I still feel guilty when I need less noise

Dear Delyara, As if quiet is a luxury instead of a need. By evening, when the children are talking over each other and the television is still on and someone is asking me something from the kitchen while another voice comes from upstairs, I can feel my whole system wanting less. Less volume. Less contact. Less emotional input. And then guilt arrives. Guilt that I should be more patient. More maternal. More cheerful. More able to receive my own life as it is. I know overstimulation is real. I know my body doesn’t invent it. Still, guilt keeps acting as if needing reduction is the same as rejecting the people I love.