Sensory overload?

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That out of key stuff probably bothers everyone, so probably does backfire, guns, balloons, screaching tires, and annoying alarms. The smell of cigarette smoke, those tar covered joints they put in houses, burnt smells, and some gases. My mom drove around in her car for months and when I got in to drive once something stank. She had something leaking in her car engine and it was spraying into the passenger cabin. I could not believe nobody ever smelled that, when I smelled it immediately. It was one those that even stung my eyes, that is when a smell is real bad. I had to keep the window open even though it was cold out at the time until I got it back.

You can play music or something so sounds do not bother as much smells stick to stuff and linger.

That clothing stuff is the same for me. I don't understand how anyone could like wool, it scratches. You might as well be wearing sandpaper. I think I only wore a ring twice for breif periods. My thing is not so much comfort as concern about getting it off again. Necklaces can be irriating, which I maybe wore once or twice. I had cross, but it pretty much sits in my drawer. I don't like stiff colors either, its like I can feel the starch in them. Too much Celine Dion maybe... What do you mean by oils? Who would wear oil? Is that what ancient Romans cleaned with? Skin lotion is fine, I would dry up and dehydrate without them.

Wool is one of my nightmares.

I'm not sure if this is what you mean by whispering, but I absolutely can not stand it when someone tries to whisper in my ear. I always jerk back, as I can not stand the closeness and the feeling of their breath against my eardrum.

Whispering is *very* annoying! I can't understand it. (it takes enough effort to understand normal speaking, whispering forget about it...)

I could never figure out how to whistle, the only sounds my lips could ever produce was the sound of air being exhaled, the same with snapping fingers, no matter how hard I tried, or how much someone showed me how to do it, I was never able to get it.

Anyways, back to whistling... On the weekends, when I'm at home, my mom cleans the house every saturday. During the whole time she does this, she has to whistle, not anything in particular, but random notes. Despite me being in a basement room with wood and cinder blocks between me and any noise sources, her whistling is easily audible to me, and the hollowness of her whistling sounds to me like the screeching made by someone running their fingers across a blackboard. It dosen't matter how faint it is, it's typically unbearable for me, and I have to pull a christopher boone by burying my face in something and moaning to myself to block out the noise.

It took me awhile to get whistling down, but I cannot do it with my fingers.

Does anybody else ever hear a tone when it is absolutely silent?

Fabrics that I also hate are tweed and velvet, I can't bear the texture of either.

I forgot one smell that really annoys me. Final net or any spray that has an alcohol aerosel scent. When that is sprayed I can't even breath. I call them oxygen-killers because it feels like they suck all the oxygen out of the air.

I know what you mean, Epimonandas, I have the same problem.

I also can't stand the smell of dryer sheets. I remembered that just now because I had to do my laundry today . As soon as I am through with them, I bury them at the bottom of the trash, preferrably outside of my bedroom, because the smell clogs up my nose.

Epimonandas wrote:

What I mean by oils? Where do I begin? When cooking I'm constantly washing my hands when touching meat products (which is a good thing) but whenever I touch anything with vegetable, peanut or olive oils on them I also need to wash (I wash up roughly 10+ times during the preparation of a small meal). Also the oils from oranges, lemons and limes send my system into "red alert". Perfumes and cologne, salves, vaseline and yes, even lotion. I don't mind it on the back of my hands.....just not on my palms. (watching me put on lotion without using the palms of my hands is really quite comical) The feeling of oily or greasy substances on my palms is the same feeling some get when they hear nails on a chalkboard.....even saying this phrase, I know some are cringing. I cringe just thinking of anything oily on my hands.
I'm alot like "Monk" when it comes to shaking hands although it's not germs I'm worried about. I shake hands with someone and feel natural oils on their skin or heaven forbid, lotion and I'm running straight for a nearby sink or a moist (not oily) hand wipe. Any chips, popcorn or snacks with oil on them, if I'm not able to clean my hands....I just pass them up. Even with all of the washing and cleaning I do, my hands seem to stay fairly soft (amazingly). Okay, I hope I've explained myself......I'm feeling quite strange right about now

Don't feel strange. I wear my stepmom's surgical gloves when cooking!

My dad makes some sort of squeaky smacky sound with his lips and it bugs me to the point where I feel about 10 shivers down the left side of my body. ARGH!

What sorts of problems fall under sensory issues? I am not sure if these would but I toss them out as possibles.

Touch - adversion to: Wool, starched clothes, suits, brand new stiff clothes, (when younger, constantly adjusting underclothes, despite company in), human waste, needles, overly sensitve eyes, my mom told me that I could not touch a dog or let it llck me (though I don't that so much anymore, I wash my hands before I eat, though not just because of dogs)

Sound - adversion to: silence (I hear a high pitched tone if there is no noise), low continous and monotonous tones, sudden pops, off key singing,

Smell - adversion to: alcohol aerosols, final net, human waste, those tar joists flimsy things used in construction,

Sight - adversion to: human deformity, catapillars, vomit (crossover with smell), human waste, virtually microscopic dirt on dishes (if there is anything, even the size of a period on the dish, I can not eat or drink from it)

Taste- adversion to: animal fat, stringy foods (like those things in green beans, which I can eat provided they are not dense), peals, really chewy, beef or pork in a soup, skin (as in non-oscar meyer brand bratwursts), my mother said I used to hate milk (though I have to drink everyday now)

That is all I can come up with at the moment. Feel free to use this format for those that want to express their sensory issues.

Last edited by Epimonandas on 09 Dec 2004, 12:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

You may want to do some research on tinnitus. It is a condition defined by hearing a sound (usually ringing) in the ear when there is nothing producing that sound.

I get it occasionally. My grandmother has it, and I think my father is getting it as well. It is associated with hearing loss, but I think it can probably occur without it, as well. I think in my case the cause is usually blocked airways (I have nasal passage and sinus trouble, much like Mish) that cause an odd vacuum effect in my head.



I can't eat anything "slimey." I refused to eat bananas up until about three years ago, because they were too "wet." Cucumbers took me a long time to get used to, and I still can't eat the ones with a lot of seeds in the center. Tapioca is incredibly disturbing.

I guess that's more texture than taste, though.

Good grief... sensory overload: story of my life. OTOH I crave stimulation so it's a constant internal conflict between too little and too much.

The texture of wool never bothered me so much as the fact that I'm deadly allergic to it. *wachoo!* When I was still learning how to speak I've been told that I used to call the toe seam in socks "sock bones" and to this day I can't walk around without the sock bones on top of my feet. Otherwise I'm like a cat with tape on the bottom of its paws.

High pitched noises don't bother me so much as high amplitude wide spectrum ones. The sort that resemble, but aren't quite, white noise. Examples include cars, vacuum cleaners, fans, shower pipes. I often wear earplugs when I go out on the streets because the sound of a car passing by about 3 feet away at 40 miles per hour is sometimes too much to bear. Oddly the sound of wind does not bother me; usually it has a clearly identifiable tone, and plus well... um... it's wind. Loud centers of conversation do bother me, though it usually takes a high school cafeteria to get up there in amplitude. Generally I just swim in it enjoying the company, until I need to give my poor washed out ears a break.

Bright sunlight, I have actually had an optometrist tell me my eyes are particularly sensitive to it. He went on to say that I probably should wear sunglasses regularly, or I might have some problems later on in life as my eyes accumulate damage. I have never been more grateful to an optometrist in my life: prescription sunglasses and a shaded hat and I can actually work and move around in complete sunlight without constantly squinting, shielding my eyes and hiding in the shade. On the bright side I can see pretty well in low lighting, but that might just be mom worrying that I'll go blind from eyestrain if I don't turn on the reading light.

One odd thing: caulk. Fingers on a chalkboard don't bother me, nor metal on glass. But the sheer shuddering and total revulsion I get from just lightly scraping my fingernail along caulk, like the kind of cement they use to seal double paned windows at my old elementary school... I used to do it just to marvel at the near physical reaction I had to that combination of touch and sound. For years after that school, all I could remember was the revulsion, the horrible conflicted feeling the sound provoked. Finally I managed to remember it was the caulk, and reproduce it even now.