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low decibel lifestyle After years of struggling with misophonia, I’ve come up with some helpful solutions or fixes for my serious aversion to certain noises, and tried my best to come to terms with my broader hatred of noise in general. Even when I was a youngster I can recall thinking loud was fine, but on a limited basis, and I grew out of it pretty quickly. Now I long for extended silences, and find myself grateful when I meet people who do not feel the need to fill every single moment with conversation. It’s been tough, and it honestly looks like it’s going to get tougher before it gets easier, but I’m still fighting the good fight. Yesterday I watched a documentary called “Search for Silence” that enlightened me a bit about just how prolific and damaging noise is to the world. One thing that surprised me was the knowledge that silence is not really something that can be achieved. Even when a person is in a chamber that is completely shut off from the world they still hear their own nervous system working, as well as their own blood pumping. Using a decibel meter, they showed time and again how places and moments you thought were empty with silence were actually filled with lower, ambient noise. Some of it was more perceptible than others but the fact is we live in a world filled with sound, and not all of it is good for us, nature, the planet. The place I live in right now does not offer me the opportunity to live a low decibel lifestyle but I hope to find a place where I can someday. Misophonia or not, I can still wear earplugs or earbuds most of the time, but perhaps I won’t have to blast music in my ears as well. The way things have progressed, I don’t foresee ever living anywhere that allows me to go without plugging up my ears with something, but maybe I’ll get lucky and wind up in a desert before I die. That seems the only place likely to be as quiet as I want, and feel I need. I can sound proof the room I sleep in, but once I step out of it I am subject to all sorts of audible stimuli that puts me on edge, and in fight or flight. My cortisol levels have to be catastrophic, despite my efforts to live as healthy and stress free as possible. I don’t know how to combat that except by looking for a job and living situation that are quieter. Doing gay massage has been fine in that regard, but not steady enough income, so I’m looking for a low decibel occupation and workplace too. That’s tough, because everywhere you go wants to play terrible music, or there’s machinery that sets off an irrational reaction due to my misophonia. The bottom line is; I am faced with a challenge that only gets tougher every day. At the beginning of the Covid pandemic thing I was still living in Woodburn, Oregon and at that time was trying to separate myself from society. I did research to find the quietest cities in Oregon, and even expanded a bit further just out of curiosity. What I found did not leave me hopeful, and thinking about starting that search again does not bring me any kind of joy or relief. In the end I’m going to have to settle for living and working conditions that are not ideal, but that I can at least hopefully have some level of control over. There are specific businesses out there that don’t pipe music at their customers every second of every day, and eventually I’ll live in an environment that is much calmer than the one I am in right now. I’ve lived in better and worse before, and the same goes for jobs. The only thing I can do is keep looking, keep hoping, and try to stay alive long enough to enjoy what I need if I manage to achieve it.  |
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