Positive and Negative Sensory Overload

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Hello everyone, just joined today, and have seen much on this forum that I can relate to very much.

Please accept my apologies for the long post, but this year has been a major changing point in my life, and would like to tell.

Having a visual impairement, I pretty much ignored my asperger's syndrome for nearly 20 years, and just wanted to try to be a normal person. Through some unforseen circumstances, my brother moved into my place last year, which resulted in us both growing much closer together. Up to this moment, we were four brothers, all off on individual paths. Through living together, I became more aware of my brothers issues (unrelated), and he became very aware of my asperger's, and somewhat regrets not knowing about it, but then I don't blame him for that. I never made it a big deal. When we spoke about my problems with finding employment, detailed knowledge of music, the way I have a white zone in my flat (room where I keep everything clean), and my fetish for beach balls, he seemed to be very understanding of it.

Admitting that I had asperger's syndrome in early 2007, resulted in a nervous breakdown, it was like discovering you suddenly had a leg missing. Over a twelve month period, my brother slowly bought me around to understanding that I was different, and that I wasn't going to get a job through the normal channels. My family always made a big deal about my asperger's, but I just kept on ignoring it until I was 37. 2007 was a difficult year for me, but it hasn't been pain without gain.

2008 has seen my life do a complete 180 degree turn, as I have never felt better in my life. Over the last seven years, I tried applying by correspondence to do a music course and always missed out. This year, I actually visited the campus, and incredibly walked into the music teacher, who had an asperger son. All the places in the course were full, but because I had asperger's and he understood the condition, he made a special exception for me. I was signed in, I was blown away, and he could not believe on how I could give the top ten hits of any week in the eighties.

He was a documentary maker, and was needing to find subject material for his next project. He started talking to me about doing such a thing, and I thought it would be a great idea. He spoke to some people at one of the television networks, and through incredible luck, they were keen to have me on their musical quiz show. The main focus point of the documentary was found, and it then became a program about my life experiences of being an aspergian.

The experience of someone doing a documentary about me was somewhat weird. Though it would be something that I suppose would fire my ego, I saw it much more then that. I found it to be a platform, to show to the world on how much people with asperger's syndrome have to contribute to this world. I was excited at first to do such a thing, but it was something that made me touch on many things that laid dorment for over twenty years, things that would stir up many emotions. It was like a huge mountain in deep freeze for twenty years, then a sudden warming. The thore out feels good, but I have had some emotional avalanches.

Through many discussions and encouragements, I've been able to unearth many of my experiences with much dignaty, and have been able to talk about my two kinds of sensory overloads, positive and negative.

I suffer from negative sensory overload, which is when I feel something that is sticky, dusty, dirty, smelly or etc. I get the urge to go and wash my hands straight away. Bright lights are a major issue for me, and high pitched noises are a killer.

On the other hand, I experience positive sensory overload, when I feel the desired texture, which is usually something that is inflatable, like beach balls, inflatable hammers, bats. But when I experienced suicidal emotions during the late eighties, I found the feel of the older style two and three litre soft-drink bottles to be very soothing. The bottoms used to have the black dishes or caps, and they were very soft and bubbly. Digging my hands into these things would often swing me from feeling miserable through to complete euphoria. I could never explain why this was so, but now that I understand that this is something to do with sensory overload, it makes some kind of sense now.

I have described more of this on my myspace blog at:
www thereal30 com

I would be interested to hear from others who may have had similar experiences, and if it has helped them.

I deinitely relate to the negative sensory overload you describe. If I get dust or oil from cleaning on my hands when simply tidying up I have to stop immediately and wash my hands. Also If I'm eating toast with jam or honey and some drips onto my skin I have to clean it off immediately. I freak out if it starts to dry and go all flaky on me, don't really know why.
I'm not really sure what you mean by the Positive SO. If its like an object that acts like a comfort blanket I don't think I've ever had one.

Congrats on doing the documentary
Glad to hear you are feeling a lot more positive and confident now than you have been in the past
Hope it continues.

I have the same thing. I hate it when I feel something dusty, sticky, smelly or dirty on my hands. I wash my hands very often, but people are generally not very understanding of that, which just makes me nervous because I don't feel good leaving my hands like this but also don't like listening to criticism when I go wash my hands.

I also don't like it when one hand is wet and the other one is dry. I have major issues with lights (what NTs call "normal light" is painfully bright for me). I have issues with high pitched noises and constant background noises.


I feel really good when there is pressure on my body, like when I'm under my heavy duvet or under water.

When I first spoke about it with my therapist at SSASS, I wasn't really sure either, but she explained it as the primary sensory sensation you have, it will have a reaction on you.

So most people have no problems with flurecent lights, I don't either, but I hate sun light, my friend absolutely hates flurecent lights. I guess the common point here is what is acceptable to one person, will have a reaction on another person, and with me it can be positive or negative.

I will deliberately walk on the shadier side of the street, because the sun in my face makes me feel quite aggravated. I don't know if that is something to do with my eye sight, but I just have that need to run to the shade straight away. Strangely though, I love the sun in the morning, when It shines into my room, it gives me a great feeling, particularly in early summer around September October, I have no problem getting up at 6:00.

On the other hand, many people think no big deal about the plastics that eighties style soft-drink bottles were made of, but it was just one of those strange things. It was a party in christmas 1982, when I was sitting around with friends and relatives. The hot december evening made many of us thirsty as much soft-drink was consumed. They were bottles with bits of drink left in them , so I would pretty much drink out of the bottle.

Upon it being finished, just like a thirteen year old would, I fidgeted with the bottle in my hands, pressing my fingers into the plastics, as they bubbled in and out. I would wrap my hand over the black cap on the bottom, and squeeze. As the black plastic pressed into the transparent plastic, it would bubble in and out, and make a certain sound, which for some unknown reason triggered a sense of arousal. I refer to this as "bubbling". This is NOT squeezing the bottle, but more just digging my fingers into the softer parts, so they would click in and out. I would then have a sense of electricity going through my body, and yeah, it was euphoria. There's no other way to describe it. (I could but it would breach forum rules)

It was at this time that I discovered that I had a strong desire to regularly play with these bottles, as the plastics were mirror smooth, very soft, thin and for some reason, when they came out of the fridge, they had this slippery silky smooth feel about them, just after the condensation evaporated.

Again, I don't know why this was so, but the actual sensation of bubbling these bottles in my hand was a life-saver, particularly during the bullying years at high-school.

When I was being bashed, I used the thoughts of arousal I got from those bottles as a focus point of thinking. To me it was the psychological point for me to totally shut-off, and to psychologically put myself above them. Though physically I was often battered, my emotions and confidence stayed in tact.

Unfortunately I no longer had these sensations when the soft-drink companies changed to rocket bottom bottles in 1990. The plastics are much, much thicker, and the plastics are much harder. I've been sending letters to soft-drink companies to revert back to these older bottle designs, but it seems the chances of that happening are one in a billion. So you could say, the last time I felt euphoria was back in 1990.

oh, hell, I just clean anything that makes me feel icky. I get in there and clean it, scrub it back to the actual surface of what ever is dusty, sticky ,dirty ,smelly. .I have a handheld steamer cleaner (no chemicals, thank you! pure water steam!) I have had for years that gets every little morsel of crud that was ever there, root it out and what ever was icky is now as shiny brand spanking new like it was when it was first constructed. I am relentless about that stuff.
I still remember the face on my father, who took me for an excursion on some ancient train when I was four, went looking for the missing me, and there I was in an unbeliveably filthy station bathroom merrily determined to clean the stools as I had spotlessly cleaned the sinks . . .

And don't get me started on laundry! I insist on every load as soft and supple of Egyptian cotton (the longest fiber) for the silkiest feel with the breatheability of cotton or rayon ...
oh, yes. (gasp, sigh) I know what you mean, star stuffing and Amik. Sensual sensations.

On the negative side, since child hood, over head lights have made me scream my lungs out. I have torcheres for indirect light and have an inverter over my over head light at my office.

Merle

Hi, I can relate to alot of what you say, my biggest problem for years was worrying about my sight and thought that was the reason for many of my insecurities.... love the word "emotional avalanches" my emotions have always been a little like being on a roller coaster and then when aspergers hit, everything started to make sense, but also lost myself for awhile... can read part of my journey on this link: Making Sense - last update July 2008
http://asplanet.info/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=129

Hey, asplanet, that is a very good account that you have written, wow! so many of the things again I can relate to. I've always wanted to drive a car, even my parents showed me when I was fifteen, but the fact of driving out of the drive-way on to the road would totally freak me out. Today I'm still the same, as the need for concentration on so many aspects of driving would put me into; again; sensory overload, as like you put it, so many tasks at hand to be done at the same time, watching the flow of traffic, judging speed, noting road signs, weather conditions, blah, blah, blah,,,,, you know. Also you noted the issue with riding a bike. My chances of ever riding a bike are zilch, as I have no balance, however I have no problem riding a tandom, being the back seat rider (literally). I did this with my family, when my father took the family to see his family in Holland in 1983.

You also note things about conversations, as I don't have many issues with getting detailed with things too much. However from time to time I can say inappropriate things. It never happens often, when it does, it can be a very messy situation.... the reality of saying something totally irrelevant at a given moment, can really annoy some-one, even when within myself there was no malice meant.

I'm doing a course at the moment in music, and a few weeks ago as a project, the class had to make it's own myspace account. All of us have our own myspace accounts, but I joked on one particular guys profile, who has dark brown characters on a black background. We were discussing colour schemes, and I joked, "and may I suggest, not to use black in black, like xxxxx's has", a spin on AC-DC's "back in black" song. xxxxx was very annoyed as infanities came out. I broke out in a sweat, and felt very sick for the rest of the after noon from the embarrassment. Though the rest of the class wasn't to pleased about his language either, I still felt horrible that my asperger's could still catch me out like that. What made it somewhat worse to, is that the teacher told me that he was of dark skin, and may have totally misunderstood the joke. Thinking now that I most probably said a racist thing made me very upset, and that night I had no sleep, as the episode worried me very much.

The upshot was that xxxxx and I built bridges again, but am still worried about it as it could be in a month, or within another year that it will happen again, and when it does happen, again it's gonna be uncomfortably embarrassing.

How we speak and see things can be different from NTs, the biggest problem is often they always want us to talk and say things in there terms. They very rarely try and understand from our point of view... but the problem with this is we are always having to over think about what we say and often being perfectionist we pick up and worry about things that other may not notice, I also sense when things are not quite right and can worry and over analyze the situation until I get it right and sort out the problem, that quite often the NTs have created, but misunderstood me. So is what we say "inappropriate" or just not understood.