I don't know if this is ADD related or not, but I'm asking anyway. Do any of you have a hard time when more than one sound is around you?

I can not stand it when my hubby has the music on (while we cook/clean, whatever), the kids have the tv on and he's trying to talk to me. I go nuts trying desperately not to get so annoyed to the point of lashing out.

I don't know really how to explain it. It's sort of like my brain goes into overheat mode. I also can't stand loud noises. I don't like the radio in the car loud and I don't like the tv loud. DH accuses me of being "old" :( But it just gets to me. Could this be ADD related or is it just a quirk of mine?

Well, I share the same quirk, as does my son, especially when we are on the phone. Lots of hand flapping trying to get someone else's attention to STFU! :D

My son and brother have the volume on the t.v. set so low it's difficult to tell if it's even on. I wear earplugs in some venues.

I think so. It is on a written questionnaire that I just answered in a ADD book I'm reading. I listen to very loud rock n roll in my car, if no one is with me. I love the music and its not too much of a destraction to drive. BTW I'm 48, technically too old for this! Anyway I could not do this with someone else in the car as they would be to much of a distraction if they spoke or the music would be. My parents drive me nutts at their house, my dad is getting deaf (refuses to wear his hearing aid), turns the tv up, my mother screams above it, if my sister comes over with her toddler its more than I can take. I end up saying something ugly and getting everyone mad.

What's confusing to me is that I can be quite loud when excited about something.

Yep, yep, and yep again.

I cannot stand multiple sounds when trying to zone in on one, or someone speaking. Irritates me GREATLY!

I also drive with rock music blaring.

Trying to sleep? I yell if the tv in another room is too loud, and sometimes it's simply the bass I can hear. How's that for weird? lol

Not weird at all. My son and brother prefer to go to sleep with a t.v. on really low volume. Too bad I didn't know that when he was born!! I'm like you, DeloresMelon, I need absolute quiet, unless I'm sick, to fall asleep. After I'm asleep, only a crying baby or cat can wake me up. My son is an extremely sound sleeper as well.

My daughter always needed lots of sleep as a young child and I started to notice her staying up later and later through adolescence. She is a very fast keyboarder. One night I was trying to fall asleep and this soft sound was bugging me - like the mosquito that zooms away out of your grasp. I'd listen and hear nothing, listen and hear it again. Finally my brain kicked in gear and I yelled clear across the house and told my daughter to shut off the computer and get to sleep. I miss her. LOL!

I'm easily pushed into sensory overload. It doesn't have to be *loud sounds. I can listen to loud music or whatever, but if several sounds are going on at once I WILL get annoyed and eventually freak out.
Right now, my son is tapping his foot nearby. I can hear my daughters playing in their room. The baby is making a few little baby noises. Right now, it's a bit hard to focus on writing this. If one of my cats so much as purrs right now, it's possible I'll lose it!

i'm like a kitten with string.. noises distract me

re: #1

Yup, we have auditory processing and auditory memory issues. It is often part of ADD.

It is hard to filter out competing stimuli.

Example: when my overly talkative friend (undiagnosed ADD + low EQ buddy) is in the car ('yak yak yak') and is *talking 'AT ME' over* the radio songs, or WORSE, when she is *talking over* some DJ on the radio.

Competing voices, especially (TV characters talking+ Spoken Radio Ads + Yakky people) -- can't do it....

re: 4

that's output, not input. ;)

re: 4

that's output, not input. ;)You are brilliant! :cool:

My son and brother prefer to go to sleep with a t.v. on really low volume
oh .. I do that too. But not a TV .. why a TV?
Why not a radio? I mean - it's for the sound I suppose .. not the images .. ?

The volume has to be so low that I cant really understand what's being said .. just a very gentle murmur. For some reason it's soothing.

oh wait .. the original question .. yes, multiple sounds are annoying.

see, I'm the same, when I'm sick, I want the TV on, very very low so you can't hear it hardly. But only when I'm sick.

What's really annoying is I have a "sound" constantly in my left ear. Basically an artery is too close to my Eustachian tube so I literally hear my heartbeat. Think doppler in the obgyn, hearing a baby's in utero heartbeat.

It's a wooshing, not a drumming sound.

It started in October 1999. Been there ever since. Gets worse when I'm congested. And if I press on my neck in the vicinity of the artery, I can stop it, but only for a few seconds, then I start to feel like my heads about to pop off. lol I have to do everything to my left in order to quiet it down. Nearly 9 years.... sheesh.

wow if I could hear my heartbeat like that I'd neverbe able to focus. its not how loud things are, I like loud. its whe more than one sound demands my attention at one time...music and conversation? doesn't work. or tv, music... or crowd chatter and someone trying to talk to me. bars are terrible, I can never focus on any conversation at all.its the multiplicity of noises that makes it hard.

kids are notorious for that. When both kids demand my attention at the same time, I have to stop myself from blowing a gasket.

it depends on where i am at if multible sounds affect me. not so much at work where there is always a lot of noise, but at home it does and i really dont like the sound of a phone ringing, dont know why but i dont.

Pretty much yes to everything except I can usually stand loud music. Unexpected loud noises provoke feelings similar to anger in me. I'm usually more upset with the noise than the person who made the noise.

Multiple dissonant sounds drive me up the wall and occasionally can provoke a panic attack all by themselves.

Oh I understand the phone thing. We have tons of phones and OUTSIDE phones too cause we have a great big yard and the outside ringers are really loud.

AND another one is the tiniest noises can prevent me from falling asleep. It's worse in the winter because I don't usually turn my fan on cause I just get so ******* cold, and thus can't block a lot of the little sounds. But once I am asleep it takes a sound-barrier-breaking freight train containing angry roosters, plowing through a warehouse full of windchimes, panes of glass, and gongs, to wake me up.

Oh and if I'm at work and a kid is screaming and the phones are ringing and a customer asks me a question, 90% of the time I will have no idea what they are saying or how to help them until at least one of the external stimuli goes away.

I can barely stand to go to the movies anymore cause the sound effects are always so loud and piercing.

Certain sounds or types of music actually sometimes make me nauseous or I will be on the verge of tears because I just can't handle it.

Yeah, I think I might know what your talking about ;)

Tell your DH, "You can call me old only when the volume on the TV is too loud for you to handle. Otherwise, keep it down geezer!" :p

Yup, drives me crazy. DW and daughter are talking and I am attempting to watch the news and of course daughter has the &^%$ rap playing added to the darned Cockatoo screaming...... well you get the picture then all I need is the dogs to start barking...:mad:

When I need to concentrate at work I need to crank up the music to drowned out the noise... Good thing I'm the boss:)

So yes I can sympithise with ya.

Darned abc spell check is not on the form.....:confused:

What drives me crazy is the sound of people chewing... it makes me crazy! The sound of ice in a glass. Gum chewing. Yawning. All of those sounds drive me crazy... Is this abnormal????? Anyone else get irritated by these sounds?

Volume has been muted. Now color is being muted. Enjoy life now.

What's confusing to me is that I can be quite loud when excited about something.

I do that too, drives my wife crazy, I can't stand multiple noise though, I look for ways to drown them out. I've been know to go out for a walk just to clear my head.

ADDF "sounds" off for sure tonite!

multiple sounds, is 3 kids... arguing over everything under the sun today. arggggggggggh!

I am always being called a b-t-ch for blowing up when hubby has certain types of music on too loud, or if someone is talking to me while I'm also on the phone- HEADS WILL ROLL- and I hate it when the tv is on and also a radio. My head sounds like that INSIDE already I don't need to actually hear it outside too LOL
And Deleoresmelon OMG when my two kids are demanding different things simultaneously from me I feel my head rip in two and I feel something very much like rage! I think it's because our kids needs are important and it's like this instant pressure to tend to their issues (and really focus), a pressure even ADD can't ignore so god forbid they both need something at the same time. I feel crazy when that happens and dh can't understand why I get so flustered and *****y over it, sometimes I even sweat!