I’m not doing every prompt on this list by @autie-j, but I wanted to do at least a few of them that personally resonated with me. So, with that in mind:
April 9th: Are you ever prevented from doing things because of sensory issues? For example, clothes you’d want to wear, places you’d like to go, etc. How does it make you feel? Talk about it.
I am. I absolutely am. And I don’t think that this issue, in general, is talked about enough.
I’m putting my thoughts under the cut, mostly because I don’t need to be severe outside of it. Comments are welcome, but please don’t make suggestions on how I could do better.
My sensory issues are most particularly with my sense of hearing…and I am also a musician. I have been for 16 years. Before I was diagnosed with Hyperacusis in 2019, I was fairly privileged that I didn’t have sensory issues that were severely limiting. Things were too loud, yes, or I felt like I was crowded in, but those were manageable.
Not so much when now, loud sounds, high-pitched sounds, all of that, can cause me physical pain. It feels like you’re being wrecked and hit in the jaw. Sometimes the overwhelm can feel like being drawn under by waves of sound. And that experience is what makes me feel the most whole, when it’s done in a way that I can control (see My Special Interests). But it’s the same experience that causes me a lot of pain and suffering along the way.
I really want to engage more deeply with my special interests, but a lot of them are… well… loud. I want to be able to sit on the edge of a tarmac and watch the sound of freedom take flight in front of my eyes without having severe delayed pain later. I want to be able to be in the center of a hollow square and not feel like I’m going to waver under the sound.
I also want to be able to do, you know, the ‘normal’ things that people of my generation do. Go to a concert, what have you. A friend asked me the other day, “Well, \[Ritz\], why have you never gone to a concert? Do you even want to?” And my answer to that was simple: “I can’t be a burden to someone else because if I have to leave, I’ll cut your night short too.” (Left unsaid in that conversation is that if I get overwhelmed, I am disoriented, and I need help to get to where I need to go, including driving home).
Of course, there are tools for this. Earplugs, headphones, what have you. I use these tools liberally in environments that I must. Even then, they have downsides. When you use tools, you lose your own clarity. I can’t communicate easily with earplugs in at the moment because the filter system is a little broken. I have to ask for accommodations, such as having someone speak more clearly or loudly to me, to coordinate with a group. I’ve had to use earplugs for playing in concerts professionally, and even with those tools, I’d have a headache afterward from being blasted by a trombone playing a part of Leroy Anderson’s _A Christmas Festival_ that I loved so dearly that I later incorporated said passage into my own arrangement for string ensemble.
Speaking of string ensemble: I literally cannot tolerate people being out of tune (on top of hyperacusis, I have Absolute pitch, so as soon as someone plays a note, I instantly know what it is, and how I experience both in combination…a whole nother story for another post). I play in a beginner strings ensemble because it’s one of the only groups that fits my other constraints about ensemble size and timing. This, too, is a battle I fight week to week of what to point out and what to let live. I am seriously considering taking a hiatus from playing in general after this semester due to the constant arguments with myself.
I am eternally jealous of those of you who do not have to live on this side of life.
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