Do all Aspies have problem with light, sound, being touched,
That's a nasty little trick to play...
Years ago when I commuted I was walking home from the station when one of my nephews (who sometimes got the same train back as me but this time I hadn't seen him) quietly came up behind me and touched the back of my leg with his knee.
I nearly threw up. I spun round in a panic and actually raised my umbrella like it was a club or something, and he's lucky I recognised him or it might have ended up wrapped round his neck.
_________________
Giraffe: a ruminant with a view.
i am not an "aspie". i am a person with asperger syndrome, so my answer may not be representative of "aspies", but i will try to reply.....actually i really dislike the word "aspie". it is so cliquey and sounds like a club name....back on to the paved road now.
of the three senses you mention, my stock of troubles in descending order of weight are
1. touch
2. light
3. sound.
touch______________
i have hypersensitive tactile afference. i can feel the dust in the air touching my skin.
in the morning when you have a shaft of light shining through your window and you can see tiny glints of dust in the air, those glints of dust are felt clearly by me as they brush past my skin.
my skin is like a condenser microphone on an old cassette recorder. when there is no sensory input, the "gain" is increased as a result, so that i feel the slightest stimulus when stimulus is at a minimum.
when there is "loudness" of tactile sensory input, my skin's sensitivity is reduced as a result, but it is only reduced to a level that is the maximum that i can bear without neural distortion.
if i put my finger on a table cloth with my eyes shut, i can see the weave of the fabric much better than i could do so with my eyes.
the problem with me is that when my "gain" is turned up after a period of little stimulation, then if i am suddenly touched by something much more forcibly, i feel like it is an electric shock that jolts me and it causes my muscles surrounding the point of contact to spasm for a short while.
light_____________
if i must look at things, i get addled by random and unexpected interruptions in the flow of visual input.
there is a road on the way to the north coast where there are trees lining the sides of the road that are not continuous, but nevertheless are plentiful.
there may be ten trees standing close together and then a space of 200 feet where there are no trees and then they become compressed in their population again for a few hundred feet etc.
in the morning when i drive along that stretch of road, and the sun is behind those trees, it drives me insane. the complete disorganization of the rhythm of brightness/shade makes me exceptionally angry for some reason. on a few occasions i have had to pull over and collect my mind because i feel very claustrophobically trapped in a hell of visual torture after i become enraged.
another problem i have with vision is that it is hard for me to focus on something that i should be looking at if there are spinning objects in my peripheral field of vision.
my mind just can not block out spinning things and my focus will inevitably lock on what is spinning and i can not fight that tendency.
a few weeks ago, i was looking at a property i wanted to buy, and the agent was pointing out the lay of the land, and she was describing the flood potential of the property, but there was a disembodied leaf that was spinning on the end of a spider web strand, and even though i tried my best to look at what she was pointing out to me, i could not ignore that spinning leaf down the bush.
i needed to look at it and so i lost my control and just stared at the leaf, and the estate agent looked at me and asked if i was still interested. i said yes, but i was mesmerized by the spinning leaf and i watched how it span one way until it twisted the web as far as it could, and then it stopped spinning that way and started to spin the other way to undo the spiral negative torque it had imposed on the web strand.
the estate agent eventually said she had to go, and i think it was because i was not cognizantly stationed in her descriptive portrayal of the property.
sound_________
i do not mind sounds as long as they are not distorted.
loudness is not a problem for me. it is the cleanness of the wave form that is is important for me.
i would like to hear the power of volcano in real life, but i would wince in rejection of a sound recording of a volcano because it is inevitably distorted.
whatever i am rambling and my mind is operating on auxilliary power so i will leave it there.
Interesting, b9 - and especially what you said about the light through trees and spinning things.
The "angry switch" gets flipped with me too, driving past trees with the light being pulsed like that. That light has a feel to it; something pushes, pushes, pushes against my head in time with the pulsing. Each light-pulse is an explosion of chaos inside my head and it's not that it annoys me to the point of being angry about it, I am just immediately flooded with a feeling of extreme anger.
Spinning or rhythmically cycling things. A constant distraction. I sometimes notice something over the shoulder of people who are talking to me and get completely drawn in and only realise something's amiss when their conversation suddenly stops and they're looking at me in a strange way.
I get what you mean about volcanoes too.
If I'm indoors then thunderstorms worry me a little - especially the lightning because then I have to count the seconds until I hear the thunder. But being outside in a raging thunderstorm is absolutely wonderful.
_________________
Giraffe: a ruminant with a view.
Hautshot -"I would always try to get my boyfriend at the time to gently tickle me. Now for us aspies this is the dilema . . . I don't really like people, but if I have a boyfriend . . . I can get tickles. I don't do well with people, so no more tickles Crying or Very sad UNLESS, someone knows a way how I can get tickles, other than tickling myself Very Happy"
- I like being tickled also. In fact, I usually ask my wife to tickle me rather than kissing! Wonder if it's common that aspies are not too keen on kissing?
- I don't think I have any of these problems. In fact, I like being cuddled or tickled, like I found out one Princess, an aspie, her name was Queen Catherine de Medici, also likes being tickled. I can also bend my fingers backwards.
When I was young, I met an accident. I thought all my many different and weird problems was all because of the accident. Now only I know it's actually because of the asperger which I knew only last year.
I can relate to this. I don't think many aspies have an aversion to being touched just that they don't like to suddenly hug someone randomly. They like to cuddle their gf/bf and all that, at least that's how it looks to me. I like your accident explanation, I believe that this probably protected you more than you realise. I just beat myself up, thought I wasn't good enough, that was my explanation for why, until I got an aspergers diagnosis that is.
Knowing why is good, it helps you to understand that you are not just some weird unique mistake.
I hate sunlight in the summer. I don't like being touched and other times I do. Noise bothers me, just sudden noise that is and some loud sounds.
No not all aspies have these issues and mine aren't bad at all. I have an aspie friend who doesn't have any sensory issues. Lucky him and I am lucky too because mine are not very bad. Plus my hearing sensitivity to noise, that may have came from my hearing loss. I used to be even more sensitive to noise and crowds when I was little and I got used to them over time because my parents kept taking me back to them. They even had to find places where I'd be making noise myself so the noise around me wouldn't be bothering me so they found a mall that had this play area there and it was a fake ship for the kids to play on and once I saw it, all my issues went away when we be at that mall so that was where we went. So my parents had finally found a mall they can have peace at and enjoy without having to leave.
I hate being tickled. Sometimes it hurts. I once had a sensory over load when I was forced to be in a large room where everyone was clapping and it lasted for minutes and minutes and it was the longest clapping ever. I just had my ears covered the whole time and I looked stupid but luckily some people were sympathetic and felt bad for me. If I am not expecting a place to be all chaotic or noisy, I get over loaded and I get more sensitive.
But I enjoy soft touch and like it when my husband runs his fingers on my skin or on my head.
I also do not like it when my sweaty skin touches each other and arm pits is where I feel it so I like to have shirts that are tight there, not loose or I am digging my hands into my arm pits. I also can't stand sweaty skin so sex is hard and I am unable to have naked sex. Plus I can't stand hairy legs against my bare skin. My ex expected me to get used to this and I have been told it feels uncomfortable for everyone but I guess it's worse for me because not everyone will understand. They will just assume I am feeling what it feels to them and I need to get used to it so they will say lot of people don't like that feeling and they get used to it and don't feel it anymore when they have it.
I am not sure if this is also sensory but I can't stand snoring. I can't ignore it and I just get agitated if I am forced to hear it. I know it bothers lot of people but with me I just can't sleep no matter how tired I am because I just can't stand it. I wonder how people even sleep with someone snoring and how they even get used to it. But yet when my baby snores, it doesn't bother me and I like hearing the sound. I think this is finger nails on a chalkboard for me.
_________________
Son: Diagnosed w/anxiety and ADHD. Also academic delayed.
Daughter: NT, no diagnoses.
I have very sensitive vision, my vision is absolutely excellent but I can't tolerate bright lights well. This is one of the reasons that dark, rainy days are my favourite kind of days.
I am also very sensitive to sound, so I enjoy and critique music more than others. Music is the centre of much of my OCPD behaviour.
I am hyposensitive to smell. I am normally sensitive to taste and touch.
Mine are more sensitivities than real problems. My hearing is very adept at picking up tiny sounds, at least when it's quiet. I on several occasions have heard my tv despite it being muted. Loud sounds don't bother me but if it's sudden and unexpected I may jump. The same goes for touch, if I'm not expecting it I may jump. Short of pain though, no expected touch has ever caused me issues. Light doesn't have to be as bright to make me squint as most people so I tend to wear sunglasses whenever I'm outside unless it's really overcast (rare here in Phoenix). A lot of people on here talk about smells driving them crazy or being addicted to a certain smell, but for me smells hardly register. My nose has never worked well.
I can wear sunglasses on overcast drizzling days. Also, I don't like silver clouds.
I think I have a bad sense of smell.
But smells can bother me especially if they bring up memories. Such as if a smell reminds me of school and make me anxious.
Sometimes when I'm outside and get a wiff of some plant or something I wish I could somehow take the smell home with me and keep smelling it. I find it unfortunate I can't do that.
I skimmed the thread. I have a perceptive aversion for too much text in a single post. Or I just can't focus on it for too long.
Light:
Sensitive to a well lit room. Have to wear glasses to just blur everything a little. Can still see fine but without as much sharpness. Moving light or shadow can at times make me flinch or even add to sensory stress. I hate those HD TV's or 3D movies. Sometimes videogames can be overwhelming.
Flashing lights especially strobe lights take me beyond the event horizon and there is no return. What happens will happen. There's no going back. Usually I melt down, shutdown or have a seizure.
Sound:
The world is too loud is a common phrase of mine. That's all I'm capable of saying when overwhelmed. I have misophonia so even the most quiet sounds can be irritating. Sometimes loud sounds can be ignored but too many sounds at once is what overwhelms me. I can feel a type of grating texture in sound too.
Touch:
Hate light touch. Prefer deep pressure. Can only sleep with very heavy blankets on. I only like hugging when I want to hug. I'm always awkward when others hug me.
I've got this weird temperature regulation thing too. I'm either too hot or cold. I've never got a balance. Just now I had put on a jacket because I was cold but then I started to feel overheated.
Visual:
Don't like seeing clutter. Whether messes from when I don't clean the house enough, to crowds or even looking at something busy in an overwhelming environment. Think electronics shop or restaurant.
Pain:
I have a theory that I experience pain sooner than people. When I burn myself it's usually a little 1st degree burn and when other burn themselves the same way they need to go to hospital with 2nd degree burns. I have touched hot irons, ovens and caught hair straighteners in my hand. I even touched a light bulb, burnt my finger and fell asleep with out trying to decrease the pain.
As a kid I used to put safety pins through my hand and cut myself on broken mirrors. Not out of depression but boredom/ curiosity? Who knows.
I can be both hypersensitive and hyposensitive to pain. The hypersensitivity is just temporary and I eventually get used to the pain, although for internal things I'm more hypersensitive. I have primary dysmenorrhea which makes me want to die every time I have it. Fortunately I just take really heavy painkillers. But more physical pains can only hurt for a awhile then I begin to enjoy it.
_________________
My band photography blog - http://lostthroughthelens.wordpress.com/
My personal blog - http://helptheywantmetosocialise.wordpress.com/
LostInEmulation
Veteran
Joined: 10 Feb 2008
Age: 42
Gender: Female
Posts: 2,047
Location: Ireland, dreaming of Germany
I am sensitive to sound and to touch, but light is far less of a prblem for me. And I guess I am seeking various smells...
_________________
I am not a native speaker. Please contact me if I made grammatical mistakes in the posting above.
Penguins cannot fly because what cannot fly cannot crash!
I have issues with fluorescent lights and loud noises, or low-level noises that go on and on (like something dripping or a lawnmower or something).
I do not like light touches and find them really freaky. I don't like hugs either unless they are from muscular people and the hug is so hard that it almost hurts.
Similar Topics | |
---|---|
Shadows Can "Move" Faster Than The Speed of Light |
21 Jul 2024, 6:05 pm |
Light Entropy Theory - A Unified Theory |
18 Jul 2024, 7:56 am |
Married Aspies? |
06 Sep 2024, 8:22 pm |
This is the problem |
07 Aug 2024, 7:35 pm |