The adventure of the imaginary noise
Wednesday, 13 April 2016 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59"I Can Think Of One Logical Starting Place: Why Do You Think You're The Only One Who Hears Dogs?"*
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Monday, my mother called me to ask me if there was a tornado watch in effect because she was hearing a siren. There was no tornado watch. I was at work, so she called Patrick to come over and see what was making the noise.
When I got home, he was on the front porch and told me he'd talked to her, but had not heard a noise. When I went over to her house, my mother told me Patrick had heard the noise but couldn't find it, and now it had stopped. I don't know if he told her he heard it or not.
One thirty in the morning she calls me. The noise is back. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. Nothing. I told her I needed to get back to sleep. Oh, it doesn't matter what time she calls, she sleeps all day. "Well, I can't do that," I said and hung up.
Tuesday she called me again. The noise was back. I was at work and nothing I said seemed to get through. I told her I'd see her when I got home. She said she'd call Patrick.
I called Patrick and told him to tell her it was the dehumidifier in the basement. He did that. He also unplugged the dehumidifier. (Yes, he unplugged the real machine to make the imaginary noise stop.) She's still hearing the noise. Maybe it's going to set something on fire.
This isn't a hallucination, it's her bored brain. Deaf people hear things that aren't there because their brains get bored. She knows this. But she won't listen to me when I tell her. Today I tried again and she wanted to know why she should believe me. "Because I can hear and you can't," I said.
"How do we know that?" she asked.
I got up to leave.
I have more than enough problems with reality and figuring out what is and isn't. Every time she pulls this crap, I feel like I'm being pulled down the rabbit hole. It shakes me.
I've always been stupidly sensitive, annoyed by sounds that other people barely noticed. My mother always brushed it off, as though I was somehow deliberately being annoyed, looking for something to bother me. This is not the case. She was never sympathetic about it. But now I have to listen while she talks about sounds that aren't there and might set the house on fire.
Life sucks.
*Tony Peterson
-:- -:- -:- -:-
Monday, my mother called me to ask me if there was a tornado watch in effect because she was hearing a siren. There was no tornado watch. I was at work, so she called Patrick to come over and see what was making the noise.
When I got home, he was on the front porch and told me he'd talked to her, but had not heard a noise. When I went over to her house, my mother told me Patrick had heard the noise but couldn't find it, and now it had stopped. I don't know if he told her he heard it or not.
One thirty in the morning she calls me. The noise is back. "What do you want me to do?" I asked. Nothing. I told her I needed to get back to sleep. Oh, it doesn't matter what time she calls, she sleeps all day. "Well, I can't do that," I said and hung up.
Tuesday she called me again. The noise was back. I was at work and nothing I said seemed to get through. I told her I'd see her when I got home. She said she'd call Patrick.
I called Patrick and told him to tell her it was the dehumidifier in the basement. He did that. He also unplugged the dehumidifier. (Yes, he unplugged the real machine to make the imaginary noise stop.) She's still hearing the noise. Maybe it's going to set something on fire.
This isn't a hallucination, it's her bored brain. Deaf people hear things that aren't there because their brains get bored. She knows this. But she won't listen to me when I tell her. Today I tried again and she wanted to know why she should believe me. "Because I can hear and you can't," I said.
"How do we know that?" she asked.
I got up to leave.
I have more than enough problems with reality and figuring out what is and isn't. Every time she pulls this crap, I feel like I'm being pulled down the rabbit hole. It shakes me.
I've always been stupidly sensitive, annoyed by sounds that other people barely noticed. My mother always brushed it off, as though I was somehow deliberately being annoyed, looking for something to bother me. This is not the case. She was never sympathetic about it. But now I have to listen while she talks about sounds that aren't there and might set the house on fire.
Life sucks.
*Tony Peterson