How Do You Get People to Understand Sensory Sensitivities?

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One thing I can't stand is if the volume on the scanner at a supermarket is too high!
The beep resonates my ear drum and gives me a bad headache.
I usually have to ask them to turn it down.
I think a good way to show NT's what it is like is to go through our experience with a bad hangover!! !! !

I have yet to find a way to accurately describe this to NTs. Not to mention that they don't realize we deal with it everyday and all day long as a side note to whatever else we are supposed to be doing. Light, sound, and smell can be painful and unexpected touch may give me a heart attack jsut doesn't seem to convey it completely.

My primary sensory problem is to sound. Loud places with lots of random noises are horrible for me. Thankfully my close family understand and don't create an issue out of me not liking to go to certain places or needing to leave at the drop of a hat. Most other people don't really accept or understand it and my repeated refusals to, for example, go out to a busy club or pub for somebody's birthday has lost me a few friends. I've also been called a p**** and various other things because of this problem. Regrettably I've not been able to find a way to adequately communicate how much terror and yea, I suppose, pain this can cause me. I figure those people who are not willing to take at face value what I say about these things are probably not worth my time. Not that that provides a lot of comfort when I end up sitting at home more often than not as a result of this problem and others :/

Ahoy! I am realizing just how many issues I have. Light, Crowds, Noise, just about all of the most common I think. I thought it was just me, I wore sunglasses inside, use white noise generators to help when back ground noise kept me from sleep, Not knowing why they bothered me until being diagnosed with aspie's. These still help at times but I also have found that a low dose of Diazipan helps keep me from getting overloaded as easily. Low dose from a Psychiatrist and it helps. I take them as needed and it took me a little while to know when it was needed to keep from being to late, but it does help at times even after I start stiming from being overloaded. I don't like taking Rx but it works well enough for me to get over it. It may help some others as well. Just a thought and talk to your Dr first. Cheer's!

I carry a couple pairs of foam earplugs in a ziplock in my back pocket at all times.

Also I sleep with a sleep mask and white noise thing. If there's really annoying noise and I'm trying to sleep, I put in foam earplugs, then put on noise canceling headphones and blast white noise through them with an MP3 player.

This is probably one of my biggest challenges but I have learned to be pretty diplomatic about it.

One of the things I can't take is loud music or a loud TV. My husband LOVES these two things. He used to get mad at me when I would ask him to turn stuff down but then I got creative. I know he hates the sounds of crinkling plastic bags so what I did was I explained the way a crinkling plastic bag irritates him is the way loud sounds irritate me but amplified. He got it. It was awesome. Now if he wants to listen to super loud music he will put on headphones or close his door and all is good. If I am sleeping I put on a fan so the white noise blocks out most sounds and both of us are happy!

Hahahaha! (reminds me of Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron")

I just went on a big rant about this very thing--people who don't get, don't want to get, or reject AS--and I just have to say thank you for bringing this up.