Sensory Overload: youtu.be/9im0YI7jf4A - Headway
Sensory Overload
I realise you that it is a major problem why not take the cow down and replace it with another picture which does not have something in it that highlights the being looked at issue you have. Why not try something that does not have eyes? Only a suggestion, the concept of dealing with tbi is surly to find ways to deal with the problem you have. Each and everyone of us is different in our abilities and have to individually find what works for us. Sorry I cannot suggest anything which will work as we are all different people.
Hope you find a way to deal with it.
Mufc
Oh Andy - just wait to Holly is a teenager and plays her music load enough to be heard in the next town. Suggest getting some good earplugs ASAP.
Turn the black cow round to face the wall - the other one can't really see you as it has too much hair over its face.
Hollie is there already! She's the one wearing the earphones! 
You have my sympathies, but bear in mind that my daughter was really high maintenance as a child/teenager ; now she's in her 40s and more full on than ever.
Just when I thought it was safe to have a brain haemorrhage she decided to part from her husband and has now 'found herself again' and developed a second wind !! (still love her to bits).
I'd take Jan's advice if I were you and buy some earplugs (preferably the wax type from Boots). It might provide some blissful respite, for a while at least. (Seriously......don't know how I'd cope without them).
And replace the cow on the landing with a tree or something equally 'unseeing' ?? 🤨 x
Oh, BaronC this, a thousand times this!
I had my third and final group-work session with the Mental Health team yesterday, fatigue-crashed on the sofa early evening, and consequently wide awake at 1am, which will knacker up the next couple of days. 'Normal' environments are exhausting, because there's no filter for stimulus, it's all there, all at once.
My house has ended up resembling your classic 'Bachelor Pad', in that it's pretty much stripped back to just the bare essentials, anything 'out of place' sends me as twitchy as your all-seeing cows. (My peripheral vision fluctuates, sometimes I'll become hyper-aware of something 'off' in the corner of my eye, and can't focus on what I'm meant to be looking at.) That's going to be 'fun' when my son is back from uni in a couple of days, he favours the floor-ganisation method of arranging his belongings. (He's a babbler, too, like Hollie, we've reached a stage where he's less offended when I say "I'm going to leave the room."- still spins me into a bad-Mum guilt-trip, because I know I'm not giving him my attention, I only have so much to spare.)
The Mental Health thing was awful, I know I had some pre-existing MH issues, but they were manageable prior to the BI. Neuro-psych have decided that the MH is to be treated separately to the BI, so I'm in 'general' services. With a noisy projector that bounces light off the whiteboard. The light from the gaps in the blinds also bounces off the whiteboard, the pen squeaks on the board, there are people moving about, and I'm sure I didn't take in a lot of the content, because I was jugging thoughts of "Don't be the only one to answer questions.", and "I really don't want to be in this room, the light's awful." Then home, on the bus. I know it's the C-word, and my local council might have given more consideration to that when they decided to renovate the bus-station. Buses are departing from temporary stops around the town centre, four or five buses from each stop, and the stops have been plonked willy-nilly in front of shops and businesses, the people queuing for the buses are obstructing the shop entrances, sprawling all over the pavement, and jostling. (I'm really not a fan of jostling.)
The C-word also brings the lights, and the glitter. Honestly, I'd hibernate if I could.
The doctor at my PIP tribunal clarified-back some of the issues I have, and asked "So, it's like a sensory overload?" I responded "It IS sensory overload." All of my Spidey-senses are turned up to 11 all of the time, and the concerned medics, and well-meaning but intrusive acquaintances STILL trot out the "You really ought to get out more!" advice, assuming that my hermit-like existence is depression... It's physically and psychologically painful 'out there', I do what needs doing, but I'm not going to join a line-dancing class because some non-brain-injured person insists it really helped them when they were 'a bit low.'
Rant over, all the best to you and yours.
Trust me, I empathise 100% And DON'T set me off on the C word. My thoughts on the matter are well documented and when the ghost of C word past visited me, I got out of bed and throttled the ghostly git. No mean feat when you can't grip vapour. I managed, he won't be back
Love your post, beautifully explained! My hubby has similar issues to you, peripheral vision loss, unable to manage busy noisy situations. Unfortunately we have x4 kids age 8-13 so he really struggles at home! Going to show him your video so he knows he's not alone in his suffering. Thank you.
I too have a cow picture on the wall. . . . Eeek!
Interestingly, my daughter has been 'different' from birth and at age 10 was diagnosed with sensory processing disorder. She has heightened senses as you describe yourself to have (& other physical issues) a normal day at school or a busy environment quickly exhausts her. She gets headache, stomach cramps and fatigue but can't sleep.
Working with health professionals she has found that if she focuses on another sensation she can cope with the irritating stimuli all around her. For example; she is sensitive to touch, and has discovered that if she handles something fluffy (a certain kind of fluffy)
And rubs it on her hands and arms (face) then it stops her headache and stomach ache almost immediately (!!) she is able to 'tune out' the annoying stuff and get on with her task.
She also uses a pressure sensitive vibrating cushion to lie on at night -It's a powerful one - and it helps her to 'switch off'.
Different things work for different people. There loads of other options, equipment and some exercises - e.g. hand press ups against a wall.
Just wondering if exploring the idea of giving yourself another comforting stimuli might provide some relief?
Thank you for your post, it would be interesting to hear if you try anything and how it works out for you.
😋
Can I just have my daughter adopted? 
Sure we can do better than adoption, how about a swop? We'll have yours & you can have our 3 girls and our son.
Rainy Saturday's are THE BEST.
I'll stick to just the one, ta
Cowardly 😁
Yes? And your point is?
We're having enough trouble getting an ADHD referral for Hollie, the extra stress of a bigger brood might have me reaching out for the Prozac
Hummmm Prozac. . . . wonderful idea!
I'm always looking ahead, you know it makes sense
Checking back in on this one, and Guinea-fwrog has mentioned something that I do, too, in terms of 'distraction strategies'. Being out in public, beyond the confines of my tightly-controlled home-environment (Counting down the hours until the return of the Lord of Mess-Rule, I was bleaching my kitchen floor at 4am, I give it until Tuesday before we have 'sticky' something, somewhere.) is difficult.
Buses and shops are bad enough when it's not December, during this time of year, even Dante wouldn't have been able to assign them a 'level'. Extra people, people who aren't familiar with rules/etiquette, and my favourite, the people-who-stop-in-front of you... I'm not going in any large shops until January, but I do have another Mental Health appointment next week, which will mean a bus-trip.
I digress. Buses and big shops are to me, probably like being at Donnington Monsters of Rock for a neuro-typical, too loud, too busy-frantic, full of alien smells, and people who might jostle me. Apart from trying to book appointments and time trips at less-busy times of day, to avoid predictable crowds, my tool-kit is as follows:
Packet of mints/sweets in my pocket at all times- that way I can 'overpower' anyone who decides to sit on me on the bus reeking of, or eating food. (My smell-thing is horrendous, coupled with the misophonia from other people's 'sloppy' eating, I'm a bit of a danger-to-others on that front.)
A tiny, and discreet dab of my familiar perfume on my wrists- when Little Miss Full-tin-of-hairspray decides to sit in front of me, I can smell 'my' perfume to try to distract from her smell. (Again, I find it really difficult to be around people REEKING of synthetic-cosmetics, my mother visited a few weeks ago, and I thought I was going to have to fumigate the house, I had 4 days of migraine-mimic due to her perfume.)
Something plain-coloured to look at. (If you remember the Father Ted episode where the blue card calms down Father Jack, you'll know why I'm smiling.) I was photo-sensitive before the brain-business, flashing lights, coloured patterns, all sorts of things could trigger a migraine. I tend to 'use' my bag, which is plain black, and focus on that, not the mad carpets and walls in waiting rooms.
Additional time. (The receptionist at the MH place gave me a FILTHY look for turning up half an hour early 2 weeks ago. Love, we're mental, we don't function like you 'normal' folk.) IF a situation is unbearable, having 'extra time' means I can escape it. Noisy/smelly people on the bus? I can get off and wait for the next one. Clashing patterns or flickering lights in waiting rooms, I can go and find somewhere else to wait.
I don't do reading-a-book, or listening-to-music to distract myself, from personal experience, I don't think I'd be able to shut down enough of the overload to concentrate- might work for some people?
(The 'tactile' thing has become worse in the last couple of years, I'm developing an increasing list of things I have the 'polystyrene' sensation when I touch... difficult to manage, but I've found that licking my teeth somehow distracts me from wanting to scream and throw the bath-mat out of the window when I give it the weekly shake.)
Having watched this I am now glad that I do ‘t have kids. All the things you struggle with are precisely why I don’t have kids.
Bringing children into the world or choosing to adopting is a choice that you have to live with, forever.
I hope you feel better for having had a rant.
I'd certainly swap London for my daughter, in fact I've avoided London due to very similar symptoms.
She's 22 tomorrow (OMG) and all those things you describe are half forgotten memories, hold on in there!
In fact when she was considering which Uni, she visited UCL and my offer to go along was politely refused "Not a good idea, you couldn't cope".
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