Have your sensory difficulties CHANGED in adulthood?

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Well according to research our sensory difficulties are meant to lessen BUT they are not taking into account the emotional/social/enviromental reasons either which is giving a bit of a false positive, rather than a postive false.......if you know what I mean.

I am going to try and create a poll (never done it before) may need a bit of help from the mods! Hope you all participate. I was questioning the research myself as I too feel that my sensory issues have changed, lessened, grown and generally developed as I have got older BUT not disappeared or lessened per se.

Wish me luck on the poll and if you don't see one, it is because I am too dipsy to work it out!!

I'm better now at mixing food, where earlier I would seperate it. As I said, better, cause it can still be hard.

Anyway. Light bothers me more now, I think it's a still increasing issue.
Sounds, have always been a problem, but now it's REALLY a problem. It has gotten far worse.

I too have problems with cold liquid on my skin.

my sensory issues were always severe, the only difference from childhood to adulthood though is that i gained some new ones, lost some old ones, i dont chew apart mattresses or tables anymore, but i do chew on ppl more lol or chew on chewy toys, have no interest as much as i did in chewing weird stuff. use to lick everything, but dont really do it anymore either, have but not like i use to, instead most of the time i'm very content with anything that involves a type of rubber haha.

Worst in regards to people.

Same otherwise.

I think they have increased. I've always had issues with sound, especially people eating. Now I can have issues with a lot of noise. Maybe it is because when I was a child I was always at home, now that I'm an adult I do see a lot more of people and different places. I feel very overwhelmed by seeing to much visual stimuli, even from reading a menu or seeing people line up at a fast food restaurant. My clothes feel itchier too.
One thing that is different about me is I hate feeling sticky, dirty and anything that is not smooth. hate having dry skin so I always spread sorbolene cream all over my hands and face. As I kid I would wrestle with dogs, roll in the grass and have sticky hands from eating sweets, and I did not care about the feeling at all.

Worsened - possibly because i'm more aware that they're a problem and that feeds them...

Sighs - some bugger next door started the lawn mower early this morning - i would never have considered running out and belting him as a logical reaction when i was a kid... These days i just have a meltdown that spoils the whole day because the sound winds me up to the max and i know i'm not allowed to bash him to shut it up

Hes still making a racket

About the same in regards to food textures.
Auditory and tactile hypersensitivity are both worse.

Show's the researchers and the studies are not reflecting the above statistics! Thanks so much to everyone for taking so much time and being so detailed in their posts.

The scary stuff comes when you look at some of the research and see that it is flawed? Who is checking the checkers?

Especially thanks to the poster who also admitted they had a problem with cold fluid on their bodies? Suddenly dawned on me that my son is the same.............he has acne and won't put any cream on his face!! I hadn't realised until now, duh!

Keep em coming

Overall, my sensory discomfort has definitely worsened and continues to do so.

Sensitivity to touch and temperature have remained about the same (temperature remaining very bad). Olfactory is better in some ways, in that I can usually use my mind to prevent the resulting nausea now. Light and sound sensitivity seem to increase every year. I now have to wear sunglasses whenever I'm out during the day (and sometimes indoors), and find myself holding my ears every day to block out various sounds. Food sensitivity has always been bad, apart from a window of a few years around adolescence when I could suddenly eat many more things. Allergies developed in adulthood.

Light is brighter, i now have problems seeing in the summer without my sun glasses and the flicker in shops is worse.
Food is alot better but i think that happens with everyone NTs included.
I get clothes myself which makes things better.

I've had certain sensory issues all of my light (e.g. hatred of bright and/or fluorescent lights), but other sensory issues either have been almost completely eliminated or heightened in intensity as I've gotten older. For example, as a kid, I absolutely hated tags in my shirts. They don't bother me now. I've always hated being wet, especially getting my face wet, but that's increased in intensity from when I was a child. It was severe as a child. It's pretty extreme now. Similarly, I have always hated wearing socks, but around five years ago, I found them absolutely intolerable, and I haven't worn them since. Socks are one of the most pointless inventions in existence, if you ask me. I don't think that I've ever added any new sensory issues as I've gotten older, though.
-OddDuckNash99-

when i was little the only ones i had that i have been able to locate while looking back on my childhood were ( since we didnt know about the sensory issues then)


tactile sensitivities
i couldnt wear certain clothings and stuff

i also chewed on my shirt alot ithink that may of had to sdo with sometime of sensory issue.

also loud music always got to me after a while. at relatives bar/bat mitzvahs i amost always had some time of meltdown (though we didnt know what the reason was for that yet)

also i was very hyper so that could have been a way of sensory seeking






Now i have sensitivities to high pitched sounds

am very easily startled

after a while bright lights can get to me



i dont know if stuff got worse or not i think what happened was i have less general sensory issues and now they are more particular ones. but some of the particular ones can be more severe than they were when i was younger

So food and taste senses appear perhaps lessen to some degree? Yet touch, sight, smell and hearing increase?

Does anyone else experience a weird feeling about 'buildings'. I never ever used to picture a building without interior walls.............however now I want to know what is next to me or beneath me...........I don't like it much, it is not a pleasant sensory experience if you can call it that but everybuilding I see from the outside I imagine the partition walls inside and don't feel very private anymore? I can't really explain it, ha, nothing new there then, but it is weird all the same. Some tiles in bathrooms and frosted glass spooks me out too, actually unless it is a hotel style bathroom I am not comfortable. How weird am I? Never used to be like that but am now?


BTW thanks so much for all the replies and votes, very interesting results. How are we to expect parents with ALL these sensory issues themselves to be able to COMMUNICATE their children's needs. I know I have been in appointments and a noise, breeze or even smell puts me RIGHT OFF! It is soooo frustrating sometimes uuugggggggg

Oh, me too! But I was always like this. When I was a child, my mother could dress me in white dresses, and I would stay clean because I hated the texture of dirt and mud. One thing I did like was sand though, I could play for hours in the sand box- (I still like the texture of sand). When I was a child, I also used to love to suck on smooth stones. I´d put them in my mouth and keep them there for hours. (I don´t do that anymore )

Interesting how a lot of people don´t like the feeling of wet on the skin. I have a few issues with wetness too, although some wetness I like- (I love going swimming, for instance). What I really hate- (and it´s getting worse with age)- is the feeling of underarm wetness! I can´t wear anything tight on my arms, and generally prefer sleeveless shirts. Now that they make dry stick anti-perspirent (aw geez, I can´t spell that word)- I use it sometimes several times a day now, to combat that wet feeling. Back when I was a teenager it was horrible, though- the only deoderant you could buy was this spray stuff in aerosol cans...it was cold, wet and sticky. So I hated putting anything under my arms then...

Overall, my sensory sensitivities have abated in adulthood. I believe that I am still much more sensitive to most stimuli than ordinary adults. Furthermore, my issues with strobing lights and audio sources have gotten worse. Luckily, these can be avoided more readily than smells, etc.