Yup. I can't go grocery shopping during regular hours because it drives me up the wall.
General crowd murmur is fine, but varying pitches make me ready to just about rage out of my skin. I expect, for me, it's because the pitch variations make it hard for me to take my surroundings into account in a way that makes me more comfortable in an area. Every new pitch and sudden noise is something I need to respond to, identify and mentally catalog because it *might* be a threat, or become a threat if I don't respond to it. It's my conditioning from years of trauma.
Certain tonalities literally hurt my ears, which can make me ticked, because it's like my eardrums throb painfully. That can include the phone ringing particularly loudly, or even just certain voices (thankfully few have that natural tone of voice).
Dieties pardon me, but children, at the just past six months to almost three years old with the high pitched angry wail. It immediately puts me in flight or fight. No pause, no moment, just suddenly, hackles raised, I need to MAKE IT STOP! I feel so bad because it's not the child's fault, it's just something about the highest pitch of that wail that instantly causes me to react. I'm working on it-because my husband and I would like to have a child.
And eating with the mouth open. That's not PTSD-that's a factor of how I was raised with courtesy. I find it so repulsive. The first thing I want to do is tell them to close their damned mouth. The smacking and crunching and.....okay maybe it is a trigger. I just...I can't stand it, it's so crudely obnoxious and (I feel like it's) invasive. Like a "EVERYONE! WATCH ME EAT!!!!! If you won't watch I'll *make* you listen to it!!!"
Just so many noises that set me off. Mostly noises that interfere into my own personal headspace. Noises that demand attention. I already spend so much of my mentality taking stock around me, to remind me that I *am* safe, that adding in something sudden makes me want to jump out of my skin. It's like someone shouting random numbers when you're trying to count.
And yes, sit with back to a wall, because I want to know where everyone is. That, I find, is common even in non PTSD folks. None of us like people coming up behind us, and most of us can claim a few times where people have and startled us for their own amusement. It can make one jumpy.
