Sensory overload reactions.

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What is your reaction to sensory overload?

I have levels:

Level 1: noisy lecture hall. I get anxious and fidgety. Listening to music on my headphones calms me down.

Level 2: London Underground train. I cannot cope without dark glasses and earplugs. Without them I have a panic attack and cover my ears and shut my eyes.

Level 3: a fire alarm. I start screaming and I hide under a table or something with my hands over my ears. I then have a partial seizure (I get partial seizures from severe sensory overload). Once all of it is over I am left with a migraine that can last for anything from 6 hours to 6 days. I have to lie in a silent, darkened room for a few hours to calm myself down.

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What are your reactions?

I usually just shut down and get really dizzy.

I rarely go ANYWHERE without earphones and earplugs.

I think loud sounds have resulted in me just outright blocking any possible reaction what-so-ever. Somewhat oblivious, so I am wondering if it is similar to the stress reaction denial, or maybe I just crash into a nap. Which I prefer, because I could easily get petit mal seizures. But someone randomly starts singing or playing an instrument, along with various other sounds -> sudden jerking, awkward twitching, sometimes I can get hot, and everything is just painful. I do not really know how to describe it - probably looks like I am in an electric chair or something. Need a while to calm down after.

I pretty much just shut down or leave if I can, though if it's over an extended period of time I can start to have psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (usually really intense dissociation events) or heightened jerking/twitching/tremor activity.

this year my university bought an apartment complex across the street and gave everyone who wasn't a student the option to either have their lease bought out or to stay until the end of their current lease. I was assigned a dorm room in the complex. one of the people who chose to stay was my upstairs neighbor and he blared rap music at levels that were louder in my room than my own music at maximum volume (not that I ever put my own music at max volume). I dropped out of school and spent the better part of a week in a neurology ward because I thought my "epilepsy" was going to start causing serious damage, as I had mostly stopped eating for nearly a week and had horrible headaches and was too anxious to get to any of my classes and was having out-of-body events way too often. turns out I just have conversion disorder...so I guess at least I figured that out?

I never express anything negative to strangers (except when suppressing it gets so intense I start to twitch noticeably in the face, which is a form of expression, I suppose) but when the overstimulation is a result of a person like that awful neighbor I get really, really angry. I never said a word to him but by god I quite literally tried voodoo.

Annoying thing is that I'm not yet used to the (automatic) kind of reactions until it's too late, at which point I try to climb out of this pit of despair and try to make the source stop, all the while attempting to be as polite as possible under the most dire of circumstances.

As an aside, does anyone think an EKG could overload any of the senses?

For light or sound, I usually get very bad headaches or end up crying. I can't function properly after that and I'll need headphone and sunglasses to keep me sane enough in public.
I hate being touched directly on my skin. I don't know why, but I just hate the feeling of skin-on-skin. I'll usually just shout at the person and he/she'll never come near me again...