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I grew up in Iowa in a really quiet place and a really quiet family. So I think that might be part of the reason why I am hypersensitive to noise.

This is Paige Towers.

She grew up in the Midwest, and her childhood was filled with the sounds of nature.

When she played outside, she was surrounded by birdsong and wrestling leaves.

But as she grew up, Paige's path toward becoming a writer took her far away from her peaceful comfort zone.

When I grew up and I started traveling the world and living abroad and living in these major

U.S. cities, that was exciting and it's what I needed and wanted to do for my career.

But it was kind of a shock to my nervous system because I just grew up in a place where you can go outside at night and you listen to cicadas and wind in the trees.

It's very quiet.

And although noise bothered me when I was moving to all these cities, it really wasn't until later that all these things kind of caught up with me.

You're listening to 20,000 Hertz.

Page has written in places like The Washington Post and The Guardian about her struggles with noise.

Living in some of the loudest cities on the planet taught her a lot about her own mental health.

I, as a very young kid, remember just being completely overwhelmed by noisy environments.

Except the fact that I was a young child and I was not able to express like, hey, I am overstimulated.

Instead, I was just labeled difficult.

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