Not noticing your own sensory issues?

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Fireblossom
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12 May 2020, 7:53 am

I have really bad sensory issues, as do many others here. Some have mild, and some have none. Now, I know some people on the spectrum really don't have any sensory issues, but could it be that some of those who claim to have none actually just don't notice them? As in, they've been lucky enough to be able to live in a sensory friendly enviroment or have unconciously avoided things that cause sensory issues and made fixes to things they can't avoid?



Karamazov
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12 May 2020, 10:08 am

Interesting one, although there is another possibility: that one may have a series of difficulties one is aware of, but not think of them as sensory issues.

Reason why I put that there is I read your OP and went to have a look for a definition of sensory issues in autism: I found a short PDF leaflet produced by Autism West Midlands (Link).

As I read through I realised something I either hadn’t grasped, of had forgotten/suppressed: that the concept covers both very high sensitivity and very low sensitivity to stimuli...
As a result I’ve been thinking of myself as not really having much in the way of sensory issues besides strong light, certain ways of projecting the human voice and finding some clothing labels itchy. I have several insensitivities which fall under the definition: I only notice myself being hot/cold/hungry when it’s already got to the point where it’s undermining my capacity to function for instance, but I haven’t been thinking of those as sensory issues.
I’d also forgotten that hearing everything at the same volume when multiple sounds are occurring falls under the definition, as does poor spatial awareness leading to pronounced clumsiness.
Some other things on that list I recognised, but I’m waffling in a way that may be tangential, so I’ll stop.

So, hmmm... turns out I have more than I thought I did approx ten minutes ago, because I wasn’t classifying them as such in my head. :P
It’s not impossible that I’m not the only one doing that.



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12 May 2020, 10:21 am

Before I was diagnosed I wasn't really aware some things I felt were sensory issues.
Light touch hurts. You can hug me or push me into a cactus. It feels the same. I was aware that this is not how most people feel about hugs. However, I did not perceive it as a 'sensory issue' or as a symptom of a disorder.

I may have slight visual or auditory sensory issues. Big cities are exhausting. They're too garish and loud. However, they don't hurt, except perhaps by causing a headache after a while. I may have an unreasonable dislike of some food textures, but they're not that common and I've rarely tasted food with the wrong texture. I'd definitely not have thought of them as 'sensory issues' or symptoms of a disorder before I knew I was autistic. Even now they clearly don't fall into the same category as painful sensory issues.

Some time after my diagnosis I'd still have said I don't have sensory issues simply because I did not think of the unusual things I felt as sensory issues.



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12 May 2020, 11:14 am

In my own case, it might as well be particularly guilty of this.

I'm born in a less sensory ideal type of culture.
This is one of the cultures who had to afford a lot of chaos in their system, if not practically living in it.

I grew up dismissing a lot of sensations I've received.
And countless more that are distinguishable yet just simply undescribable, dismissing all the same as unworthy as simple discomfort simply because there is no such word for it.
Even to a point that pain and sickness just as dismissible as any itch in a fabric.
Until my conscious simply refuse to dismiss it, until it's nothing but just 'react'.



It never helps that my senses can fluctuate.
Even as I observed while quarantine -- all with consistent activity and environment, yet nothing is still internally consistent about me.

I may wake up with insane thresholds that can soak with little conscious strain, or wake up with full set of intolerance and painful vulnerability -- or wake up with either/neither yet which would reach my conscious and which would reach to a reaction.
I wouldn't know. I'd just take it as it is, and 'take' as much as I'm able to.

If I fluctuate in ways my conscious mind can barely understand, how am I going to know how much I fluctuate where my conscious mind couldn't know?


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Mountain Goat
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12 May 2020, 11:34 am

Fireblossom wrote:
I have really bad sensory issues, as do many others here. Some have mild, and some have none. Now, I know some people on the spectrum really don't have any sensory issues, but could it be that some of those who claim to have none actually just don't notice them? As in, they've been lucky enough to be able to live in a sensory friendly enviroment or have unconciously avoided things that cause sensory issues and made fixes to things they can't avoid?


I can relate to this. I consider my sensory issues to be mild BUT, they push me into shutdowns which I consider a full shutdown to be far from mild.
And like you said, many of us have automatically adjusted to avoid enviroments that can trigger our sensory issues so it is only those who have to live in enviroments where they can't avoid triggering sensory overload that will call it severe? (I am exploring my thoughts out loud here. I realize that others have far worse experiences then me which is why I call y experiences mild).


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12 May 2020, 2:02 pm

When I was younger I didn't notice most of my sensory issues, so I used to constantly question whether I had them or not. I'd say as a child I definitely used to be more hypersensitive to certain things than I am now, but I was still mostly hyposensitive and still am like that.

For years, though, I thought sensory issues were only hypersensitivities and the commonly described things like light, touch, etc. Recently I've learned that they encompass a bigger range of things and just how many senses humans have, such as proprioception, which I've found I do struggle with. But like you said, I just never noticed those problems until now. I was never taught those issues were a thing, and even when I noticed other people didn't have problems with those things, they were just issues I had to deal with and I got pretty good at doing so, so as I got older I didn't pay much mind to them.



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12 May 2020, 2:22 pm

awe..... your just overly sensative ,, you this, your that ........ its just a scratch or you need to ignore those things....... this is the BS was fed all the way up to adulthood....... It seemed as if it was suppose to be part of living ... plus all the torturous experiences that woulda been defo considered child abuse but not addressed ever .. All these sensory things are part of my initial make up but rarely see these concerns in what seems to be NORMAL people. Yes definitely realised even up to now about things that are sensory triggers .. Some very intense , some less so ..Could not be touched by persons . By anyone without expecting violence resulted in a absolute sensation of shock. Now after having been married many years ago that there was good touch , so found by observing with what worked for others was able to detune some of these more severe sensory overloads . Still working out sensory stuff to this day


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The_Face_of_Boo
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12 May 2020, 4:44 pm

The Sensory issues thing is not really part of autism diagnosis if I recall right; each is a separate condition.
They are just more common among auties for some reason.

I have one-ear tinnitus, does this count?



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12 May 2020, 5:08 pm

Sometimes I can't tell if I'm overstimulated, and sometimes I can't tell if I'm understimulated. After a while, my body gets impatient and usually just outright tells me though - so I'll start getting really anxious and wiggly, or I'll start feeling numb and dissociated.


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Dear_one
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13 May 2020, 12:15 am

Fireblossom wrote:
I have really bad sensory issues, as do many others here. Some have mild, and some have none. Now, I know some people on the spectrum really don't have any sensory issues, but could it be that some of those who claim to have none actually just don't notice them? As in, they've been lucky enough to be able to live in a sensory friendly enviroment or have unconciously avoided things that cause sensory issues and made fixes to things they can't avoid?


I have never examined my sensory issues as a class. It is notoriously difficult to know what is "normal."

Can anyone tell me why I don't get notifications of replies any longer?



Glflegolas
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13 May 2020, 6:19 pm

I'm not entirely sure on the difference between "Sensory issues" and learning differences.

In regards to autism (from what I have heard) "having sensory issues", tends to refer to over-sensitivity: classically touch, sight, and sound.

However, under-sensitivity to sound, specifically not being able to hear the sounds that make up words, is believed to be the cause of dyslexia. So is it a learning difference? Or is it a type of sensory processing disorder?

Dyspraxia could very well be due to difficulties with proprioception.

SPD Australia gives a comprehensive list of signs/symptoms associated with over or undersensitivity in each of the seven senses.


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13 May 2020, 6:43 pm

The_Face_of_Boo wrote:
The Sensory issues thing is not really part of autism diagnosis if I recall right; each is a separate condition.

Diagnostic Criteria Autism Spectrum Disorder - DSM 5
Quote:
Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history (examples are illustrative, not exhaustive; see text):

Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech (e.g., simple motor stereotypes, lining up toys or flipping objects, echolalia, idiosyncratic phrases).

Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior (e.g., extreme distress at small changes, difficulties with transitions, rigid thinking patterns, greeting rituals, need to take same route or eat same food every day).

Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus (e.g., strong attachment to or preoccupation with unusual objects, excessively circumscribed or perseverative interests).

Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment (e.g. apparent indifference to pain/temperature, adverse response to specific sounds or textures, excessive smelling or touching of objects, visual fascination with lights or movement).


bolding=mine

Sensory issues were added to the DSM-5 the latest manual.
I am sure I do not recognize some of my atypical sensory input because that is the only reality I know. It is easy to miss if you are hypo sensitive to a sensory input. All the emphases on autistic hypersensitivity comes at the expense of recognition of autistic hypo sensitivity.


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Dear_one
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14 May 2020, 4:29 pm

Can anyone tell me why I don't get notifications of replies any longer?



Mountain Goat
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14 May 2020, 4:33 pm

Dear_one wrote:
Can anyone tell me why I don't get notifications of replies any longer?


Sorry. I don't know. I don't get them but I did not expect to get them.


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IsabellaLinton
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14 May 2020, 5:25 pm

I have extreme sensory issues. Way too hypo and way too hyper, plus misophonia, photophobia, heliophobia, and Sensory Processing Disorder. I stim 24/7, even in my sleep, both sensory-seeking and sensory-avoiding at the same time.

On top of all that I have alexithymia and problems with interoception (reading my body signals). I don't know when I'm hungry or full. I really have no clue what hunger / fullness feels like. I eat because something looks good or smells good but I don't really feel hungry, and after eating I don't feel any different (full). I also have issues knowing if I'm hot or cold. Sometimes one arm or leg is hot and the other one is cold, or I'm split down the middle, or I feel nothing. I'm one of those people who goes out without a coat and doesn't need to wear shoes for a jaunt outside, even in snow. I can't tell if I'm tired or not because my mind is always awake even when my body wants to sleep. I don't notice my own behaviour patterns very well either. Doctors will ask me if x was correlated with y, and I won't have a clue.

So to answer the question, I'm very aware of my stim issues but I didn't realise how poor my interoception was until recently. I didn't realise that other people feel a stream of recognisable cues, signals, and patterns. With me I don't notice those cues until it's too late and I have a meltdown.

For reference re: Interoception >
https://autismawarenesscentre.com/what- ... ct-autism/



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15 May 2020, 10:34 am

I don't think you mean this in a bad way at all, but I honestly find it a little insulting to suggest I must have them just because I happen to be on the spectrum, and if I don't, then I'm either not noticing or am sheltered from it.

That's not the case for me at least.

I have heard plenty of stories on here about how things like fire drills, traffic, vacuum cleaners and malls, and I can't relate to that at all, because they just don't bother me. I've never had more problems with them than anyone else around me, and sometimes less. One time there was a very distinct smell of gasoline on the bus and a lot of presumably NT people complained and wrinkled their noses while I wasn't bothered in the least.

NTs can be bothered by some sounds, I've had relatives that were, but I didn't share them.

My only sound issue is that I can't focus around too much noise, so while the tasks were easy enough for me to do in noisy conditions in elementary school, this changed in junior high and high school where I struggled with some subjects and needed to focus on what I read or wrote. I can focus fine with my kind of noise though, and even the noise that can distract me from focusing, doesn't bother my ears, it bothers my attention. No focus, no problem.

Like most introverts I prefer quiet environments but I don't have problems dealing with noise either.

My only sensory issues are:
- too hot weather (makes me lethargic and feels like I'm suffering)
- some foods (some consistencies like slimy makes me gag, so I won't eat it and I tend to find plain foods very boring or tire of them easily, and prefer my favorite foods often)

This is one of the reasons why I preferred the old diagnosis criteria that didn't mention sensory issues but still has the clause about possibly being clumsy (which I am).


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