Sensory Issues - Getting NTs to Understand?

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Has anyone had any success in conveying the seriousness if their sensory sensitivities to NTs?

If, for example, I have a problem with fluorescents and I ask if the lighting can be dimmed a little(just remove a few of the bulbs it won't be dim but it won't be as painful. Read: this is a compromise ideally I would like the fluorescents to be removed entirely and replaced with less harsh lighting) they laugh it off like my difficulties are not real. I made this request recently but instead of removing a few bulbs they replaced the bulbs with new ones making the lighting worse.

It seems they can't grasp how much the lights affect me. Has anyone sucessfully made it clear to NTs that their sensory issues are serious?

Unfortunately, I have had little success. It's mostly a problem with my husband (who, though he loves me, still hasn't read any of the Asperger's books I got after my diagnosis, which would definitely help) and kid (who can be excused because he's 5). I am very sensitive to light and sound, and moderately sensitive to touch and smell. My husband at least understands that I need to have a low light on while watching movies (too much contrast disorients and dizzies me), but he still rolls his eyes at me when I cover my ears if he talks loudly (usually while working out and wearing headphones so he can't hear his own volume). My son is doing better...he's slowly learning that when he shouts or uses a particularly shrill voice it causes me literal pain...he apologizes.

On a similar note, I have triggered epilepsy, and flickering lights will give me absence seizures, which are rather uncomfortable and affect me for days afterward. The custodians at work usually think I'm just being picky, so I tell them I'll have a full-blown rolling around on the ground type seizure (which isn't true) so they take it seriously and remedy it quickly.

What does it do to you to have things not dealt with? Can you get them to understand that?

I've gotten people to understand some of my sensory sensitivities. It's always a long process of them not understanding and discounting and then eventually it clicking. Even after that point its discredited to some degree, not taken as seriously as it is, but its taken more seriously.

The central point of getting people to understand is is generally
a) Focus on one sense or one sensation, but also talk about sensory sensitivities as a whole
b) Instead of focusing on what its like to sense it, focus on what it does to me. Instead of saying that I see the flickering of the lights, get across that fluorescents take away my ability to think so strongly that my OT said I was a completely different person when she turned off the lights in her office, because the lights jam my brain and make it so I can't think or figure out what to say or what to do, for example.

I have had success with some people but not others. The difference in my case was that the people with whom I had success were very understanding and compassionate people to begin with. I also have Misophonia and one of my trigger sounds is popping of bubble wrap. Someone I am very close to loves to do that and one time it got so bad that I was losing it completely. I told the person that the noise made me want to commit suicide which it actually did, For those of you who are not familiar with Misophonia we have some great threads about it. But the person just laughed and said, "yeah, you wanna' commit suicide, whatever" and just kept popping the bubble wrap.

I think it would also be a good idea to show your boss the videos on the thread of what it is like to be Autistic. I have to to find the thread again and I will post the link here but they are excellent videos that show what it is like to have sensory overload so that NT's can understand.

How come NTs can't use their social imagination to be able to put themselves in our shoes and understand how our sensory issues feel?

This is why I go stark-raving mad when people say Aspies lack empathy because it's like an Aspie might lack empathy in one teeny little situation and it all becomes a big thing, but if NTs show and feel a lack of empathy for something that does not apply to them, it still goes unnoticed?

Somebody explain!!

Here is the link http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt235033.html

Talleyman, is there a way to keep that thread front and center to always make it easy to find. It is really great and I like to share it with my friends but it always takes me a little time to find it.

It's because they have absolutely no frame of reference on which to start. Kind of reminds me a bit of the book Flatland. If you have never read that it is really excellent. It's also a classic.

Because they don't have those issues and they are uncommon so therefore they will not understand. Cockneyrebel calls it lack of aspie of mind.

Then how come they say Aspies lack empathy if we don't understand how it feels for somebody who's in a situation we have never been in?

I don't like to be touched, and nobody seems to get that. People seem to think I 'just need a hug', but no, I don't! I When I am upset at school a person (student, teacher...) will come up to me and ask what's wrong. if I tell them, they will try to hug me or put there hands on my shoulder and if I say "please stop" they say something like, "It'll be ok!" and I squirm out and just walk away quickly. Same with sound, I have actually had teachers turn a movie or music up when I ask them, hands over my ears, to please turn it down. I have no diagnosis or IEP, so they, legally, have to make no special arrangements for me. Why shouldn't they help anyway? And they say we lack empathy...

Because they sometimes judge and make these decisions by outward appearances. If they don't see you respond in the same way about something that they do, they think you don't feel it. They often don't understand that sometimes we feel things much more deeply than they do. And some Autists really do struggle with not having empathy but that is not true for all of us. I also think that a lot of times NT's will base their conclusions on what they know about famous case studies and a lot of the stereotypes come from them. They don't understand how huge the Spectrum is and that we are each unique individuals who have different levels of everything just like they do. And sometimes if you have trouble expressing something like empathy, even if you feel it, they assume you just don't have it. But many NT's are now becoming much more educated about the Spectrum especially with sites like WP so hopefully all that stereotypical thinking will change soon.

Hmmm, I haven't tried to get NTs to understand these things yet, so I don't know if I would be successful, probably not.

Some asked me why I wore a hat all the time, and I said that I was hypersensitive to light.

I think I understand now. Lacking empathy to a certain extent is normal in everybody, we can't all think of everyone else all the time. I think it just depends on the context, like most things do. I've been reading up on empathy and it seems I feel empathy an awful lot, but I can sometimes not feel empathy like when I'm in a bad mood or something, but even then I'm still aware that I'm lacking empathy,

I wear a hat all the time, too! Not for sun, but an earflap hat for sound, just generally overwhelming situations (sometimes including sight), and smell (if I pull it over my face).

As a NT...let me ask this. Do feel other peoples feelings as your own? Like you actually feel sad when someone else is sad. Do you mutually share a feeling at any given time? That's empathy. Simply understanding a situation and caring is sympathy.
I hope this makes sense!

I rarely have this.