I have many young memories of my mother (SP) yelling at us to quiet down, to eliminate needless noise. She used to chastise us for making noise for the sake of making noise. My baby brother and I were loud for the fuck of it. We seemed to think that if we were quiet, we weren’t being seen, and thus our existences weren’t going to be validated by those around us.

The biggest struggle of my childhood was going to Quaker Meeting where we had to sit in silence for an ENTIRE HOUR. In my earliest memories of this, I must’ve been around six. I remember the first time we went to meeting. It was early Sunday Morning. The night before I had gone to Mass with my father. Mom and I went to the Parish hall and into the back room, which was lined with rich mahogany. There was a circle of folding chairs in the middle of the room. Perhaps a dozen. (The circle is because Quakers believe in all Friends being equal.)

Mom told me to sit my ass on a chair and be quiet and listen for God.

I was (appropriately) terrified of my mother, and followed her instructions to the best of my ability. I stared out the dirty window. I stared at all these old people wondering what on Earth they were doing this for. I remember getting up and walking over to the window and using my finger to draw squiggles in the dirt on the glass.

If my mother were here, I’m sure she would say the first couple meetings were more challenging than I recall. But as time went on, slowly but surely, I learned how to calm my constant need to be seen and heard. I learned to listen for my thoughts. I learned to listen for my intuition. I learned to listen for God, though if He ever showed up, I missed it.

Quaker Meeting was my first introduction to meditation though I was too young to know what that was. By and by I began to understand how to be quiet and how to recognise the value of silence outside of Quaker Meeting.

In my teens I struggled with depression and anxiety. I wasn’t special; I was a teenager. My thoughts became overwhelming, and I lost the ability to change the channel. I lost the power to change my thoughts or turn them off entirely. I turned to music. For several years you couldn’t find me without music playing. My brain follows rhythm and narrative, and it was a strong enough pull to take me out of my thought loops.

After I got married, I had to adjust to someone else’s need for constant noise. My ex husband always had something on…soccer, anime, physics podcasts. If we were in the car, he’d put on Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me. If he was cooking, he was blasting music, Comedy Bang Bang, or Hello From The Magic Tavern.

I finally understood my mother’s need for silence. I finally understood the value of silence and peace. And, it was from this, I finally realised why I’m a night owl. It’s quiet. The energy around me is lower. I’m not constantly trying to block out noise. There’s room for me to exist.

Over the last few years this has developed into full-blown sensory overload. I shower in the dark as I can’t handle the light, the water, and the heat simultaneously. I struggle with random noise. After a long day at the coffee shop I have to sit in silent darkness or I feel like my head will explode. I often fantasise about running away to a monastery or moving to a house in the middle of the woods with no humans anywhere near me.

I’ve been using the Odysound app on iOS for about two months now and I’m in love. Odysound was created by sound engineers in France. The soundscapes are varied, but all of them help me in blocking out the excess noises that inundate me. Often when I’m wearing headphones I am playing a soundscape to help me drown out all the extra noise around me. Here’s a sample on YouTube.

Since I started researching sensory overload and how to handle it, I’ve been getting ads for Loop Earplugs. I can’t bring myself to spend $20+ on earplugs though. If anyone knows if they’re worth it, I’d love to hear about your experience.

Can you think without language?

Archive edition of The Bhagavad Gita

Archive edition of The Notable Breweries of Great Britain and Ireland

Faith appears to be shrinking in Ireland

Massive asteroid