Oh, the noise, noise, noise, NOISE!

“Boy, the holidays are rough. Every year I just try to get from the day before Thanksgiving to the day after New Year’s.“

~ Billy Crystal’s character Harry Burns in When Harry Met Sally (1989)

It seems the older I get, the less enjoyable I find each succeeding holiday season. As a child I was as excited about the holidays as any other kid. Who wouldn’t look forward to time off from school, heaps of presents, and – hopefully – piles of snow to play in? Having a December birthday like I do is an added bonus.

I used to love wrapping presents, decorating them with elaborate ribbons and bows. The color schemes had to match and the gift labels had to be in just the right spot. It almost seemed like a shame to unwrap the gifts and destroy my works of art. Yeah, not so much any more. Now I’m lucky just to get the paper slapped on the presents before Christmas morning.

I used to love putting up the tree and decorating the house in lights. These days, I don’t even get excited about that and have gotten to the point of not wanting any decorations at all. “Honestly, do we really need to put up the Christmas tree?” I think to myself every year.

Part of the reason, I’m sure, is the added responsibilities of being an adult and parent. The shopping, the planning, the cooking, the baking, the wrapping, the decorating, the traveling, the packing, the expectations …

But for me there’s more to it than just these things. It’s the noise.

I’ve always been a quiet person, but I don’t recall the noise being so bothersome to me when I was younger. As the years go by, I’ve noticed that my threshold for tolerating noise gets lower and lower. Maybe this isn’t unusual. Don’t most adults get a bit irritated by noisy children or loud music, for example?

This noise aversion of mine applies to every-day life as well. I’ve gotten to the point where I wear earplugs as much as I possibly can. Unless there’s something I specifically want to listen to or hear, I wear earplugs almost constantly around the house. I’ll even sneak them into my ears in public whenever possible. (One of the benefits of having long hair.)

Recent MRI studies have found that children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder have brains that are hyperconnected compared to typical (non-autistic) children. In other words, their brains have more neurons connecting different portions of their brains than typical children. The studies also found that the more connectedness a child has, the more severe their symptoms are. The picture below shows side views of the brain of a typical child on the left. On the right are side views of an autistic child’s brain.

In many ways, it seems to me that I feel and sense things more acutely than most people. Noises that don’t bother other people are too loud for me. I’m constantly telling people to turn down the volume. I don’t like going to the movie theater because the volume is so loud. Action movies are intolerable for me. I can’t even be in the same room when one’s playing, I have to go hide upstairs and put in my earplugs or use my noise-cancelling headphones. Many people on the spectrum rely on their noise-cancelling headphones in order to function in noisy situations.

This applies to other senses as well besides hearing. Most of the time I don’t like people touching me, except my kids. Certain smells and tastes that other people don’t seem to mind I find overpowering. I almost always have to wear sunglasses when I’m outside, even on a cloudy day because the light is too bright.

A lot of activity in a social setting seems fine to other people, but is usually overwhelming for me. Most people seem to long for socialization with others, but I usually don’t, at least not in large doses anyway. I can handle an hour or two of socializing at most, even with people I know well and enjoy being around, but then I have to remove myself or I will become overwhelmed and shut down.

If you don’t know what I mean by “shutting down”, imagine a pot filled to the brim with water that’s constantly simmering. Turning up the heat enough will cause the water to eventually reach the boiling point. If you don’t reduce the heat in time, the water will spill over the sides of the pot.

When I experience enough sensory input to cause me to boil over, I will shut down. During these episodes, I literally feel like something is building up inside of me. When I go beyond the boiling point, I can’t talk or tell anyone what’s wrong. I have to go be by myself until I calm down, which sometimes takes an hour or two.

This is one way that people on the spectrum respond to sensory overload. Others have meltdowns, which I will discuss at a later time. While I would imagine that most people feel overwhelmed or stressed from time to time, it seems the way a neurotypical (normal) person’s body reacts to it is different and not so severe.

So when I’m trapped in someone else’s house filled with people all talking at the same time and children playing and music and football games on TV and there’s nowhere for me to take refuge just to keep from shutting down … it just becomes too much for me. A few years ago during a very similar situation, I ended up sitting in the car until it was time to go home.

I know how odd my behavior appears to people who don’t understand what I’m going through, and I do try to tolerate as much as I possibly can before things go beyond the point of no return. I promise I’m not trying to be a rude guest – I’m just trying to get through the day, yet I inevitably find myself stuck in the awkward position between other people’s expectations of how I should behave at gatherings and what I am able to physically and mentally tolerate. This no-win situation is sure to bring out my inner Grinch.

“No matter how different a Who may appear, he’s always welcome with holiday cheer.”

~ Cindy Lou Who, from The Grinch (2000)