whistling. I hate when people whistle. When anyone whistles I have to try really hard not to flip out at them because I have a few times and had people get mad at me for overreacting. The ironic thing is that I can't whistle if I try, I could for three days when I was 8 and then lost the ability, but I don't even want to know how becuase the sound cuts through my body like a knife.

The other sound which is hard to explain that drives me mad, is the sound of certain types of winter coats scratching against themselves. I grew up in northern alberta where it's about -45 C for four months of the year. For some reason my snowsuits and coat/snowpants sets were always made from this rough fabric that makes this horrible sounds when it brushes against itself. It give me a feeling in my body like nails on a chalkboard, it just makes me shudder. I used to spend all my time outside trying not to touch my sleeves to my side or rub my legs together when I walked.
I'm so glad I live on the coast now and never have to wear a winter coat again. Although nowadays they seem to make plenty of winter coats with smooth fabric.

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oh yeah, the sound of children crying, someone else mentioned that. The sound of children crying is so unbearable to me. I have 5 siblings, and have baby-sat for income most of my life. I became the favourite baby-sitter because I could stop any baby crying almost instantly. I can just tell exactly how to rock them or hold them or what to give them to get them to stop. I never understood how any mother could let a child 'cry it out' or cry themself to sleep. They have proven now that all memories have an emotional core and that happy babies grow up to be healthier adults. They found a connection between emotional trauma in childhood and a greater incidence of health problems in later life.
I can only imagine how horribly afraid and abandoned a baby must feel in a dark crib alone crying with no one coming to comfort them. This is the one part of caring for other people's children I could not do. If I was told to let them cry for fifteen minutes I could not do it. I just didn't tell the parents.

Also, babies can tell who is with them and what kind of resolve they have. Any time I tried to let a kid cry I was told there was a fifteen minute mark and that no kid would cry past 15 minutes. well I don't know if parents are not watching the clock but I tried hard for fifteen minutes with two seperate kids, once when I was thirteen, another kid when I was 21. The whole fifteen minutes I stared at the clock clenching my hands and jaw trying not to throw up from the agony of the sound of the crying. At fifteen minutes on the dot the child was still crying. At which point I took the kid out of the crib and sang them to sleep and put them back down. With both of those kids I never let them cry again. I simply learned how to put them to sleep another way.

It is amazing to me however that a parent could be capable of letting their kid cry for fifteen minutes or longer before they fall asleep rather than just finding a different solution. reading them to sleep, singing them to sleep, dancing them to sleep. Train kids to learn to feel safe and relaxed enough to be able to fall asleep voluntarily, don't train them to give up on their parents comforting them and fall asleep out of defense so they don't have to feel afraid anymore.

Sorry for the rant, but I am so sensitive to children's needs, I get carried away.