Holy Effing Overload

Post Reply New Topic

It's been a BAD sensory day. I cannot even bring myself to touch paper, and I even recoiled at the glossy-ish receipt at the store. Then I touched the back of a battery container by accident, which has a texture I can't deal with. Usually it's just *touching* paper or metal, or witnessing others do it. Tonight though, I am so profoundly overloaded that even looking at a York peppermint pattie wrapper, which looks metallic, is freaking me out. My teeth hurt, like they're sensitive, when I look at metal right now. I have to keep dabbing lotion on my hands and rubbing them together, and doing other stim behavior (played with a Koosh ball at K-Mart tonight and it was almost euphoric). Rarely do I get this bad, but wow.

Any helpful suggestions?

Oh no siuan! This is awful! And all the Christmas paraphernalia everywhere - yikes.

Does meditation help you at all? Like, say, twenty minutes of thinking on fluffy white clouds or something else soft? Maybe lying in a hot bath?

If you come up with a brilliant idea of your own, please let me know. My kids will love you for it.

Oh, that feeling is so hard to shake. The thing that kills me (and is making my teeth hurt and nauseous) is the nylon that is ribboned as trim on wool blankets and the nylon that vip,vip,vip as people walk. Cannot TOUCH that stuff! I also get creepy after having my nails polished for a while and then keep it off for a while. Everything I touch creeps my nails out. Wow, I thought this was just me. I haven’t come up with a solution; I just distract myself and do something else until it stops.

How do you get along in life without touching paper? Or foil? Or metal? Wow, you have it baaaad!

Try treating your sensory overload like a migraine (there are a few similarities).

If you're in the US, go to your local Walgreens and get yourself some earplugs and a bottle of Hyland's Migraine Headache Relief tablets (it's a small box that should be with the aspirin and tylenol and stuff). Go home, take two to four of the tablets and pop in the earplugs. Then grab a folded, slightly moist washcloth. Darken and quieten your bedroom as much as you can. Lie down on the bed or on the floor, comfortably on your back, with your head and neck supported by a comfty pillow, your spine straight and relaxed and your arms and legs relaxed (like the "dead" pose in yoga if you know that). Place the washcloth over your eyes, relax all your muscles (especially our facial muscles), breath deeply and calmly and try to clear you head. Then imagine you can see all the tension and anxiety circulating through you. In your mind, visualize it as a blue light that you can mentally direct to your finger and toes where it evaporates and leaves you body. If you start to doze off, then just doze off. Give yourself at least 3O minutes, but an hour would be better.

Yeah, sounds little crazy but it helps me.

If this is something that happens often to you, you should try signing up for a yoga relaxation techniques class. Tell teh instructor exactly why you are taking the class - to cope with sensory overload. They may call it something else, but whatever. It's the same deal. You don't have to buy into their yoga jargon if you don't wish to. But they will teach you techniques that you can use as a long-term preventative for sensory overloads as well as other "quickie" technique to help you get through the day when you don't have time to lock yourself up in a dark, quiet room for an hour.

The closest I came to that (sensory overload) was being in my own little world to retreat from the abrasiveness of some people's voices, the depressiveness of them, and then being shocked out of it by an overload of loud voices or their loud depressing music... did you bring the Koosh ball home?

I have times where I literally can't focus my eyes on any one thing, and they just jet around for hours. My skin gets really, really sensitive to oils and liquids, it's freaking weird. It's like complete overload. I get it any time I leave the house, or when I'm tired or stressed. I have to sit in semi-darkness for a couple of hours for it to go away.

The migraine idea is fine - if the overload is being caused by sound, Aspie Martian. In this case it's not, it's touch. So it's a different sense that's the problem - and unfortunately the hardest one to deal with.

The only thing I can think of - and given my sense of touch is usually OK I'm not an expert here - is finding a way to provide a pleasant sensation to counter the overload and help relax you. I don't know what that would be for you.

Thanks

You know, about that koosh ball, I'm going to go back and get it. My husband asked me why I didn't buy it that night. I guess I just didn't think to