Title: Sensitive to sounds

Autistic individual

Experience

I often feel like I have some type of misophonia or at least hear (to me annoying) sounds that others do not hear at all. This can include the noise that electrical appliances make, e.g. many cheap phone chargers make grating high-pitched sounds that people around me seem to not notice. Sometimes this also applies to the noises made by people around me, like when people are eating or chewing on things, or are repetitively tapping their feet or a pen on a desk, things like that. In those cases the sound feels like it is painfully drilling in my brain and I often have to either escape the sound or try to ask people to please stop making the noise. This does not always happen, and I have not yet understood if it is a particular type of sound that feels so grating or whether there are some particular circumstances that feel triggering to me.

What could have made the experience better?

On the one hand I wish that the makers of electric devices would pay attention to the types of noises that their creations make. And on the human side I wish that people had some understanding for how it feels to me when I ask them to stop making particular noises. I understand that the question can come across weird if one doesn't experience it oneself, but I really don't blame them for the noise for that reason. I really just would like the painful sound they make to stop.