LOUD NOISES!!!

I've just realized a ?manic? problem I have: I can't stand loud noises.

Right now it's fireworks time in our neighborhood, or firecrackers, or whatever. The type that make really loud noises. They have been going on non-stop for a couple of hours, and will continue until midnight, and then resume every night throughout July and probably into August.

I'm sitting at the computer feeling very tense. I just realized how tense I was. How to describe the feeling....

My eyebrows are furrowed into a worried looking frown. I feel nervous. I feel on edge. Each time another goes off, I feel uncomfortable. I can't relax. I'm worried about the baby waking up. I'm worried about the noise pollution. I'm wondering if this is legal, and why someone can't stop this. I have a ball of worry and tension in the pit of my stomach. I just want it to quit.

Dogs often reflect the personalities of their owners. Ours does for sure. She hates this, and is also tense. When she's outside, it's nonstop barking. When she's inside, she paces and whines and sits as close to me as possible.

She's always done this, and I always wondered what her problem was. But now I realize she's learned it from me. I internalize it all...it's not like I'm pacing the house and whining. I just sit here and feel tense in my head. Dogs are amazing creatures to sense such things.

However, the dog makes things 100 times worse for me. She is so nervous, that every time I move, she darts right in front of me in her nervousness, and keeps circling around me and/or darting out of my way and grunting, and generally acting like a freak...all of which adds to my tense state and sort of makes me mad.

And now reflecting on my noise aversion, I realize that loud noises in any context make me tense. When I'm at work, any kind of loud noise around my office (people talking too loud, someone playing their music too loud, nearby construction) practically paralyzes me and I can no longer work. I sit there trying to block the noise out, but I get that furrowed brow thing again and a tension headache and overall antsyness. I lose all focus.

Sometimes, my husband goes on task rampages at the same time I've decided it's time to relax. He's loudly putting away dishes, running back and forth between rooms slamming doors and making lots of noise. I can't relax, and sometimes have to leave the house b/c I can't take it anymore. And he's not even doing anything wrong!

And forget about it if he's working on a house project and starts yelling and cussing. That's just the way he does projects, but I always make myself scarce then.

Maybe I need some Valium...not sure. I'm not sure why loud noises bother me so much. Something from my past? Something about being an only child?

Or maybe I'm a nervous or uptight person? I don't like to think of myself as such, but this whole situation reminds me of the Victorian Age when women used to get a "case of the nerves" and would pass out all the time and had to use smelling salts. Actually, what I need is that other stuff they used to get addicted to b/c of nerves. Wait...let me Google...laudalum I think.

Another related thing that makes me nervous is fighting. I mean real life loud arguments between individuals...they make me very tense and nervous and I want to leave. Physical fighting, too...as in bar fights and the like. I feel the adrenaline rush that everyone else feels, but I also feel immediately uptight and upset and want to leave. And I am certain that this aspect of it does stem from a couple of childhood events. I automatically feel it when the firecrackers start going off.

Now, the planned 4th of July fireworks cities have do not make me nervous. It's something about it being a planned event and I'm there watching it, expecting the noise, wanting the show.

But in my neighborhood right now, I'm trying to do other things, the noises are not planned and not supposed to happen, and they are an outside irritant interfering with my thinking and my life. They invade my household and thus, my personal space.

Ah well...I could live in a war-striken country, and then I'd *really* have a reason to be tense. I'm lucky. Now, pass the laudalum. (and now the baby is crying...great. I'm telling you...these fuckers are LOUD)