was trying to sleep but then my third eye snapped open involuntarily so I had to make this
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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\u2019ve become convinced that I have ADHD and that it explains a lot about me, about my childhood, about everything.
I\u2019ll just add this to the ever-increasing pile. It has its own room now.
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This would explain a lot for me too, I can hear the power strip near my bed, the kitchen appliances, etc. People think I\u2019m joking, and nothing has ever been found to be wrong with my hearing and the ear specialist I went to said I don\u2019t have tinnitus. This would explain so much.
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The experiences you two describe are very common in people with ADHD and/or autism. We don\u2019t filter out sounds like that, while neurotypicals do, so we often hear things they don\u2019t. Electronics are the most common example.
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Tinnitus is more a sound that\u2019s always there regardless of where you are or what you\u2019re doing (always the same high pitch is the most common form, though there are other types).
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Tinnitus: internal damage to your cochlea, usually from over-exposure to loud sounds, triggering the constant hearing of the pitch that\u2019s connected to the place that\u2019s damaged.
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ADHD/autism: sensory sensitivities and the inability to filter the sounds around you, causing you to hear things that others can\u2019t even though they\u2019re real.
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For some people, ADHD also has a thing where pure silence has a sound. It\u2019s hard to explain but I call it brain static.
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Oh gosh I\u2019m not the only one who hears silence
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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.
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