Hey ADHDers! Hope you are all well rested and had a great Christmas however you decided to spend it. Happy New Year to all of you; I hope you have a year full of support and amazing experiences.
My Christmas day morning was like something out of my own personal nightmare, and it wasn’t because anything went wrong, or anybody got hurt. It was because there were five adults and two highly energetic children which caused me to become overwhelmed thanks to overstimulation and sensory overload.
It wasn’t anybody’s fault, bless them, I mean I’d invited every single one of them, but I’d found the past several weeks difficult due to the stress and loudness of it all. Just the day before we were at a soft play children’s Christmas eve party and it was just too much, despite me wearing headphones and blasting CLassic FM.
“I mean a lot of adults struggle at kids parties but I just couldn’t even function properly.”
ADHD girl
While there I posted I was seriously struggling only for a friend on social media to comment had I heard of loop noise reducing ear plug (this isn’t a specific product endorsement, and you can get other noise reducing ear plugs on the market). I said I hadn’t, but I only really struggled at this time of year due to my Seasonal affective disorder making my ADHD symptoms worse and the craziness meaning lack of routine and enormous of stress in the run up till Christmas. She said I should give them a go; I thanked her and dismissed the idea.
Well fast forward to Christmas day AKA the total wipeout and I was starting to rethink the idea, especially because I’d got a fair amount of Christmas cash. So on boxing day I did my research and ordered the loop switch earplugs that lets you switch to different noise levels depending on the situation and they arrived just yesterday (I’m writing this on the 29th of December- want to start the new year off feeling organised).
Wondering if they would be effective but somewhat curious I put them in and turned them to the medium setting while my kids played around me, and WOW is all I can say. I never knew how much noise was a trigger for me. I’ve always thought that because I suffer with poor audio input skills due to ADHD and having pretty decent hearing tests results then surely I couldn’t be trigger by sound but it’s amazing how one thing can change your whole perspective.
“I love how I am still learning things about myself and my ADHD. That what I thought was just a negative part of my personality is really audio overload, which is very common with ADHD.”
The easiest way I can describe is this; I thought that always being on edge, being irritable with low temperament (from an emotional perspective, not a physical one as I always try to just get on with situations- the British way of course) was simply part of my personality. I just thought the older I’ve got the grumpier I’ve become emotionally but having worn these earplugs for only a day and a half, I can definitely say I was suffering from sensory overload. Even the kids very loud and noisy toys no longer bother me as much as they use to, and I feel so much calmer in myself.
If you are constantly in a state of being overwhelmed then it’s definitely worth a try getting noise reducing ear plugs ADHDers, I didn’t think they’d work for me at all, but it just goes to show that we never stop growing or learning more about ourselves, or our ADHD.
Till next time ADHDer and allies!!
