Are You Sure I Can't Wear Headphones?

The weekly struggle to endure church meetings

Last year I was finally diagnosed with Autism and ADHD, ending a literal lifelong quest to figure out why I felt and acted so differently from most people around me. There's still a lot that I'm learning and don't fully understand, but I'm starting to understand why various activities and situations are so difficult or uncomfortable for me.

One of the biggest regular challenges for me is weekly church services. Attending meetings at the local LDS church building is an exercise in endurance through adversities that almost seem specifically designed to torment the neurodivergent. I'll set aside any theological or sociological issues, and just talk about the sensory overload that is a typical LDS Sacrament meeting.

A common characteristic of neurodivergent people is a high level of input sensitivity. I'm not an expert in the science, and it's much more complicated than a simple analogy, but the best way I can describe it is when you turn up the gain on a microphone as high as you can go, until it's just about to feedback. Not only is the microphone going to be a lot more sensitive at picking up every little sound, but make a noise that's slightly too loud or at the wrong frequency and you are instantly going into feedback. Just imagine all five senses being wired into your brain that same way, the feedback sound is especially bad when you get it in five dimensions at once.

Now imagine being in a typical chapel on a Sunday with your senses all turned up to 11. Before anyone else even enters the room, you're getting hit with high frequency lights and sound. I don't get bothered by electronic buzzing too much because I've become somewhat accustomed to it, but there's almost always some of that, especially in older buildings. More difficult for me is the florescent lights. There's more going on than just the wavelength of the light, but if you compare light wavelengths to sound, on the spectrum of light, blue and purple is high pitch (short wavelengths) and reds are low pitch (long wavelengths). Most florescent lights are cooler color temperatures, which means they have more blue in them compared to other types of "white" light. They also just produce a large amount of light generally. For me, being in a room full of florescent lights is somewhat like being in a room where someone is blowing an airhorn constantly. 0 out of 10, would not recommend.

And then people start arriving. I can hear everything everyone is saying. Let me repeat, I can hear EVERYTHING. Going back to that analogy, my mic has the gain fully up, and it's picking up every sound and dumping that signal into my brain to process. It's extremely hard to focus on one single conversation, because that's not how my mind works. When I was on my mission, I can vividly remember struggling and failing to pay attention to the lessons we were teaching to some parents because their small kids had the tv on in another room, and the audio was just audible where I was sitting. I'm hearing both the lesson, and the tv, and I can't selectively process just one of them. Now multiply that by the dozens of conversations happening within my hearing range. I see neurodivergent people posting all the time about how exhausted they are after social gatherings, and there's lots of reasons why they are worn out. In large groups, for me, sound processing is the number one thing that wears me out.

Let's talk about kids. I'm not anti kids, and they should be able to be at church meetings. That doesn't mean that they don't have an effect on others though. First there is the noise that I just talked about. Second is the snacks, or at least the residue from their snacks. The texture of the fabric on the benches is not wonderful, for me at least. If you sprinkle a bunch of crunched up Cherrios on the bench and I touch it before I notice, I'm going to be having flashbacks about that sensation for the next two weeks. (I just had another flashback writing this). There's also any sort of wet spots from spills, half eaten fruit snacks, and everything else. All of this is strong, unexpected input on my nervous system that is already straining to cope.

Side note, I rank the texture of the chairs at the building I go to from acceptable to worst as follows:
1. High Council chairs
2. The wooden padded chairs in the northeastern classroom
3. Chapel benches
4. Blue padded chairs
5. Choir seats
6. Foyer armchairs
7. Foyer couch
8. Metal chairs that are still glossy
9. Plastic chairs
10. The 3 random pink padded folding chairs
11. Metal chairs that aren't glossy any more.
Did I make 5 revisions of this list as I remembered more chairs? Yes, yes I did.

Perfume and body spray aren't the worst sensory experience in church for me, but they are more fuel on the nervous system fire. Also, I'm allergic to half the perfumes people wear. If you really hate me, wear something containing eucalyptus.

Finally, let's talk about space and touching. The biggest thing I miss about covid is all the personal space. Having an empty row in front and behind me was such a relief, and everyone was way less likely to want to shake hands or (shudders) pat your shoulder. The end of Sacrament meeting normally is like a sensory bomb going off. The prayer ends, and all the sudden the room explodes into a mosh pit with organ accompaniment.

When I'm not at church, I have some ways to cope. If you see me walking around Costco on a random Tuesday, more often than not I'll be wearing sunglasses and noise canceling headphones, often with my hoodie over my head. I promise it's not a fashion statement, I'm just trying to turn down the gain on the mics.