Functioning with a system gone haywire...

Here’s a fun little phenomenon - I can no longer understand two sources of simultaneous cognitive input.

For instance, if I’m on the phone, and someone starts talking to me in person, I’m going to tune out one voice or the other, and I might not get to choose which one.

If I’m trying to read instructions, directions, or anything else informational, someone talking to me will render the print completely nonsensical.  I often have to plug my ears to read and understand legalese. 

Similarly, cognitive output can be affected by noise or other stimulus.  If someone nearby is shouting, such as a child in a restaurant, even if they are not addressing me, I will have difficulty forming whole sentences.  If I am writing and someone asks me a question, whatever I was about to write gets blown completely out of my brain and it may take me several minutes to get it back.

I’m one of those people who will turn down the car stereo when looking for an address. 

This is not necessarily new.  Thinking back, I have had a few similar difficulties dating back to about 2007.  I’ve gotten terribly cranky with people who forget that I cannot understand you if water is running, so please don’t talk to me while I’m washing the dishes.  People talking through intercoms are very difficult to understand, so if you’re going to make me do it, then you need to not talk.  If you insist on a running dialog, then YOU can talk to the person in the box.  

And space.  I’m a person that needs space.  Not room – It’s not about square footage – It’s about no input, no stimulus, no demands.  I don’t need much, but if you’re a walking peanut gallery then I need you to be elsewhere for at least an hour every day.

I’m thinking this might be why I’m better singing acapella than with music.

It’s gotten much worse just recently, and I don’t think I realized it until the other day when I was at a grocery store here in New Zealand.  The shelves are full of unfamiliar packaging, and the isles are full of noisy people.  I really have to concentrate to find what I’m looking for.  I wanted a beverage.  Not a soft drink, and nothing citrus, but I’m tired of water and tea.  I know they sell flavored seltzer in this country, but there was too much going on around me and I couldn’t take the time staring at that one shelf until my brain let me see what was there.  Remember those pictures with the random pattern?  You’d stare at them and relax until a 3D image popped out?  That’s what it’s like, except that unless everybody stops talking, it will never work.

In the last year or so I noticed that I get confused when someone is yelling at me.  I would love to be that person in a confrontation that can scream right back into an assailant’s face, or even just stand up for myself in a more dignified manner, but unfortunately when the volume goes up and the words get sharp, my brain fuzzes out nearly to the point of “Where am I?”

Hearing multiple radio stations or television programs simultaneously tightens my chest like a slow panic setting in.  Hearing an echo in a bad phone connection is like that but worse.

All of this makes me wonder if what is happening is mechanical, like an inner ear issue, or if it’s a mental condition that’s been exacerbated by the last few years of emotional and psychological abuse.  If anyone ever figures out our country’s health-care fiasco, I may go ask a physician.

Either way, the simple fact that all of this is part of my reality, and yet I can still walk onto a stage at a crowded festival, and at will be engaging and articulate…  That makes me a total badass.

So there.