormonally related, I stopped having them after almost a lifetime of waking up with a headache and regular debilitating migraines about a year ago. I taught myself to hold my mouth differently to control the TMJ. The depression and PTSD are treated medically. And xanax is related to valium. If that is a contributing factor, the noise thing continued even when I have gone off them for long periods of time. I can't sleep without the white noise of a fan, and my antidepressants.

[angelgirl]

Hi there, this caught my eye because I have 2 daughters that both have an aversion
to towels, and some clothes, and also socks on their feet. My older daughter is 16, and she has come to a point where she kind of just deals with it, she wears socks now, but they must be very thin, and have no terry towel type material in them, and she can also now dry off with a towel. But my younger daughter-12 has such a huge problem with the same material, that she gets dreessed after a shower, wet!! She will not dry off, I have to fight her to get socks on her, and I live in Wisconsin, the winters are nasty. She also has trouble with alot of clothes, and will not wear alot of different type clothes. It is so difficult. For one thing I hate getting dressed while wet.. I also can not wear shoes without socks, unless they are sandles of course.

I don' know if this is really anything like your aversion to noise, but it is difficult to deal with, I imagine it's really hard with electrical noise.

Thanks much, Love, Becky

[angelgirl]

bump

[liveweyerd]

There is a thread in recovery follies "Which tarot card are you" I took the quiz just for the fun of it. I am 110% sceptic of such things.
But, damn, you know what it said in my results? amongst other things "lives in silence"!!!
That blew me away. I went back and looked at the quiz questions to see where that may have come from...and I don't know.