Do your sensory issues feel worse when stressed/angry?

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I know I have a poor tolerance of sounds anyway, but I've found that I feel worse when I am not in the mood at all.

I think this is common in everybody, I have heard of people reacting more to annoying sounds when angry or tired or whatever, but I'm just talking about how people on the spectrum feel about it. Today I found out something that worried me, and to cut a long story short, I found it out on my phone while I was out in a busy high street, and I really wanted to get home as quick as I could, but I had to wait for the next bus first.

As I was walking along, every sound really agitated me, more than it usually would. I glared at every object or person that made a noise that agitated me, and I even shut my eyes as though the emotional pain I was facing was turning into physical pain by the noise, although I had no true physical pain (if that makes sense). Also I had urges to stop the loud noises. For example, a toddler shouted, ''MUMMY!'' at the top of it's voice, then shouted it again then again, and it agitated me so much that I felt like tapping the mother on the shoulder and going, ''excuse me, your kid wants you, can you just respond to it so it can shut up?'' I know I sound mean but I don't really mean it personally, it's just my sensory issues at their worst because of how I was feeling at the time. And there were some other noises that agitated me, like cars roaring by with loud engines, it just got to me more and I felt like tossing a stone at their windscreen.

I was just so glad to get home, away from people and noise. Does anyone else feel like your sensory issues are worse when you're significantly upset about something?

I have found that for sure! I have been annoyed by toddlers and children, but then I feel badly that I feel so angry towards them for, really, just being kids. It is definitely much worse when I am already feeling stressed out.

Yes, but I think this is normal for everyone, diverse and typical people.

I did find myself in the middle of the road once, grid-locked traffic with some guy leaning on his horn. I can't remember what I was shouting at him but the noise stopped. Not a recommended coping strategy.

Yes, my sensory issues are worse when I'm stressed. At-least the combination of sounds I don't like or too many sounds and smells and being agitated/stressed makes me lose it entirely.

Yeah I was so overloaded in Disney world that I was just zoning out, avoiding contact of people, closed eyes, fingers over ears.. I just couldn't bare it. Then some guy accidentally bumped me a bit while passing me. I'm not usually a violent person, but let's just say the coffee he was holding ended up all over him after I pushed him back But yeah, school's a nightmare for me when I'm in a bad mood. Every sound and touch, senses in general, just get worse and worse and I just shutdown completely, or, more embarrassing for me, meltdown. And it's made worse by people freaking trying to comfort you by touching you and talking to you when you just wanna be alone in a quiet place until it's just passed. But definitely by how I'm feeling.

Yes. I think emotional overload makes sensory overload worse because there's only so much bandwidth to deal with either, and it seems like it's the same bandwidth.

It can happen from any emotion, too. Not just anger or frustration or stress, but also from being happy and having a good time as well.

Oh hell yes. But I think it's the same for NTs as well. People who are tired are generally more crabby and less tolerant than when they've had a full night's sleep. It's just that most of them don't have to deal with sensory issues too.

Yes, it gets worst.

Many autistic issues are not different from problems NTs can experience. What distinguishes them is that the threshold for being a problem tends to be lower and the capacity for coping with them also tends to be lower, meaning that autistic people are more likely to experience stress on a more frequent basis than an NT, at least with everything else being equal. Obviously NTs can have other problems that can reduce their capacity for coping as well, but autistic people can have those problems too.

Sensory issues create stress, stress makes sensory issues worse, its a vicious cycle isn't it.

I don't usually have too much trouble with sensory issues, but it does seem like I'm likely to be bothered more by there being a lot of sounds around me if I'm in a bad mood, or if I'm not feeling quite right physically. Occasionally sounds bother me and start the cycle. It seems like most of the time I'm more bothered by disappointment that something was different from how I expected things, though, particularly when it comes to demi-notable events and social gatherings.

You beat me to it.

Yes.

Yes, stress, both emotional and sensory, can combine their effect into a much more intolerable phase. For me, currently the most frequent sensory stress is the sound of my colleagues, sometimes their odor. I don't like sustained loud voice while talking on phone or to someone in person, and I don't like the frequent sniffling of one of my immediate colleagues, which is probably a bad stimming or tic of a mildly autistic person. A least I got rid of the radio, along with my former job.

They do. Especially when I'm already having a lot of sensory overload and/or stress, touching me unexpectedly is a particularly bad idea. I have learned to control my feelings enough to stand virtually everything else, but sometimes I'm already struggling with the other stress so badly that it's your touch that drives me nuts. Even when it doesn't, my pulse will be closer to 100 bpm for the next 15 minutes.

They do, and I too believe, that it goes for both neuro-this and neuro-that.