Posted by alexandra_k on September 18, 2013, at 7:25:18
i get a pretty severe startle / orienting response to people noises. laughter is worst. yelling / talking. even whispering. tapping. scuffling / dragging feet. pushing squeaky trolleys and banging books about. anything other than people obviously making a conscious effort to be totally f*ck*ng silent noises. and those are mildly annoying, but at least they don't produce a startle / orienting response.
it takes me a couple minutes to figure out where i'm up to and properly focus on what i'm reading / writing. every startle / orienting takes a couple minutes to recover from. i feel like i'm spending more time being assaulted by other peoples noises and recovering from that than i am successfully engaging with my work.
(of course that is an illusion, but i do feel angry that i'm not able to get lost in my work because some other people are incapable of not making noise).
i've never lacked a space that was reliably silent for me to work in. the couple of professors i've mentioned it to... have looked at me in horror when i said about having to work in the university library... they said they couldn't do it either. and then of course my not having reliable quiet at home.
how do undergrads do it? i don't understand what i'm supposed to do next year...
only solution i can see for now is to take the 2am -8am timeslot. when everyone else is asleep. then suffer the napping / startle-orienting through the day...
i don't think this is normal...
might there be a medication that can help with this?
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1050899
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20130828/msgs/1050899.html