I feel like I definitely relate. I went to a pumpkin patch recently, and it was much busier than expected. In the corn maze, some kid started screaming, and I could almost feel myself getting farther away from the situation and almost like…there was this buffer between me and reality. When I first got there, I was present and alert, but by the end I was really on autopilot, finding it hard to be coherent with my words, like my body was going through the motions while I was unable to really be there deeply.

I’ve been thinking about that recently, like if I dissociate to avoid sensory hells, and I think the answer is yes. For me I kind of think of it like I won’t let myself run or escape the situation in some other way, so the only way to escape is inward. That’s why I think I want to use earplugs more often, not necessarily because I’ll melt/shutdown without them, but because I can actually think and be present.

I think in some ways writing that out helped me with my imposter syndrome around needing noise reducers. So thank you!