Resonates with my own autistic experience as well. I can't recall where, but I believe Aella identified somewhere that she is autistic. But I understand wanting to tease out if it's something else since autism is comorbid with so many different things.
I haven't been diagnosed autistic but have had a lot of people tell me I am. My main hesitation around it is I don't seem to have quite the same level of sensory issues; while I am sometimes sensitive, usually I can tune out repetitive noises pretty well.
I mostly have 'episodes' of sensitivity, where sound and light and everything becomes bad and i have to retreat. I have a STRONG preference for comfortable clothes.
But for example one of my lights emits a high pitched whining which bothers me less than it has others.
Do you notice the stimulus before it goes bad (if it does at all)? While my sensitivity has some fluctuation, what fluctuates far more is how much it bothers me. But I definitely notice stimuli most others don't.
I've learned to notice it but typically don't, I think I disassociate or tune it out and then get confused why I'm feeling super sensitive.
Sometimes it doesn't even take loud stimuli to make me sensitive, can happen after riding in a car or having normal conversatio with someone
This still jives, not that I'm trying to convince you of anything. Just sharing. It's more the context of the stimuli than the objective intensity (loud/bright/coarse/etc.). Exact same hum won't bother me in an already noisy room vs otherwise quiet one. (cont.)
Or if I'm slightly approaching being over stimulated in other ways, such a light sensitivity, the hum could trigger me. A lot of small things that wouldn't overload me on their own can accumulate too.
My dad definitely has full blown aspergers so I grew up knowing exactly the stimuli that would set him off, and it's very much like what you describe. We switched out our glass table for a wooden one because of clanks, and he had a lot of trouble in larger crowds.
I'm mostly suspicious of my own sensitivity because I know what actual aspergers is like and I know I don't have that; there's lots of ways in which I actually am more insensitive than average.