List your non-noise related sensory issues
It seems like noise related sensory issues are talked about a lot here, more so than other sensory issues, however, I have mostly non-noise related sensory issues. So, what are you non-noise related sensory issues?
ME:
LIGHTS
None
TACTILE
-The feel of the thing that goes between your toes in flip-flops
-The feel of most "party shoes"
-The feel of being touched lightly
-The feel of rain on my arms
-The feel of scratchy clothes
SMELL
-The smell of meat being cooked
-The smell of stinky washroom
-The smell of popcorn made by a broken popcorn maker
NOTE: I like to smell things
TASTE/TEXTURE
-The texture of ALL meat
-The taste of cold potatoes
-The taste of alcohol (Even when it's evaporated into food)
-The taste of tomato sauce (But not ketchup interestingly enough)
-The taste of cooked vegetables (except potatoes_
-The taste of vegetables in pasta
-The taste of cold pasta
What about you?
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-Allie
Canadian, young adult, student demisexual-heteroromantic, cisgender female, autistic
Lights: I can't deal with bright lights & they give me headaches.
Tactile: The feel of being hugged.
The feel of being touched lightly.
The feel of someone close but not touching.
Smell: The smell of the bin.
The smell of the fridge.
The smell of various foods (inc sweetcorn)
Taste: The taste of sweetcorn.
My hands and feet are what are really sensitive. I can't stand anything dry or rough touching them. So that eliminates quite a few fabrics and materials. For awhile I had trouble cooking certain recipes because I had to stick my hands in the dough or touch the meat. I've since then gotten past a lot of that, but the sensitives still remain.
My taste has gotten a bit less sensitive as I've gotten older, but I used to be a super picky eater. It wasn't just that I didn't like the taste, it was sometimes the texture too. I'd have the full-blown gag reflex when I'd eat something I didn't like. I would also be very likely to go hungry if there wasn't something I could eat on the menu. People used to give me such a hard time about it. Nowadays it's really just onions and a few other things like coconut that I can't eat. I still don't like pulp in my orange juice.
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I don't suffer from insanity. I enjoy every minute of it.
Some things I notice very strongly, but don't bother me, but a quick list of things that bother me as well as me just being hypersensitive to noticing is as follows.
Some of these I can't stand on their own, some of them if I have 2 or 3 of them then I start overloading really easily, if I start overloading then its a wider range than these that bother me. I do also have sound issues, they're probably the second worst after smell.
I also seem to just process senses differently than some people - I don't have any background filter, including in background conversations which I just process all of.
Sight:
-The blinking of florescent bulbs
-A light behind a fan
-too bright of lights
-Flashing changing color lights (smooth transitions is fine)
-If I start overloading then any lights in my peripheral vision
-UV heavy light bouncing off of snow and not blocking the UV
Touch:
-Denim
-Pressure in between my toes
-Sometimes light touch (there are times for light touch, they're preferred then, but otherwise it bugs me)
-Filing nails
-Cutting nails (to a lesser degree than filing them)
-A fan pointing directly at me if I'm not sweating
-Small points of pressure (like lying on an uneven rug)
-Soap (non-soap body washes work, but soap is problematic)
-Lotion on my hands
-Not being able to wrap up in a blanket
-Not having a good sense of where my feet are on the ground
-People bumping into me without me expecting it (I can handle it on a crowded subway, but it still bothers me then)
Smell:
-Cigarette Smoke
-Anything else smoked
-Bathroom cleaners
-Large scale commercial cleaning
-Pretty much anything else that put toxins in the air (including anything other than wood burning, paint, and other things like that)
-Any food mold, even that's been killed off
-The smell of beef if I'm eating eggplant
-air that is the temperature that is supposed to be clean, but isn't
-fake butter thing that goes on commercial popcorn
-Perfumes
Taste:
-The impurities in water
-The soap used for cleaning cups before having water in them
-Antacids (they're so incredibly metallic and the taste sticks around after you have them even)
-Various foods/drinks that smell good but the taste is too strong (coffee being the first to come to mind)
-Salt, too salty for me tends to be below what many people consider salty enough
-The texture of egg whites, even in small amounts
-To go with that, the texture of "normal" tofu, only extra-firm works
-I don't know whether meat would fall in here, I don't have a good enough memory of the last time I ate meat.
-The taste of raw tomatoes unless it is with fresh mozzarella
Taste issues have gone down since I was young, when there were many more foods that smelled good but tasted too strong for me to handle including lemonade and cranberry juice
Because it seems relevant to list here, the things I tend to carry with me in order to avoid these issues are
-My cloak (Well, that's more wear, but it still counts)
-Steampunk goggles that cut out peripheral vision completely, and block UV
-Pieces of leather that cover up the lenses in the goggles
-Noise isolating headphones (and ways to play music into them, though I'll sometimes just wear them without plugging them in)
-Citrus Gum (Citrus and strong peppermint are the only things that can deal with the smells)
-Peppermint oil (Also for muscle tension, but partially for this)
-My kindle for just trying to shut down sensory inputs as much as I can and focus on something
Last edited by Tuttle on 31 Jul 2011, 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Bright light. I've always been very sensitive to sunlight.
Coloured lights. One of my friends has a red tinted lightbulb in her bedroom, and it gives me a headache.
People brushing against me. It makes me feel really itchy and uncomfortable for a long time afterwards.
Being tickled is painful.
I'm very sensitive to most types of pain in general.
The feel of rough fabrics or clothes tags rubbing on my skin.
Any strong smell, especially unpleasant ones.
Most spray perfumes and deodorants. I can only use solid or oil perfumes and deodorants because the sprays make me feel like I'm choking.
Being too hot.
Being wet. I'd rather use wipes than take a shower.
Bitter tastes. Most vegetables taste too bitter to me and it makes me want to throw up. Even things other people say aren't bitter taste bitter to me.
i can't stand being touched or tickled in my back. i jump when people do that. it even bothers me to look at someone's spine. it makes me shiver.
i'm sensitive to bright light. i don't know if that's related, but i have a very sensitive skin. then again, so does my mother, who's an NT, so go figure...
my sense of tast is way too strong. i ate pasta with tomato sauce and thought it was hot/spicy. my nieces, who made it, told me it wasn't spicy at all. i think strawberries are extremely sweet. i stick to bland foods.
i'm very sensitive to most pains, while half numb to a few.
i jump at noise and can't stand it.
Light:
All visual issues have to do with light, don't they?
Bright lights give me a headache and/or make me cranky.
Flashing lights give me a headache and/or distract me to the point of aggravation. This includes things like quick transitions between light and shade, such as when driving on a sunny day.
Blinking Christmas lights can feel like pinpricks in my eyes/brain.
Driving at night in the rain makes me feel like I'm flying through space. I can't tell where anything is, and just see a bunch of blobs of light everywhere.
Tactile:
I have issues with hair in my face. I always have to have it bound. People joke that it's only down for photos.
I can't tolerate binding clothes, which is pretty much everything you can wear to an office or special occasion. I can tolerate going out in jeans for a while, but they come off as soon as the door closes behind me when I'm back home. I don't like wearing shoes, and I only like loose, fuzzy socks on my feet in the winter.
I can't put on clothes after I shower until I feel totally dry. I can't stand feeling damp.
I don't like people touching me, but I adore bear hugs (from the right person). Contradictory much?
Smell:
Any chemical smells can give me headaches: perfumes/colognes, cleaning products, bath products, etc.
Smoke as well
Taste:
I think I'm hyposensitive to taste. I like spicy food the best, and my least liked foods are bland mass-produced ones. My preference for locally-grown food is actually pretty selfish. It's not because of concern for the environment so much as because it has flavor (other than salt).
Visual--
Sunlight
Flickering fluorescent bulbs
Bright light in a dark environment
Flashing lights (police cars, lightning, strobe lights)
Patterns with rounded bumps
Patterns with random elements out of place
Some kinds of visual textures
Fluorescent colors (fluorescent orange, fluorescent green, hot pink, etc.)
Visually "busy" environments (cluttered or with lots of things demanding your attention)
Messy areas
Uneven light levels (a room with both dark and bright spots in it)
Very large photos or paintings of faces, especially looking straight at the viewer
Tactile--
Sticky surfaces, other than things like tape (which come off fully after having been touched)
Any cloth other than cotton (and some rayon fabrics)
The feel of sweat on skin
The feel of hair on skin
The feel of even having body hair to begin with... yeah, my own hair tickles me...
Having hair in a ponytail or any other tight style
Having hair brushing against my forehead
Having a bit of fuzz or dust or cat fur stuck to my skin
Tight clothing of any sort (including underpants--yay for boy shorts!)
Closures on bras and clasps on bra straps and swimsuits (sports bras are a godsend, really)
Being wet
Being dirty
Touching a bumpy surface
Sitting on wrinkled clothing or on seams, so that the seams/wrinkles press into my skin
Sticky substances, especially the way a counter feels after having had juice or sugary soda spilled on it and not cleaned up properly.
The feeling of bits of food floating in dishwater, and a slimy wet dishwashing rag.
The feeling of grass tickling skin when you are sitting in it outdoors
Smell--
Detergents and cleaners
The smell of cooking food, especially stew, especially with onions (oddly enough, I like the taste of onions)
Smell of cold food
Perfume and cologne
The obvious ones that NTs hate, too: Dirty bathrooms, rotten things, and unwashed people.
Cigarette and marijuana smoke
A sharp, unidentifiable smell that I associate with certain sorts of plastics
Dry-erase marker
Solvents, paint thinners, nail-polish remover, and other volatile liquids
Gasoline
That "new-car smell"--just nauseates me! Actually, the smell of cars in general.
Car exhaust
Motor oil
The acrid smell that comes from heating up certain metals
The smell of bacterial and fungal cultures in the lab
Dirty or wet dogs, dog breath, cat breath, unwashed aquariums and terrariums; animal smells in general (any dog I own will have weekly baths, and like it!)
Smell of new carpet
Smell of oil-based paint (but not latex-based paint)
Taste--
Very few, actually. Maybe alcoholic beverages; that's about it.
Kinesthetic--
Anything that confuses my senses about whether I am moving or not.
Conceptual--
Prime numbers, bumpy patterns, certain words, certain concepts, out-of-order things.
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Reports from a Resident Alien:
http://chaoticidealism.livejournal.com
Autism Memorial:
http://autism-memorial.livejournal.com
Disclaimer: most of these are not always major issues, but can become a major issue if I'm already a bit sensitive.
Light: mostly direct sunlight and other bright lights. Flashing, blinking, patterns and movements simply distract me. The others I find to be annoying.
Smell: cigar smoke always makes me choke. Cigarette smoke is bad in most situations, but I can deal with it in some situations (when my family is doing it).
Taste: food that is too hot. I tend to eat and drink food and beverages when they are far colder than when other people consume them.
Touch: the biggest issue here is clothes. Sometimes, clothes can just completely set me off and have me shivering uncontrollably. Other times, I can wear the same clothes without a problem for the entire day. Light touch I'm okay with, as long as I expect it. Physical proximity without touch can be uncomfortable if it's unwanted or unexpected.
Other: I cannot handle heat. Hot summers just completely destroy me. Also, sometimes, waves of hot, dry air (like from an air-conditioning exhaust) can severely affect me.
When one hand is wet and the other is dry (terrifying)
When anyone rubs their hands together (I have goosebumps just thinking about it)
Scratchy material
Air on my skin/rain on my skin
I release tension by squeezing things and gritting my teeth
Applesauce scares me so badly, I can't eat from a fridge that harbors a jar of the stuff
All food kind of scares me (I hate the act of eating)
Sweat drives me insane
being touched
being hugged too lightly, or a limp handshake (drives me insane)
Bright colors and lights
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Tonight you can't put me up on any shelf
Because I came here alone and I'm gonna leave by myself!
Wooden utensils drive me bonkers, I can't hold them, and especially don't like them in my mouth (cringe). I don't like silk or satin either. Any smooth surface is okay, or with a certain roughness. I can handle firewood no problem for example, or polished wood is fine also. Certain aromas bother me also, but they're usually chemically related, I'm very sensitive to cleaning supplies, industrial lubricants that sort of thing. Touch doesn't bother me, but dry hands are irritating, mine or anyone else.
There's a roughness factor with my sensitivity.
I haven't read all the post yet... I voted "Yes, and some noise related sensory issues as well", just as the majority.
It's interesting that despite I don't like too bright light, e.g. harsh sunlight, I don't like sunglasses just as well, they make me feel uncomfortable as the way they alter my vision seems to be too dramatic to me.
I don't like mp3 players as a means for suppressing noise either, as I like to hear what's happening around me in the street or in the bus. It feels safer without it.
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Another non-English speaking - DX'd at age 38
"Aut viam inveniam aut faciam." (Hannibal) - Latin for "I'll either find a way or make one."
I have the same issue. I only wear brown-tinted sunglasses because of this, because the blue and green ones just change way too much.

