was trying to sleep but then my third eye snapped open involuntarily so I had to make this
Wait.
*does some research*
They checked me for tinnitus SO MANY TIMES.
I could tell them when the class next door was watching TV. Or that there was something weird about the electronics in the room (that often would break the next day or so but nobody ELSE put that together). The high pitched noise bothered me so I complained a lot.
And they test me for tinnitus.
Nobody ever once tested me for ADHD.
As an adult I’ve become convinced that I have ADHD and that it explains a lot about me, about my childhood, about everything.
I’ll just add this to the ever-increasing pile. It has its own room now.
This would explain a lot for me too, I can hear the power strip near my bed, the kitchen appliances, etc. People think I’m joking, and nothing has ever been found to be wrong with my hearing and the ear specialist I went to said I don’t have tinnitus. This would explain so much.
The experiences you two describe are very common in people with ADHD and/or autism. We don’t filter out sounds like that, while neurotypicals do, so we often hear things they don’t. Electronics are the most common example.
Tinnitus is more a sound that’s always there regardless of where you are or what you’re doing (always the same high pitch is the most common form, though there are other types).
Tinnitus: internal damage to your cochlea, usually from over-exposure to loud sounds, triggering the constant hearing of the pitch that’s connected to the place that’s damaged.
ADHD/autism: sensory sensitivities and the inability to filter the sounds around you, causing you to hear things that others can’t even though they’re real.
For some people, ADHD also has a thing where pure silence has a sound. It’s hard to explain but I call it brain static.
Oh gosh I’m not the only one who hears silence
Wait, really? I was in kindergarten once so still at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and the full-day kids must have been off on a trip cause the rest of the school was empty, so we did a kinda treasure hunt and I “found” one of them because I could hear from the hall that there were monitors on and insisted we check the computer room.
I assumed everyone could hear that, they just maybe didn’t know what it meant.
