Hi Fellow Sensitive People, I've just moved into an apartment to escape another noisy apartment in which I lived for only three months. I was luckily able to re-assign that lease. My current Landlord was fair enough to allow me my first month before signing a one year lease. Before this month ends, I have to decide if I'm going to stay. The main problem in my last apartment was that it was in the basement of an older house. Therefore, every noise from the apartment above was as if it was in my apartment. It sounded like the only thing between me and the floor above was a piece of thin plywood. So, when the small but heavy footed woman above me walked, it created intolerable thumps and vibrations like a diving board. Not every day but on certain occasions, she had some unsavory characters over. These visits often resulted in foul language, shouting, threatening words and "Get Out" between them etc. I had to fork out over $150 a month more in rent to move into my current apartment. I'm in a triplex and the current landlord assured me that there is concrete and plaster between the floors and walls. Now, I don't have the thin floorboard above me. So, I can't hear the person walking. However, I think I hear cupboards closing and the water pipes clunk after the water is shut off. This is especially irritating in the morning when people are getting up and at night before they go to bed. Apparently, the vibrations and thumps from cupboards and furniture being dragged across the floor aren't muffled by the heavier materials. My floor is carpeted but not all of the other apartments are. I live near the stirs and those who like to run up them or walk heavily are quite audible as well. I could have taken a third floor apartment elsewhere but the area or condition of the building weren't as good. Besides, as others in this forum have mentioned, irritating sounds come from below as well. I hesitate to move again because this place is better than the last one. In addition, if a totally sound proof apartment does exist, it would be out of my price range. I think what we're all finding out here is that there is no "Bed of Roses." If you find it, enjoy it while it lasts because circumstances always change beyond our control. And, I think "Control" is the key word here. If we were all to form a club, it would be called the "Living Space Control Club." We are all nice people--I'm sure we've all heard that before. We're nice because we control our own behaviour to try not to offend or upset others. We're not wimps--if pushed too far, we'll unleash a world of hurt on the offender--but we'd rather avoid that, if possible. That being said, we often don't understand others who don't control their behaviour according to our standards. We tend to become resentful and interpret their "noise making" as an attack on our space. If we showed that lack of consideration to others, that would be our intention, right? So, we instinctively attribute such malice to others behaviour. Usually, they don't have a problem with us and no offence is intended. They just have different priorities to us. Here's the rub. Humans have very different priorities but we're all territorial to one degree or another. In my last apartment, I very politely confronted the noisy woman above me. I asked her if she could hear sounds from my apartment. She replied, "I can hear everything but I'm not a complainer." To that I replied, "Well, I have to do computer work down there." She was "getting drunk" because she just lost her job. So, she asked if we could talk about it the next day. I said that I just wanted to know if she could hear things from my apartment. Since she'd answered that, and was now aware of my situation, I saw no point in discussing it any further. Unfortunately, the situation did not improve. So, my point is that whether your neighbor reacts positively, negatively or indifferent, if they don't share your priorities, they'll think, "Who does he/she think they are?" "I pay rent here as well and I'm going to live according to my priorities." Based on the replies in this forum, there are more of us than I thought. In general society, I think we're in the minority. I have O.C.D, although I've kept it managable for years now. I suspect that I have A.D.D. as well. Someone else in this forum mentioned that he/she had A.D.D. These conditions along with many others are anxiety based. They would not have names or acronyms if everyone had them. Through my experience, I don't believe that there is any 100% cure for anxiety based conditions. However, through therapy, they can become manageable. I've had therapy for my O.C.D. and it helped. I will do a web search looking for suggestions to help me deal with my current sensitivity to noise. Perhaps, I'll follow up on the "nerve damage to ears" suggestion that another person made in this forum. I had many earaches as a kid. I've always found that the breathing exercises that I learned through behavioural modification helped. Maybe I'll try that as well. Any other suggestions would be appreciated as well. Take Care All!

Sorry to have been cryptic. I was in a sincerely sad mood when I wrote my post. I'll try to make this brief, but I married into a family that's very domineering and suspect of any "outsiders." They do everything as an extended unit, from holidays (of course) to vacations together (not really my thing). The background: My husband lived at home when I married him (our first mistake), and his mother threatened to kill herself several times after we got engaged many years ago. She sought therapy and while she didn't jump off any bridges, she's lived to make our and her lives miserable. Her ex, my husband's father, and she have been living out a tortured relationship for thirty-plus years of on-again, off-again romance, although they divorced decades ago, and have dragged each other through court over the years. When they're on, they're happy. When they're off, they're angry if we've been socializing with the other. Worst of all, though, may be that FIL has been very critical of how we've raised our special-needs child, and at one point HE ceased speaking to US for nearly a year over it. He's also criticized DH and I about our weight, asking why had we let ourselves go (hello, stress?); and has sat in our modest home, asking when we're going to get a bigger house (not in the cards right now, not that we have any problem with our home). Whenever I'm shocked by these comments, my husband says he's just so used to his father being an idiot that he doesn't listen to him anymore. (I do take some comfort in that!) Adding to matters is my husband's brother and his wife are competitive people who've used our difficulties to emphasize their own wise decisions, i.e. their children do not have our child's problems because they were smart enough to space out their vaccinations. (This is not why my child's had issues.) My sister-in-law gamely convinced my mother-in-law to invest her entire life savings in their house, and my mother-in-law lives there and acts like the mom, so if I say, "My daughter wants to tell you about the clown she saw this week," my MIL's response is, "Well we saw a clown too. We saw lots of clowns when I took the kids [meaning her other grandchildren] to the circus." It's a one-upmanship between "her" kids and our kids. "We have that toy, too." "We've been there, too." Etc. My MIL's never forgiven me for taking her son away, and now it's affecting my kids. Her other son is now the good one because "he took me in" (took her and her several hundred grand in cash). After many years of enduring the barbs, the drama, the put-downs, it hit me a few months ago: Why am I spending any more minutes of time than necessary around these folks? Hasn't many years of this been enough? Do I do this so I can feel bad about myself? Or how I'm raising my kids? So I can feel bitter? The few times I've spoken up, it's only added fuel to the fire, ricocheting around this tight-knit family that I had a problem with something someone said, with everyone excited by the latest drama. So, I just stopped going to things, except on rare occasions. My husband is a gem of a man and father, but loathes confrontation, and this hasn't been easy on him, because of course they're circling their wagons and instead of being genuinely concerned, seem to relish this new opprtunity to find chinks in our marital armor. For my MIL it's proof I'm a bad DIL. For BIL and SIL it's evidence that they know how to handle the family and DH and I do not. For FIL it's proof that I don't like the annoying MIL. Everyone has an agenda all the time, and I'm just so tired of it. My husband and I used to complain to each other more about things, but it got tiring. After I kind of made the decision that to survive in this marriage and family, I need distance, the only problem is my husband is now in the middle. :( I'm not sure how else to continue in this family unless I expose myself less to their criticisms and drama. And I understand that for my husband to freeze out his own family, as bad as they can be at times (and they are not ALL bad--who is?) would not be fair and would create more stress for him. I can say I feel happier since I've seen them less (I posted on a rare day that I saw them). I have a good little family, a rewarding career, wonderful kids and husband, and a very good life. Since I don't see them as much and am not reminded as much in all that I and my family are lacking, I've had greater peace. But I do think my husband feels worse, and that makes me sad. Any advice for me and for us?

My story is a little different. We moved away from our grown children. I went back to college in my mid 40's. However when I graduated there were no local jobs in my field. After giving it a year, I took a job a 4 hour drive away. After renting an apartment and maintaining our home for 6 months, we decided to relocate permanently to the new community. At that time we had 1 grandson who was 2 years old. We now have 8 grandchildren. Do we miss them? Yes. Do we visit often? Yes. Are we close to them? Yes, I feel we are. One grandson keeps telling us he is going to come live with us when he goes to college (he's only 10 now) A granddaughter has decided that she and I are penpals and writes me a letter every week. And I had better write back or I get a call wondering if I have mailed a letter back yet. (she is 9). Just last week my son emailed a video of our 2 youngest singing happy birthday to "nana". No, we aren't able to attend most school activities or ball games or spring concerts, but as I work full time, I might not be able to do that even if I lived closer. We have talked about moving "back home" after we retire, but that decision has not been made yet. After all, we would then have time to visit whenever we pleased. Do I wish we lived closer like we used to? Many times. But life does not always give us easy choices. For now, we know that our decision was the right one for that time. Not sure yet what the future holds. When and if you do have grandchildren, make the time you spend with them "quality" time. Just this spring we gave 2 of our grandsons 3 choices for their birthday presents. One choice involved spending a day with us having a picnic and going fishing. The other 2 choices were more "fun" type things like amusement park, etc. Both boys picked a day spent quietly with us going fishing and a picnic. When we asked a different grandson one year what he wanted most for Christmas, he said "time with grandpa and nana". So we took him for a long weekend of special one-on-one quality time with us. The best suggestion I can give is to take it a day/week/month at a time. Find hobbies you used to enjoy or develop new ones. Find things that both you and your DH enjoy doing together.

There are discussion forums that actually want their followers to bring up old threads rather than start new ones. Maybe they are just used to doing that...IMHO, I do not see the point and after a while, the old threads just lose their appeal. But I swear, at this forum where he posts, it's nothing for a member to drag up some OOOOOLD thread from 10 years ago...I kid you not! Now my husband makes it a point to check the first thread date and does not bother posting in some really old thread. I just do not see why it would not be better just to begin a brand new thread for discussion. They probably come up when they google search.