When Silence Feels Like Noise: The Curse and Gift of Sensory Sensitivity

I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I wasn’t wired quite the same as other people.

In a quiet room, where others relax —I hear everything.

The softest buzz from an old plug socket.

The distant hum of electricity leaking from the walls.The static tension in the air before someone speaks.

At night, when the world goes still, my body becomes a receiver.

I hear low tones rising from the ground — almost like music.It’s not imagined. It’s not madness.

It’s real vibration. A frequency I pick up through my skin, my bones, my fascia.

Sometimes, it feels magical — like I’m being sung to by the earth itself.

Other times, it keeps me awake.

Not because it’s loud — but because I can’t not hear it.

This kind of sensitivity doesn’t switch off.

And when your nervous system is always on, the world becomes a very loud place.

The Science Beneath the Sensitivity

Years ago, I would’ve brushed this off as imagination.

But now, I understand what’s really happening.

My body isn’t “faulty” — it’s just highly tuned.And the structures inside me — especially the fascia, bones, and fluid — are part of that tuning system.

Collagen, which makes up fascia, is piezoelectric — meaning it creates electrical charge when it’s moved or vibrated.

My bones conduct sound better than air.

My nervous system receives signal not just through the ears, but through tissue.

And because I’m autistic — something I only discovered later in life — I process that input differently.

I don’t filter out background noise like others do.I don’t just hear sound — I feel it.

Which means silence isn’t really silent.

It’s a stage where the hidden frequencies get louder.

A Childhood Lived in Volume

Looking back, I realise this started young.

I grew up in a house where things were rarely stable.

Young parents. Arguments. Silence followed by shouting. The kind of tension that teaches a child to flinch at quiet — because quiet means something’s coming.

I didn’t feel safe in my body back then.

And I carried that pattern for decades — into adulthood, into relationships, into rooms where I didn’t speak, into nights where I couldn’t sleep.

Stillness wasn’t a sanctuary.

It was a trigger.

A waiting room for something I couldn’t predict.

So when people talk about silence as peace, I sometimes smile…

Because for me, silence is a puzzle.

It’s something I have to negotiate.

The Gong That Broke the Pattern

The first time I lay beneath a gong, it wasn’t silence I heard.

It was everything else.

It was the tension in my gut.

The buzzing in my skull.

The grief that had nowhere to go.

It was as if the sound had turned up the volume on parts of myself I’d been trying to mute for years.

And strangely…

that was the first time I felt safe.

Because in the presence of vibration — deep, rich, chaotic, coherent vibration — my system had something to anchor to.It wasn’t just me and the noise anymore.

It was us and the sound.

A shared frequency.

The gong didn’t “heal” me in one session.

But it offered my body a new conversation.

A way to feel vibration without panic.

A different relationship with stillness.

This Is Why I Do This Work

For those of us who hear too much…

Who feel sound in the skin, in the teeth, in the bones…

Who lie awake picking up signals no one else seems to hear…

We don’t need to be silenced.

We need to be met.

Sound isn’t always gentle.

It’s not always pretty.

But it resonates.

And when it’s held with intention — with presence, safety, and space — it can do something extraordinary.

It gives the body a chance to recalibrate.

To feel the signal and not flinch.

To sense electricity without bracing.

To move toward stillness not as threat — but as possibility.