Listening in the Dark: A true story about autism, sound sensitivities, and the power of control.

I’ve always known I was autistic. Even when I didn’t have the word for it, I could feel the difference. The world just came in too loud. Too bright. Too much.

At first, I tried to block it out. I wore earplugs. Then noise-canceling headphones. It was like building myself a quiet little room in my head where I could only hear my own breath and footsteps. It was peaceful, but lonely.

I started using earplugs when I was little, after an occupational therapist said it might help me stay calm in loud places. And it did, for a while. But I think I went too far with it. I stayed in that quiet room too long.

Eventually, I started falling behind in school. I missed conversations. I couldn’t follow group lessons. I just sat there, watching the shadows on the wall like in that story. You know, the one where people live in a cave and only see the outlines of things, not the real world.

That was me.

I felt safer, sure, but I was cut off. I didn’t know what was going on around me. I was lonely. Isolated.

And it got worse.

It wasn’t just that things were too loud. The quiet sounds bothered me the most. Like when my mom chewed Life cereal. Or when my dad tapped his foot. Or the hum of a refrigerator. Those weren’t big sounds, but they slipped inside my brain and took over everything. I couldn’t stop hearing them. They didn’t just annoy me, they made me feel totally grossed out, or worse, out of control and furious!

What’s weird is people think you’re being rude, but it’s not that. it’s like your head is already too full to handle anything else, and then you hear something or see something and the feelings just show up like out of nowhere. And it’s awful.

I think I forgot how to filter sounds because I was so protected for so long. And when I took the headphones off, the world slammed into me. It was like staying in a dark room for too long and then walking into the sun. Everything was overwhelming. Everything hurt.

My behavior got worse. I was irritable all the time. Angry. On edge. Anything could set me off. My socks being scratchy. Feeling hungry. Someone brushing past me too fast. And if there was noise too, I couldn’t take it. I’d snap. Not by hitting people, but by yelling or running away. I’d hide in bathrooms or under tables or behind bookshelves. Anywhere without people. Anywhere without sound.

My parents even talked about something called exposure therapy. Some people told them it might help me get used to sounds again. But it sounded horrible to me, just sitting in noise until it didn’t bother me anymore. I’m really glad they didn’t do it. I didn’t need to suffer. I needed support.

I tried to control what I could. I was missing so much with the headphones that I started clinging to what I already knew. I’d only talk about things I understood. I got upset when plans changed. I wasn’t trying to be bossy. I just couldn’t deal with surprises. Everything already felt unpredictable, and I was anxious and scared all the time because I didn’t know what was happening around me.

In first grade, they gave me an FM system at school. The teacher wore a microphone, and her voice streamed straight into my ears. It was easier to hear her than the noise around it, but it also felt weird. Like being on a phone call I couldn’t hang up from. Her voice was everywhere. In my head. On my skin. Louder than my own thoughts. I couldn’t tune her out, even when I wanted to.

Then came the day she forgot to turn it off when she went to the bathroom.

I was still wearing the receiver. I heard the door close. Then water running. Then her voice, talking to another teacher. She started making fun of some of the kids in our class. Laughing. Saying they were slow. And then she said something mean about me.

I froze.

A minute later, I heard the toilet flush. Then the faucet. Then the door opened. She came back into the classroom and smiled at me like nothing had happened. Like I hadn’t heard everything.

She had no idea I was still connected. Still stuck inside everything she said.

And it kept happening. She would forget to turn off the mic when she worked with other groups. I couldn’t hear the kids around me. I couldn’t join conversations. All I could hear was her. Her voice. Her breathing. The mic scraping against her shirt. The sound of her sipping coffee. The crinkling of paper. It never stopped. It was like she was living inside my head.

And the worst part was, I couldn’t even turn her off.

They gave me this system, but they didn’t let me control it. I couldn’t change the volume. I couldn’t mute it. The only way to stop it was to take the whole thing off, and that usually got me in trouble.

I mean, why did they give me something I couldn’t control? Why would they let someone talk into my ears all day and not give me a way to make it stop?

Nobody asked me what it felt like. What it was like to be trapped in someone else’s voice and not be able to get out.

Just hearing better isn’t the same as being helped. Not if you don’t get to decide what you’re hearing.

A few months later, we saw a different audiologist.

This one was autistic too. I didn’t even have to explain why the FM system made me feel trapped. They already understood. They had lived it.

And then they told me they were autistic.

Just said it. Like it was normal. Like it wasn’t something to be ashamed of.

Honestly? I was soo impressed.

The teachers at school never said that word around me. They’d say things like quirky or different or “has her own way of doing things.” But never autistic. It was like they thought I shouldn’t know, like saying it out loud would make something worse.

But this audiologist? They just said it. Calm. Confident. Honest.

I think that was the first time I realized it wasn’t a bad word. That maybe my brain just worked differently, and I didn’t have to feel ashamed about it.

And that’s when everything started to change.

They offered me something new. Low-gain hearing aids. Not to make things louder, but to make them clearer. They explained that people like me… I mean, people with sensitivity… sometimes do better with sound that’s cleaned up and easier to understand.

Even better, they gave me all the controls.

I could turn the teacher’s mic on or off. I could adjust the volume. I could even mute things when I needed to. And they said I could keep using earplugs. Or headphones. Or both. Whatever helped. They called it a layering system.

The hearing aids helped me understand speech. The earplugs (when I put them on top) softened everything when it got too sharp. The headphones gave me a quiet bubble when I needed one. And the mic? That was mine. Not the school’s. Not the teacher’s. Mine.

It was the first time sound felt like something I could shape, instead of something that crashed over me.

Sometimes I still use everything at once: hearing aids, earplugs, and Dad’s big noise-canceling headphones. He gets annoyed about the sticky orange silicone I use for the plugs, but it’s worth it. That setup is my emergency quiet kit.

I even have my own FM mic that streams into my hearing aids. It’s basically the same kind the school used before. Same brand. Same shape. But this way, this time, it’s totally different.

Because this time, I’m the one who controls it.

I decide when it’s on. I decide who wears it. I can turn it down, turn it off, or not use it at all. I can clip it to a friend at lunch, or I can use it at home to hear the TV or my mom from across the room. Nobody forces me to listen. I’m not trapped inside someone else’s voice anymore.

That’s what changed everything.

My parents let me decide when I use it at school. I don’t have to listen to the teacher all day if I don’t want to. I can tune in when I’m ready. That feels like a huge win.

Managing how I hear things has completely changed the game for me. I don’t feel like I’m barely hanging on anymore. I can actually join in. Focus. Be there.

I wish more people understood that being autistic doesn’t mean I’m lost.

It just means I tune in differently.

And now, finally, I’ve got the tools to listen my way.

⸻

Author’s Note:

While this story is written in the voice of a single child, it’s actually a composite drawn from the lived experiences of many children I’ve worked with as an audiologist, as well as my own. These are real feelings, real challenges, and real turning points. Just because it wasn’t one child doesn’t make it any less true.

Everything in this story has happened. Just not all to the same person.