Occasionally as I am reading about writings that other people have done about their experiences with MS, I will see something and thing “I don’t think that is applicable to me, but I’m interested.” Such a thing came through in the email the other day. The subject of the email was “Let’s talk about this symptom: Sensory overload”. Even if the symptom is not something I didn’t think “hey that’s me”, I will almost always read something like this…. Even if I don’t relate to the symptom itself, I will always find it interesting to read how someone deals with a symptom. There becomes a lot of commonality at that point, and that information is almost always useful - even if it is just as a launching point from which to launch my own coping strategy for a different symptom.
As I started reading the article, I was not anticipating something with lasting impact to come from it. Frequently these are maybe 3- or 4- minute reads, so even if there is nothing, there isn’t much lost in investing the time and you’ve at least tried something to try to become a better you than you were before starting, right?
She started by telling a story of her own personal experience in which she had a period of productive days, getting things done and keeping her head above water energy-wise. “I felt invincible,” she said. I began to start reading from a more interested perspective. I know this place. I’ve felt this place. In her story, she also refers to a previous writing that she had done in which she had been at a gym and the music was turned up extremely loud as she worked out. Despite requests to bring the level back down, the volume remained where it was.
I thought back to a time where I had met a close friend from high school who was in town interviewing for a job here. There is an extremely well-regarded beer bar close to where he was at the time, so I suggested it. We met there and struck up the catch-up conversations but as the time wore on, the music went louder and louder. It got to the point (this was in the Before Days) that we were shouting at each other to be heard from barstool to barstool at the bar of this place. The combination of the music, the strange place, and the unfamiliar vocal timber and speaking rhythm put me in a place of severe struggle, and I identified it. I redoubled effort into hearing and being engaging, which… just made things worse for me. I’m quite certain that the resultant behaviors were off-putting. In fact, that person – in spite of getting the job and moving to the area years ago – has not reached out again. Of course, neither have I. I’m pretty certain that this friend is not in the limited audience that this blog has found… so maybe I could reach out and suggest a new location which is vetted and more suited to a successful conversation.
I took several things away from the story. As I applied it across to other situations, I realized that my reaction to highly emotional or stressful situations was an expression of sensory overload. My discomfort in large crowds isn’t a dissatisfaction with the crowd per se, but is a reaction to the cacophony of unfamiliar voices and movements added to my own aversion to lurching into some poor unsuspecting stranger. Sometimes, as in the story, it isn’t the navigating the effort, work, or situation that causes the difficulty.
When I am managing such a thing, when I am taking it all in the effect is that inside my head, my brain feels very full. This exacerbates all of the contributing problems and sometimes the resultant effect is kind of like a brain crash. I kind of switch over to auxiliary emergency brain. If I register that I am being spoken to directly, I can think about it and speak back… but the words in that moment are extraordinarily hard. The amount of effort or fight I put in only serves to further exhaust myself, which cycles into the entire negative feedback loop in which I am stuck.
I do struggle with sensory overload in a lot of situations… and not all situations influence the overload equally. It must be frustrating to deal with as a friend. It is frustrating to navigate internally. If you have seen this or become frustrated by this, I understand. I promise that I’m trying. As I read that story and identified with it, it kind of gave me a reference point or starting point to try to modify it as much as I can. We’ll see where that goes.
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