When You Can Hear Everything

AuDHD and Auditory Overload
I'm in my sixties, and I can hear like a twenty-year-old. My children used to get annoyed because I could hear their whispered conversations from one end of the house to the other.  Sounds like a useful thing to have.
BUT
My AuDHD wiring means I can't filter sensory input the way neurotypical brains do. Where others can tune out background noise and focus on a single conversation, my brain pays attention to everything at once - every conversation, every scraping fork, every footstep, every hum of fluorescent lights. All of it. Simultaneously. At full volume.

Restaurant Overwhelm
Imagine that you are sitting in a restaurant trying to have a conversation with someone across the table. A typical brain can focus on that person and let everything else fade into pleasant ambient noise.
My brain doesn't work that way.

I hear every conversation at once. The couple arguing three tables over. The children at the next table. The waiter taking an order. The kitchen staff calling out dishes. And I'm not just passively hearing them - my brain is actively listening to all of them, whether I want to or not. I hear things I don't want to hear. I lose the thread of my own conversation constantly and have to keep asking people to repeat themselves because I literally cannot hear them over everything else my brain is forcing me to process.

It's worse when conversations overlap - when multiple people are talking to me at the same time. My brain tries to follow all of them, and I can feel myself fragmenting, unable to take hold of anything solid.
On top of the conversations, there's the sound of dishes and cutlery, background music, the scraping of chairs, air conditioning. All of it demanding equal attention from my brain. None of it fading to background the way it should.

The Voice Inside My Head
What makes it even more complex, is that I'm one of those people who think with an internal narrative. When I'm thinking, I "hear" my thoughts as complete sentences in my head. My brain is already very busy with its own internal processing. So when I'm in a situation with a lot of external sound, I'm not only managing all that incoming auditory information - I also have my own internal voice running simultaneously.

And I've noticed something peculiar: when it's quiet and I'm listening to a podcast or guided meditation, my brain actually follows along word for word, speaking the words in my head at the exact same moment the other person is saying them. I've often wondered how this is even possible - I can't know what they're going to say next, so it must be split-second processing and timing. I only really noticed it when I started using guided meditations to try to calm my mind, and realised my internal voice was speaking along with the meditation, which rather defeated the purpose.

One night our dog was barking, and I was lying in bed listening to each bark like a sharp drumbeat on my head. My internal dialogue was trying to decide out loud "Do I just lie here and wait for the barking to stop, or do I get up and try to settle the dog?" Then I realised my internal narrative was also barking with the dog. Three simultaneous experiences of one sound: the external bark, the physical percussion of it, and the internal echo.

Misophonia Rage
Some sounds trigger something beyond ordinary sensory overload. The sounds of people eating, chewing, breathing. Even the sound of my own heartbeat. These cause what I can only describe as rage - an almost primal need to escape immediately.

This is misophonia, and it's distinctly different from the overwhelm I feel from environmental noise. The overwhelm makes me teary and tense. Misophonia makes me feel something closer to fury. I've learned to put white noise on during dinner - the TV will be on so I can try to redirect my focus away from the sounds of eating. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes the white noise itself just adds another layer to the overwhelm.

When Everything Else Piles On
Sound doesn't happen in isolation. For instance, in a supermarket, I'm not just managing auditory chaos. I'm also dealing with:

• Bright fluorescent lights flickering overhead (I can see the flicker others don't notice)
• Constant movement in every direction
• Food smells mixing with cleaning product smells
• People brushing past me
• The emotions and energy of everyone around me (I'm an empath)
• The wet condensation on freezer handles
• Trying to focus on my shopping list
• The effort of holding myself together

That's at minimum ten different streams of sensation all demanding processing simultaneously. Sound is the worst, but when you layer on visual stimulation, smells, physical sensations, temperature, and other people's emotions, it becomes unbearable.

I can feel it building. My shoulders tense. My jaw clenches. The tears are right there, waiting. Sometimes I know "I have maybe ten more minutes before I can't hold this anymore."

I usually manage to hold myself together until I can get out of the situation. I'll make it to the car, and then the tears just start. Once that happens, it can continue for an hour to two days, depending on how bad the overload was. And here's something I didn't understand for a long time: the meltdown I delayed still has to happen, just privately. Holding it in until I'm alone actually makes the recovery longer.

The Gift Hidden in the Overwhelm

The thing about this inability to filter sensory input is that in the right environment, it becomes something entirely different.

In nature, the same wiring that makes restaurants unbearable allows me to hear and differentiate dozens of bird calls simultaneously - and it brings me peace instead of panic. I experience a richness and aliveness that most people never access.

I can pick out individual species in the dawn chorus that wakes me around 4 a.m. - and rather than being annoyed at the early wake-up, I love it. I listen and count how many different bird calls I can identify. I hear the wind moving differently through grass versus through trees. I hear the creaking of tree trunks, the rustling of leaves, the sounds of insects. The sounds of water - flowing, dripping, moving - are particularly calming.

Where restaurant noise makes my body tense and brings tears, nature sounds make my body relax. It's the complete opposite experience from the same neurological processing. My internal narrative actually quiets down in nature. I can focus entirely on the sounds around me without that competing internal voice. Maybe because I actually WANT to hear everything in nature.

I live on a farm in the country, surrounded by nature, and I am so grateful. I make time every day to be outside because it helps me heal and recover from the sensory assaults of human environments. This isn't coincidental. I need it.

Understanding Changes Everything
Before I understood this was autism and ADHD sensory processing, I thought I was just too sensitive. I forced myself to endure situations because I thought I should be able to handle them. School was one of the worst - I was overwhelmed most of the time and didn't understand what was going on. I just felt like something was wrong with me.

Now that I understand what's happening, I'm much less likely to berate myself for needing to escape or spend time alone. I can recognise "this is sensory overload, not personal failure" and give myself permission to leave or take the recovery time I need.

I've developed strategies: I shop first thing in the morning as soon as the supermarket opens, before it gets busy. I go through self-checkout so I can just get out without additional interaction. I give myself permission to leave gatherings when I need to. I don't force myself to endure what my nervous system cannot handle.

The same heightened hearing that makes supermarkets unbearable makes nature transcendent. The sounds of insects, the calls of different birds, the movement of wind through the landscape - I experience a richness and aliveness that many people never access. It's peace. It's connection.

It truly is a double-edged gift. The challenge isn't the sensitivity itself - it's navigating a world designed for people whose brains automatically filter out what doesn't matter. But understanding this has allowed me to structure my life around my actual needs rather than fighting against my own neurology.
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The gift and the challenge coexist. I've learned to honour both.

This is an extract from my chapter on Sensory Overload  which will become part of my upcoming book on AuDHD
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