Every teenager has to attend at least a few high school dances in their life to say if they like them or not right? If you never go to a dance, you can’t say you didn’t like it, or you did like it. You wouldn’t know. I’ve been to four of them, so I have an answer for you from a teenager with auditory processing disorder’s perspective. Here I go…
Let’s just say it was EXTREMELY loud. I could hear the music standing outside of my school. Yikes. That’s loud! Let me tell you how it was for me standing in the gym where the music was coming from/where the dance was… First, it was packed. When there are a lot of teenagers in one area, what do you think tends to happen? Everyone tries talking over each other! Am I right? Okay, now picture all the teenagers trying to talk over the blasted music AND everyone’s blasted voices. The volume just went up 20 notches. L-O-U-D!!!! For someone with APD, the L-O-U-D is louder than ever.
I saw so many friends I knew at the dance. My first intention is to go over to them and talk to them. ‘Wait… It’s really loud. Well I’m going to have to anyways. So here I go...’ This is where my lip reading skills and gesture reading skills have to come in, because there’s no way I’ll be able to make out what they’re trying to say. But wait, it's really dark!! Theres only one little streamer type light going and its only hitting the back wall. I can't see their lips very well, and a few gestures. This is what I can make out… HI (They seems happy and excited) YOU LOOK SO PRETTY! (They gesture their hands looking at my dress) HOW ARE YOU? ….(What?) WHERE DID YOU GO FOR DINNER? …. (What?) OH MY GOSH! Blah blah blah …. (Just stop talking I can’t understand you). Then this is when they usually use a hand gesture or kind of roll there eyes and say ‘See you later’.
Now what’s the point of dances if you can’t talk to your pals? Well… DANCING duhh! Well, because of how loud everything is around me and seeing the teenagers having conversations that I can’t have stresses me out, and I kind of go into panic mode. Like “Agh!! I want to know what’s going on!” kind of thing. I feel like I am just walking around looking for people, or dancing in a bunch of noise and I can’t hear any talking. I almost feel like the noise is taking the place of all the air around me, so I can’t breathe. So when I’m dancing in a huge group, and that huge group is squished together tightly, I feel like I can’t breathe even more. My head is spinning because I’m getting a headache from all the noise, and it’s spinning because of confusion. The tight bodies just makes it worse.
The before part of the dance is the best part which includes getting my nails done in a quite salon, trying on dresses, trying on shoes, finding the perfect earrings doing my hair and doing my makeup. While I am doing all of those activities I have to think ‘Agh, I can’t wait for the dance!’ ‘I can’t wait till my outfit is complete’ ‘I can’t wait for pictures!’ ‘I can’t wait to see how everyone else looks!’ Ect… I mean, common sense. Right? You don’t want to go into these kind of experiences thinking negative things. It’s okay to get your hopes high about something, and then get something less back in the end. The point is, if you never experience something, you don’t get to get your hopes up high and have those moments of joy. It’s okay to be disappointed, but you can’t expect everything to turn out the way you planned in your head. Those are just thoughts, but they’re fun to think.
Let’s just say it was EXTREMELY loud. I could hear the music standing outside of my school. Yikes. That’s loud! Let me tell you how it was for me standing in the gym where the music was coming from/where the dance was… First, it was packed. When there are a lot of teenagers in one area, what do you think tends to happen? Everyone tries talking over each other! Am I right? Okay, now picture all the teenagers trying to talk over the blasted music AND everyone’s blasted voices. The volume just went up 20 notches. L-O-U-D!!!! For someone with APD, the L-O-U-D is louder than ever.
I saw so many friends I knew at the dance. My first intention is to go over to them and talk to them. ‘Wait… It’s really loud. Well I’m going to have to anyways. So here I go...’ This is where my lip reading skills and gesture reading skills have to come in, because there’s no way I’ll be able to make out what they’re trying to say. But wait, it's really dark!! Theres only one little streamer type light going and its only hitting the back wall. I can't see their lips very well, and a few gestures. This is what I can make out… HI (They seems happy and excited) YOU LOOK SO PRETTY! (They gesture their hands looking at my dress) HOW ARE YOU? ….(What?) WHERE DID YOU GO FOR DINNER? …. (What?) OH MY GOSH! Blah blah blah …. (Just stop talking I can’t understand you). Then this is when they usually use a hand gesture or kind of roll there eyes and say ‘See you later’.
Now what’s the point of dances if you can’t talk to your pals? Well… DANCING duhh! Well, because of how loud everything is around me and seeing the teenagers having conversations that I can’t have stresses me out, and I kind of go into panic mode. Like “Agh!! I want to know what’s going on!” kind of thing. I feel like I am just walking around looking for people, or dancing in a bunch of noise and I can’t hear any talking. I almost feel like the noise is taking the place of all the air around me, so I can’t breathe. So when I’m dancing in a huge group, and that huge group is squished together tightly, I feel like I can’t breathe even more. My head is spinning because I’m getting a headache from all the noise, and it’s spinning because of confusion. The tight bodies just makes it worse.
The before part of the dance is the best part which includes getting my nails done in a quite salon, trying on dresses, trying on shoes, finding the perfect earrings doing my hair and doing my makeup. While I am doing all of those activities I have to think ‘Agh, I can’t wait for the dance!’ ‘I can’t wait till my outfit is complete’ ‘I can’t wait for pictures!’ ‘I can’t wait to see how everyone else looks!’ Ect… I mean, common sense. Right? You don’t want to go into these kind of experiences thinking negative things. It’s okay to get your hopes high about something, and then get something less back in the end. The point is, if you never experience something, you don’t get to get your hopes up high and have those moments of joy. It’s okay to be disappointed, but you can’t expect everything to turn out the way you planned in your head. Those are just thoughts, but they’re fun to think.
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So I thought the dance itself was poor and stressful, but I had a lot of fun with my date before, during and after the dance. I had fun seeing all my friends, but not so much fun trying to understand them and getting nothing back in return. I like the dance, and I don’t like it. I have the power to express this because I’ve experienced it four times now, and will keep re analyzing this because I’ll go again. The next time, I’ll have something different to say. For now, that’s what I have to say about my high school dances!!!
