I think i am a very noise-sensitive person

FredZ89

Hello !

My wife and I just moved in our new Condo, two months ago. At first everything was great, we were the first to enter, so no neighbors / noise. Two weeks ago, my downstairs neighbors moved in, I talked to them a bit and they seem very nice and friendly.

However, I seem to have some kind of problem when it comes to noise. They are not really noisy, I mean I can hear some stuff when nothing is playing in our apartment, but otherwise I have to actually pay attention to hear the noise they make. There's my problem, if I begin to hear a noise, I'm getting obsessed by it. If my wife isn't home or watching TV with me, I might just put everything on mute just to listen to the noise they make, and I'll start getting angry, until I finally tell myself that they have the right to live and move in their house, and I'm just crazy for getting angry at them.

I can't find much on the internet about my "condition" (if we can call it that), I think I might just be noise sensitive... I read some forums about Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, some of the symptoms apply to me (more than just the noise, but that's another story).

Do you guys have any tips for dealing with my situation and just, you know, live a good and normal life.

Thanks !

FredZ89

Oh I'd just like to point out that the noise is at perfectly normal hours, I don't hear a thing past 8-9 PM, and nothing before 7-8 AM.

CelestialBadger

You should probably buy a house next time you move if this irritates you. Try putting on soft music to cover up the people sounds?

_J_

FredZ89 wrote: »

I might just put everything on mute just to listen to the noise they make, and I'll start getting angry

Don't put everything on mute.

You're describing a situation in which you go out of your way to enable yourself to hear the noises they make, and this upsets you.

So, stop doing that. Play light music. Buy a white noise machine. Keep the television on low volume.

If you do X, and doing X upsets you, then stop doing X.

FredZ89

It's weird because it all started a couple months ago, I started getting annoyed by every noise outside of our old apartment for no significant reasons.

I get angry (well not really angry, mostly annoyed and pissed) for a few minutes and then I realize it is just stupid and they have the right to actually LIVE in their apartment too. I just find it weird because I wasn't like that a few months/years ago, it seems to have started once we had very noisy upstairs neighbours.

Today I am trying to just ignore it, and when I hear something I keep going on with what I was doing.

Usagi

Have you ever been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD? What you're describing sounds very akin to the hyperfocus I will sometimes experience, right down to the getting angry about normal neighbor noise.

Druhim

Fred, I can relate as I tend to do the same thing. The people telling you to just ignore it don't get it. Your brain doesn't let you. Some sounds I can ignore no problem, but speech even when it's pretty soft always captures my attention and people outside talking late at night will often wake me up. Fortunately this doesn't seem to be an issue during sleep hours, so distracting yourself with something else may help in some cases but it can be really frustrating when you want some peace and quiet and don't want to put on some music or the tv to cover up the noise that you're focusing on.

FredZ89

@Usagi no I have never been diagnosed with ADD/ADHD.

@Druhim YES! If I hear people talking outside, I'll go to the window and check out, not because I want to but because I "need" to, like my brain wants me to see it. It is true that if I do something else it is better, but if for some reason while I'm watching something I hear a door slamming it will totally disrupt my concentration.

Druhim

Yup, totally relate. And people will tell you to just ignore it, demonstrating that they don't get what you're experiencing. Like telling someone with depression to "just stop being sad". There are things you can do to help manage it but you can't just turn that attention off. Brains don't work like that and it gets pretty aggravating at times.

FredZ89

Did you have these problems for a long time? And if so do you have any tips other than putting some music/TV to cover up the noise?

It's nice to see I'm not alone with this problem.

Druhim

Well for me it's mainly a problem at night. So if a couple of people are walking down the street drunk at 2:30 am after the bars have closed and talking rather loudly, I'm likely to wake up but Usagi won't unless they're being very loud. During the summer when it gets warm enough that windows are open at night, it gets to be a pretty significant problem for me and I'll either put on some headphones and go to sleep listening to music (which works great at first but then inevitably wakes me up an hour or two later, but at least I get some sleep) or I'll just use some good ear plugs. During the day it's a nuisance, but I guess I've learned to calm myself and not get as bothered by it. Kind of on a tangent, but during my years of scuba diving I learned how to calm myself if I was getting anxious underwater by focusing on my breathing and slowing it. I found that focusing on breathing slower helped calm me and lower my heart rate and over the years it's kind of become automatic for me so I don't really have to think about it any more, I just do it. That may not be particularly useful for you in the short term.

Iruka

I am noise sensitive, I like to be able to control what I'm hearing. I dont obsess over it, necessarily, but if im working at home on art/freelance, it will lower my productivity to non-existent. I'll get anxious and want to get away from the noise, unable to concentrate on anything, really

I'd recommend getting some good noise canceling headphones, and getting used to having them around to pop on. I prefer podcasts, because the talking engages me without needing visual attention, and I'm not always in the mood for music. You may not like the idea of having to use headphones while alone in your house, but in the end, I found this to be the best solution for me. I don't use them all the time, just when I need to get into the zone for working.

Heir

I have issues with this as well @Druhim and co.

We got a few air filters to run in the house. Provides just enough white noise to block out any voices or neighborly noises. Also helps with pet hair.

Druhim

Yeah, the place we're moving to is right next to a bar that closes at 2:00 am so once things warm up enough that I need the window open at night, I'll need something for white noise.

EggyToast

I have a friend who is the same way -- he hates hearing neighbors and noises that are extraneous. He bought a house that, while having shared walls, is very quiet and he can drown it out by playing music or something, but yes, from how he's described himself it sounds very similar to what you have, where he gets irritated by errant sounds.

I don't think it's that uncommon. A lot of people say that apartment/condo living is hard because you hear neighbors. Also, the opposite is true -- I like hearing my neighbors, and overhearing conversations or such outside generally has a calming effect on me. The only time I don't like it is when people are being loud when I'm going to sleep.

FredZ89

There's a good thing about my condo though, the rooms are upstairs. So I only have my kitchen and my living room that is having a shared floor/ceiling with my downstairs neighbors, when I am going to sleep I never hear a thing.

Yesterday wasn't so bad, I had music or TV playing during the day and had stuff to do around the house. And when I heard a noise, I tried to just ignore it and keep going with what I was doing.

Kias

For what its worth, since you mentioned the noise sensitivity is a new development, it could just be part of you adjusting to a new place/stimuli. So, it may absolutely just sort of fade in to the background as your mind assimilates their noise as the usual routine, but it could be in the meantime you are just hyper-sensitive to the change, which is a thing that happens and is nothing to be overly concerned about.

I would honestly be much more concerned if you couldn't catch the results of the behavior (i.e. you can stop yourself from acting on the stimuli because you know getting angry is unreasonable), which you seem to have no problem doing, even if it still holds your attention. Give it time!

Shogun

Adding my thoughts of sympathy to @FredZ89 and @Druhim. Many of Druhim's posts are basically mirror images of what I've experienced. This typically only bothers my late at night or early in the morning. I was previously suffering from a dog owner who staked their dog to the ground with no shelter. Poor thing had to sit in cold or rain with nothing. Thankfully they have moved on. Now its the low rumble of diesel trucks starting at 6AM from the county operations center that took over a building nearby. I've had to resort to running my computer at night for some white noise to drown out anything else.

People like us have a hard time in apartments, condos, townhouses, etc. I live in my own house and I still have problems with neighbors and noise. I wonder if the only cure is country living hah.

Reciprocity

Yeah, this happened to me when we moved into our new apartment. We actually moved out of our old place because of noisy (like unreasonably noisy) neighbors and specifically asked our new landlord about noise and she said "oh I never hear anything" we asked about the wine bar downstairs and she said "nope, never been a problem"

Which I am 100% convinced must have been a lie (maybe not a malicious one, but) as our upstairs neighbor has dogs and we hear them on the hardwood, and the bar is actually pretty quiet during regular hours, but after they close they frequently will turn up the music. I go through the exact same range of emotions you describe every time I hear a noise now. Starts with curiosity then leads to distraction then eventually to righteous indignation. I've just tried to wear headphones or keep the TV on and sleep with a white noise machine and/or earplugs (although the combination makes it likely that I will miss my alarm...)

If you figure out any other tricks, please share!

L Ron Howard

As someone who lived in parts of the ghetto, and likes quietness, I hate the kids who turn their base up in their shitty Saturns and whatnot.
I have an irrational hatred for any amounts of low thumping noise. I guess it's kind of similar to everything else described here, except replace talking with rhythmic rumbling.

AyeJaye

I've had something like this, especially when I tried to go to bed early while living with five other people during my time at university. If you're trying to get to sleep and not just trying to enjoy quiet time, earplugs are the best solution I've found, if you can bear them and their consequences (feeling them in your ears, possibly sleeping through alarms). Aside from that I've had success creating a rhythm of thought to focus on which can distract from the outside noise. For example when I go to sleep I will often count breaths, 1 inhale, 2 exhale, 1 inhale, 2 exhale. Or counting breaths 1, 2, 3, 4+. Or in and out. I find the simpler rhythms like 1, 2, 1, 2, are very easy to focus on and any disruption of them is easily ignored because they're so obvious. I wouldn't know what to suggest for dealing with this any time other than bedtime because it has always been a problem I can circumvent by the obvious method of listening to something else, and focusing on a rhythm like I mentioned above isn't possible when you need to have your mind on a task. I've never had a mood in which I couldn't tolerate music so that's always worked for me but you might be different. Good luck.

Thundyrkatz

I lived in some noisy apartments for a couple years. Nothing especially bad, but you could hear neighbors bumping around. It never bothered me until one year we moved into a new apartment that was crazy noisy with base music and stuff. After that it began to bother me a lot. Like you said, i would obsess over it. every time i heard so much as a bump i would lay on the floor to see if it was coming from the downstairs neighbor. It was driving me crazy.

I will tell you, once it begins to bother you, it will only get worse. You will either have to find a way to have it not bother you, or move. I moved into a house without neighbors close by, and it does not bother me anymore. But for like a year afterwards, i would jump and get a sinking feeling every time i heard a bump, even if it was just my wife upstairs listening to music.

Malgaras

I would highly recommend some sort of white noise machine. I finally discovered the benefits of one when someone parked their tractor trailer all night with the engine on not 30 feet from my bedroom window and I downloaded a white noise app for my phone in desperation. I use one pretty regularly now when I'm working or sleeping and it is glorious.

Kipling

If you need something to noise cancel, the cheap timers you can by at any hardware store are great. Just run them for 2-3 hours after your normal bedtime. Then you don't need to blast the alarm in the morning.

iRevert

First thing that came to mind:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misophonia

FredZ89

Hi everyone,

Been a while since I've come to the forums. Just wanted to give you a quick update:

Since my post on the forums, I noticed things actually got better. First, the neighbors aren't too noisy and I start to notice it less. I try to always have TV turned on or some music playing, and when I actually hear a noise, I tend to not care lately.

I've met all of my "close" neighbors (it's a condo) and they are all pretty nice people and they actually asked if they were making too much noise.

So far, everything is going pretty well, I just tend to notice it less everyday, and when I do notice something, I try to ignore it and keep doing what I was doing (gaming / chores etc).

NEEDSANAME@MSN.COM

this topic describe me perfect i too am noise sensetive it made me think mabey its why im so depressed all the time . i have a neighbor that runs a air compressor all day . every time anyone slams a car door i hear it i always think im being punished in my life with noise . ive lived in 17 different places and most all were noisy to me . im tired of running to try to find relief just to get it again where ever i move .