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Huh
So, ok, I have this ... weird inhibition about playing music out loud. I'm fine listening with headphones, but since I can't do those myself, that means I only listen when I have headphones on already. That's mostly at night, when I'm in bed. Singing along doesn't happen much -- it's embarrassing if headphoned, and I'm never not. It's been years, maybe decades, since I've just blasted a fun playlist and let myself sing along.
I keep poking at this mental wall, because I'd love to be able to do that. As far as I can tell, it's a combination of at least two desires/needs.
One is I don't want to bother anyone (more than I have to), combined with an overly sensitive meter for what counts as bothersome (i.e. anything at all). It's like I can only do loud things when alone. Between aides and roommate, I'm rarely alone, and I often just don't think of it as an option in the times I do have. Even if I'm watching a video, I'll often turn it off when someone shows up, because Noise.
It's not a logical thing: my roommate has a room with a door (and also can use her words if she needs quiet) and my aides are paid to be here and none of them would be bothered by what I listen to. It's just ... I somehow just can't, unless I'm alone.
(Oddly, video chat is exempt. I'm fine doing those on my computer with no headphones.)
The other is fear of judgment / mockery. This is a long thing: I remember as a young teen getting my first stereo system (CDs and tapes) and my dad brought along the CDs of Phantom of the Opera, with which I was obsessed, to use the Overture to test the sound of different players, and part of me was vaguely humiliated because it would out me as a Weirdo Who Liked Phantom. (Many of my interests at the time, including POTO and Star Trek, I was convinced were inherently shameful.) My genres are nonstandard, so there's possible weakness there, but also I listen to the same thing over and over again. Usually a playlist/CD rather than a single song, but sometimes even that.
(This is also why I never really got into things like Pandora; if I wanted to listen to X, I wanted to listen to X and not to things similar to X, and I'd rather listen to known comfort music over and over.)
I realized tonight that right now, when my roommate is out of town for a few days, I have times of actual guaranteed aloneness. That I could put on whatever and sing along.
...and I still got slammed with an almost visceral memory of someone saying, incredulously, "you're listening to that AGAIN???" Of someone begging me to put on something different. I don't remember if this was my sister (who would have been an older teen at the time) or in college, but I'm terrified, I guess, of getting that again.
On one hand I don't care if my aides don't approve of how I listen to music, and anyway they're all too nice to say something -- except maybe for "didn't you already play that". On the other, the internalization of "this thing I do is Not Normal*" is too old and too deep. So ... I don't know.
* ... I would not be surprised to learn listening to something on repeat is an autism and/or ADHD thing...
I keep poking at this mental wall, because I'd love to be able to do that. As far as I can tell, it's a combination of at least two desires/needs.
One is I don't want to bother anyone (more than I have to), combined with an overly sensitive meter for what counts as bothersome (i.e. anything at all). It's like I can only do loud things when alone. Between aides and roommate, I'm rarely alone, and I often just don't think of it as an option in the times I do have. Even if I'm watching a video, I'll often turn it off when someone shows up, because Noise.
It's not a logical thing: my roommate has a room with a door (and also can use her words if she needs quiet) and my aides are paid to be here and none of them would be bothered by what I listen to. It's just ... I somehow just can't, unless I'm alone.
(Oddly, video chat is exempt. I'm fine doing those on my computer with no headphones.)
The other is fear of judgment / mockery. This is a long thing: I remember as a young teen getting my first stereo system (CDs and tapes) and my dad brought along the CDs of Phantom of the Opera, with which I was obsessed, to use the Overture to test the sound of different players, and part of me was vaguely humiliated because it would out me as a Weirdo Who Liked Phantom. (Many of my interests at the time, including POTO and Star Trek, I was convinced were inherently shameful.) My genres are nonstandard, so there's possible weakness there, but also I listen to the same thing over and over again. Usually a playlist/CD rather than a single song, but sometimes even that.
(This is also why I never really got into things like Pandora; if I wanted to listen to X, I wanted to listen to X and not to things similar to X, and I'd rather listen to known comfort music over and over.)
I realized tonight that right now, when my roommate is out of town for a few days, I have times of actual guaranteed aloneness. That I could put on whatever and sing along.
...and I still got slammed with an almost visceral memory of someone saying, incredulously, "you're listening to that AGAIN???" Of someone begging me to put on something different. I don't remember if this was my sister (who would have been an older teen at the time) or in college, but I'm terrified, I guess, of getting that again.
On one hand I don't care if my aides don't approve of how I listen to music, and anyway they're all too nice to say something -- except maybe for "didn't you already play that". On the other, the internalization of "this thing I do is Not Normal*" is too old and too deep. So ... I don't know.
* ... I would not be surprised to learn listening to something on repeat is an autism and/or ADHD thing...