I don't remember the exact moment that I discovered that I heard different than everyone else but I think that it was some time around 12 years old. I do remember that when I sat next to my father when he ate iceberg lettuce I was blinded by panic and rage. A physical response came over me and I stared at him with a look of sheer anger and disgust. The same thing happened whenever my mother would swallow her food or my nieces would slurp soda from a can. It would be many, many years before I would have a name for what I was experiencing. I started to eat most of my meals alone or with people I knew to not be noisy eaters. Desperate for answers and realizing that something was awry with me my mother took my to councilors who prescribed medications or performed hypnosis to no avail. I could never really articulate what I felt or what the problem was but I knew that an absolute problem was most people chewing gum. When I see people chewing gum, even if I can't hear them, I can feel them chewing and I get blinded with anger and adrenaline.
Over the years I have tried to cope in many ways. When I was a sophomore in college I took art history with a woman I had considered a very good friend for a couple of years. She and I were resident advisors in the dorms together and I was excited to have this class with her. The first day of class, as the professor began his lecture, she took out a piece of gum and proceeded to go to town on that gum-Popping, smacking, you name it. The panic sat in and for about thirty minutes I tried to just concentrate on the rapid fire of terms and information that the professor offered but I just couldn't. All I could think was "how could she do this!" I wanted to ask her to stop chewing but that seemed so rude but eventually I couldn't plug my ears and take notes and listen to the lecture so I finally leaned over to her and whispered, "can I ask you the hugest favor to stop chewing your gum, please?". And exactly what I was afraid would happen did. She said "how dare you?!". We were never really friends after that. It turned out that she had an emotional attachment to chewing gum and was unable/unwilling to conceive of the notion that my problem with her chewing was anything other than me being a bad person.
My mother often feared for my safety because if we were in public and someone was making some crazy noises-like breathing!-I couldn't help myself but shoot dirty looks at the person. Its as though if I look at the person with enough intensity I can will them with my mind to either die or stop making the noise.
The single most humiliating experience I have had with my "hearing thing" was when I landed a job in advertising. I was just a few years out of college and had really been floundering to find a gratifying career with my liberal arts degree. I loved my job and I was good at it. The only problem was a coworker. You see, we were all seated in a big open room with low wall cubicles and the woman who was seated right in front of me hummed pathologically to herself, all day long. There was never a moment she wasn't humming and when she got stressed, which in advertising is all the time, then she would start to hum this high pitch off tune arrangement. Again, I tried to take care of it myself. I brought in a white noise machine but it bothered the person behind me and she would turn it off whenever I would leave my desk. I tried wearing ear plugs but then I couldn't answer my phone or hear my coworkers when they were talking to me and I just didn't feel comfortable. I finally mustered the courage to talk with my manager while she was with me on a "ride along" to meet some of my clients. I started by explaining to her that I had this thing with noises people make and that I had recently been introduced to a theory that maybe when people's noises bother me it is because I am intuitively picking up the fact that they are very sick.
Now, I know what you are thinking or at least some of you but remember that I was desperate! I had come upon this theory with a group of friends because I had recently learned that a woman at the previous job I had who drove me absolutely insane with her noise had in fact had brain cancer while she was bothering me and died three weeks after I had left the job. So....I essentially told my boss that "I hear dead people". My manager was a very kind woman and she did her best to try and relate and to be as professional as she could be. The next morning I came into work and my desk assignment had been moved far, far away from the humming woman. Even thought it came out in a strange way, the message was received.
It wasn't until my daughter became ill and my husband and I became educated about sensory issues that I had any clue what was wrong with me. Several doctors had tested me for autoimmune diseases, and I was most often suggested to have OCD. But, when I started to talk to Occupational Therapists and Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) did I ever fathom that maybe I wasn't crazy or intolerant. They encouraged me to seek evaluation for sensory and hearing issues.
I started with an SLP who did something called Auditory Integration Therapy. It cost me $300 and my insurance company paid $1000. I went two times a day for thirty minutes over the course of two weeks and listened to music that was manipulated in order to "make my ears and auditory system to push ups". The goal was to teach my brain and ears to have a different relationship with sound. I really didn't get too much relief but I think the self awareness and the exercise of starting to think of myself as a person with hearing impairment rather than a person with mental illness.
Next I found a website: www.hyperacusis.org which gave me further understanding of my situation. It turns out that there are at least a couple thousand other people in the world with this condition which typically presents in early teens, effects mostly women and often is accompanied by a syndrome called Specific Soft Sound Sensitivity (4S syndrome). Most of us have the most trouble with throat clearing, eating loudly, gum chewing, finger nail clicking and noisy breathing. It is classified in the same family as tinnitus (ringing in ears). There is no treatment but there are things people can do to get comfortable. The first key is to get a diagnosis. I have found that a diagnosis from a knowledgeable audiologist who is knowledgeable about hyperacusis and 4S syndrome. Luckily for me there was an article written by an audiologist about 4S syndrome that received a ton of recognition and hyperacusis was made an official diagnosis under tinnitus in 2011.
So what has gotten me the most relief is a pair of hearing aids called "The Mind" by Widex. I wear a setting called audobinity extender which blocks any sound over 6,000 hertz and amplifies any of the lower registers. They also have a setting called Zen (click here to hear it)which plays random coral bells so that my brain cannot pick up a pattern because patterns can become painful. I can turn on the coral bells when I absolutely can't get away from a bad sound. I also have accommodations for school that have made me a little unpopular. No one is allowed to eat or chew anything in a class that I am enrolled in. It has been hard to deal with the attitudes, the smack talking that I know is happening and the eyes rolling but the difference is that I am getting excellent grades and my health is improving. You see when I hear problem sounds, my body dumps adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol causes my body to retain water so effectively that for the past two years I have gained and lost up to 10 lbs in a week and that is very unhealthy. I also wear headphones and my instructor wears a microphone ,called an FM system, so that I don't have to fight my brain to concentrate on what is being said instead of all of the other little sounds in the room.
For a time I went to Occupational Therapy and that really helped reduce how much trouble I was having but insurance changed their coverage of "auditory processing disorder" for adults so I couldn't afford to continue but do believe that daily, vigorous exercise is key for me.
The most recent article I read estimates 7% of the world's population suffers from some form of hyperacusis. If you have it, I'm sorry. If your child has it please seek help and work your hardest to tell your child that they are a good person and they have the right to seek accommodations and comfort. I think the hardest part of having this was feeling like I was a bad person. I just don't hear things like I should and since I have sought some comfort for myself I am a different person. I hope that you can find the peace that you need to take care of yourself too.
Over the years I have tried to cope in many ways. When I was a sophomore in college I took art history with a woman I had considered a very good friend for a couple of years. She and I were resident advisors in the dorms together and I was excited to have this class with her. The first day of class, as the professor began his lecture, she took out a piece of gum and proceeded to go to town on that gum-Popping, smacking, you name it. The panic sat in and for about thirty minutes I tried to just concentrate on the rapid fire of terms and information that the professor offered but I just couldn't. All I could think was "how could she do this!" I wanted to ask her to stop chewing but that seemed so rude but eventually I couldn't plug my ears and take notes and listen to the lecture so I finally leaned over to her and whispered, "can I ask you the hugest favor to stop chewing your gum, please?". And exactly what I was afraid would happen did. She said "how dare you?!". We were never really friends after that. It turned out that she had an emotional attachment to chewing gum and was unable/unwilling to conceive of the notion that my problem with her chewing was anything other than me being a bad person.
My mother often feared for my safety because if we were in public and someone was making some crazy noises-like breathing!-I couldn't help myself but shoot dirty looks at the person. Its as though if I look at the person with enough intensity I can will them with my mind to either die or stop making the noise.
The single most humiliating experience I have had with my "hearing thing" was when I landed a job in advertising. I was just a few years out of college and had really been floundering to find a gratifying career with my liberal arts degree. I loved my job and I was good at it. The only problem was a coworker. You see, we were all seated in a big open room with low wall cubicles and the woman who was seated right in front of me hummed pathologically to herself, all day long. There was never a moment she wasn't humming and when she got stressed, which in advertising is all the time, then she would start to hum this high pitch off tune arrangement. Again, I tried to take care of it myself. I brought in a white noise machine but it bothered the person behind me and she would turn it off whenever I would leave my desk. I tried wearing ear plugs but then I couldn't answer my phone or hear my coworkers when they were talking to me and I just didn't feel comfortable. I finally mustered the courage to talk with my manager while she was with me on a "ride along" to meet some of my clients. I started by explaining to her that I had this thing with noises people make and that I had recently been introduced to a theory that maybe when people's noises bother me it is because I am intuitively picking up the fact that they are very sick.
Now, I know what you are thinking or at least some of you but remember that I was desperate! I had come upon this theory with a group of friends because I had recently learned that a woman at the previous job I had who drove me absolutely insane with her noise had in fact had brain cancer while she was bothering me and died three weeks after I had left the job. So....I essentially told my boss that "I hear dead people". My manager was a very kind woman and she did her best to try and relate and to be as professional as she could be. The next morning I came into work and my desk assignment had been moved far, far away from the humming woman. Even thought it came out in a strange way, the message was received.
It wasn't until my daughter became ill and my husband and I became educated about sensory issues that I had any clue what was wrong with me. Several doctors had tested me for autoimmune diseases, and I was most often suggested to have OCD. But, when I started to talk to Occupational Therapists and Speech Language Pathologists (SLP) did I ever fathom that maybe I wasn't crazy or intolerant. They encouraged me to seek evaluation for sensory and hearing issues.
I started with an SLP who did something called Auditory Integration Therapy. It cost me $300 and my insurance company paid $1000. I went two times a day for thirty minutes over the course of two weeks and listened to music that was manipulated in order to "make my ears and auditory system to push ups". The goal was to teach my brain and ears to have a different relationship with sound. I really didn't get too much relief but I think the self awareness and the exercise of starting to think of myself as a person with hearing impairment rather than a person with mental illness.
Next I found a website: www.hyperacusis.org which gave me further understanding of my situation. It turns out that there are at least a couple thousand other people in the world with this condition which typically presents in early teens, effects mostly women and often is accompanied by a syndrome called Specific Soft Sound Sensitivity (4S syndrome). Most of us have the most trouble with throat clearing, eating loudly, gum chewing, finger nail clicking and noisy breathing. It is classified in the same family as tinnitus (ringing in ears). There is no treatment but there are things people can do to get comfortable. The first key is to get a diagnosis. I have found that a diagnosis from a knowledgeable audiologist who is knowledgeable about hyperacusis and 4S syndrome. Luckily for me there was an article written by an audiologist about 4S syndrome that received a ton of recognition and hyperacusis was made an official diagnosis under tinnitus in 2011.
So what has gotten me the most relief is a pair of hearing aids called "The Mind" by Widex. I wear a setting called audobinity extender which blocks any sound over 6,000 hertz and amplifies any of the lower registers. They also have a setting called Zen (click here to hear it)which plays random coral bells so that my brain cannot pick up a pattern because patterns can become painful. I can turn on the coral bells when I absolutely can't get away from a bad sound. I also have accommodations for school that have made me a little unpopular. No one is allowed to eat or chew anything in a class that I am enrolled in. It has been hard to deal with the attitudes, the smack talking that I know is happening and the eyes rolling but the difference is that I am getting excellent grades and my health is improving. You see when I hear problem sounds, my body dumps adrenaline and cortisol. Cortisol causes my body to retain water so effectively that for the past two years I have gained and lost up to 10 lbs in a week and that is very unhealthy. I also wear headphones and my instructor wears a microphone ,called an FM system, so that I don't have to fight my brain to concentrate on what is being said instead of all of the other little sounds in the room.
For a time I went to Occupational Therapy and that really helped reduce how much trouble I was having but insurance changed their coverage of "auditory processing disorder" for adults so I couldn't afford to continue but do believe that daily, vigorous exercise is key for me.
The most recent article I read estimates 7% of the world's population suffers from some form of hyperacusis. If you have it, I'm sorry. If your child has it please seek help and work your hardest to tell your child that they are a good person and they have the right to seek accommodations and comfort. I think the hardest part of having this was feeling like I was a bad person. I just don't hear things like I should and since I have sought some comfort for myself I am a different person. I hope that you can find the peace that you need to take care of yourself too.
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