Thanks for the additional replies on this - it's good to hear other's perspectives. I've had a lot of stress to deal with recently and I returned to work today after taking a number of days off on sick leave. It was so busy today, with my team being at capacity and messages flying all over the place! There wasn't much time for people to talk nonsense (thankfully) but it is still a sensory nightmare being constantly interrupted, so I have to be careful to remember to mute the chat when I'm trying to work on something that requires focus. Thank you to the above poster for this, as it sums it up better than I could!:
The OP mentioned they had ADHD, I appreciate i don't know how her neuro divergence affects her as everyone is different, but a common theme is difficulty in task switching, ie that it takes a long time to get focus back after being interrupted. If that's the case then switching off the noise wouldn't be enough, as there's still a difficulty processing and mentally filtering out all the unnecessary text that she had to read.
I phoned the Employee Assistance line at the weekend and spoke with a lovely counsellor, who completely got it. I said that I hate being in the office because it's open plan, loud, hotdesking and again, a whole sensory nightmare. We are a team of minute takers and honestly, trying to do that with everything going on is a nightmare. There is a quiet office to use (bar one day a week) but that has only recently been put into place - and I would feel very antisocial upping and leaving the team to use it other than during meetings. I still have the rest of the bollocks to deal with the rest of the time! I realise that makes me sound very grumpy - which I am. I actually hate it.
I work with some lovely people but it can be very overwhelming when too many people are in on the same day - and that's just our team! There's also a manager (different team but work very closely) who has a very rude tone with most people but also has her favourites. She doesn't really like me as I have previously laid down my minimum expectations for the respect I expect to be addressed with. I never know which days she will be in, so I can't avoid her when I do my two office days (we work hybrid, 3 WFH and 2 in and we choose our days). We almost never see our managers.
I said to this counsellor that I was considering requesting full time WFH or requesting that I drop to 1 day in, as it would possibly make things more bearable (and would make no difference whatsoever in terms of business needs/ability to do the role). I sent an email at the weekend which gave me time to actually think (this is not possible during work hours!) and put forward everything in what I thought was a very sensible, considered way.
I WFH today and worked my behind off - ended up staying on late to do something that will make tomorrow easier for the team, as tomorrow is also set to be absolutely manic, with every meeting slot taken. I don't know what's going on - maybe a full moon?!
Anyhow, I got an email from the management, refusing my request for this reasonable adjustment due to business need. I read it at the end of the day (when I had time) and I obviously don't agree with that reasoning.
Editing to add that I was told that I have noise cancelling headphones and a quiet space to use so there is no reason why I should struggle in the office - !!
I hyperfocus at home and get so much more work done (if anything, I'm terrible at taking a break!). They would have seen from the chat of doom that I was working hard all day. It doesn't make any sense and to be honest, I feel very despondent about it all. If I could walk away from the job tomorrow I would - but I can't afford to do that. I'm single and don't have another income to depend on (and I wouldn't qualify for the pittance that is UC if I chose to walk out).
Apologies that this has become a long rant! I fell asleep after work and woke up about midnight, realising I hadn't eaten anything all day. Ah well, back to it at 9am, yay. Thanks again for the advice and responses, it's great to have some virtual support x