Since launching Calmer® we've heard how much they've been helping autistic people with managing noise sensitivities. Lotous got in touch with us to let us know how helpful she'd found them.

Lotous agreed to take part in this case study where she shares her experience of her life as an autistic person and some of the different sensitivities she has.

We think Lotous' Story is a brilliant and informative read and believe that it will be incredibly helpful for many people.

Thank you Lotous!

Find out more about Calmer here

Lotous' Story

Hello. I am Lotous (pronounced Lotus,) I am 39, and I have two amazing autistic children. Recently I went back to uni (I study creative writing and philosophy at the Open University,) I started a personal blog (dearfuturehistorians.blogspot.com) and I self-published two books in Amazon. So, there is not much time for other hobbies at the moment. I do manage though to do yoga sometimes and listen to audiobooks (when I’m washing the dishes) ;)

- I am autistic with ADHD, but I got my autism diagnosis only last summer and I am still in a waiting list (that’s paused due to the pandemic) for ADHD. I grew up in Greece, where autism was not really a ‘thing!’ (I hear things have improved there.)  I had no idea why I was feeling so different from most other people and why everything was so difficult for me. When I arrived in the UK, I had my son here and he was diagnosed in the autism spectrum when he was 4. I then started reading about autism to do everything I can to support him.

The more I read the more I identified with all the autistic traits, which was a surprise to me. Initially all family and friends were very negative to my idea of seeking a diagnosis for myself. But I kept reading and eventually I felt that it’s not fair to my kids to put them into the process of a diagnosis and not go through all that myself. When I did get my diagnosis, it was really a relief to finally understand the reasons of my struggles and social awkwardness.

For me, being autistic is like living in a world that was created for people that have different size and shape than me! Everything is made for neurotypicals. The other day my asthma nurse was surprised that I waited a full minute (as it suggests in the instructions) in-between my inhaler puffs (I told her that this waiting demotivates me and sometime I skip taking it.) Apparently neurotypicals know that when the instructions say a minute this doesn’t mean 60 seconds!

My experience with sound sensitivities... 

Some days before I ordered my Flare Audio Calmer and Isolate, I was at the supermarket and the fire alarm started. About 5 minutes later a staff member found me in the socks aisle, totally frozen, totally paralysed by the noise.

High pitch noises like alarms and home devices like the washing machine and the hoover affect me very much. And don’t get me started on the blender! Crowded places also can be unbearably noisy for me.

Calmer is the perfect solution for my everyday needs. All other noise cancelling solutions I tried isolated me from my environment. And yes, this isolation is necessary sometimes; that’s why I also use the Isolate by Flare Audio. But being completely unavailable for the kids when I am in the kitchen is not an option. So, I ended up most days without anything to protect me from the noise and overstimulation. Calmer protects me from getting overwhelmed while I still can hear the kids if they call me. I surely recommend them for everyday use to anyone with noise sensitivity. As I wrote in my blog: Flare Audio Hero saved me from the Dragon of the washing machine!!

Read more from Lotous' on her own blog page here