SENSORY PROBLEMS- Do share yours

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Sight - I ALWAYS wear sunglasses outside. Not sure if it counts for sensory because I can't imagine anyone thinking that the sun isn't bright... but now, come to think of it, I do see a lot of people who don't wear sunglasses. Hmm.


Sound - Loud sudden sounds in an otherwise quiet place drive me nuts. I'm super jumpy, so anything really unexpected makes me leap out of my skin and it's sort of painful. The worst one is LOUD clanging dishes or pots, like when someone carelessly tosses them into the sink or stacks them without being gentle. It makes people laugh that I'm jumpy and I guess thats OK, but most times they just can't understand that the sounds hurt me! It's quite unpleasant.


Touch - I LOVE physical touch with people, but only a select few. Like maybe less than 5 total and a few are kids. Anyone else and it's jarring and unpleasant for me. Also, unexpected touch is the WORST and makes me jump out of my skin. I always twitch and recoil when a family member tries to pat me on the shoulder or something as they walk by. I think I offend people by jerking and acting like it's painful, but again, they can't understand that it IS a painful sensation.

I had a friend before who I taught to say "I'm going to touch you now" before she touched me. She (endearingly) thought it was hilarious and quirky but I was super grateful because I could relax knowing she'd never touch me unexpectedly!

I have issues with everything but taste and with varying degrees. I'm a fairly adventurous eater and will try new foods. I won't try insects (knowingly), or organ meats such as kidneys, brains, etc. Yuck.

Sight:

I'm least sensitive with but do generally wear sunglasses outdoors. Flickering fluorescent lights can drive me up a wall.

Touch:

Soft touch is too much. On occasion my kids have run their open palms over just the hairs on my forearms for some reason (I'm not overly hairy so maybe it's just a curious touch thing for them) and I tell them to stop. I don't like that feeling at all.

I'm particular about my clothes. Clothing tags touching my skin....bye bye clothing tags!
Interestingly, I've conditioned myself to wear wool shirts in the colder months (up to nine months of the year where I live)and don't mind that.

I'm sensitive to hot and cold. Stepping into a cold shower, tub, etc is very harsh to the point of being temporarily excruciating.

Sound:

Sound is the big one for me. It's all about sound. I was diagnosed about then years ago through a professional audiologist exam to have hyperacusis. The world is too loud for me. We humans create such noise pollution!

I own many pairs of passive noise cancelling ear protectors that I use at work, in the car and around the house often. I also wear earplugs often.

Also, if I'm at home where I should be free from sudden loud sounds, I must let my guard down because sudden very loud jarring sounds (e.g. someone dropping a pot on the floor, etc) I scream and bellow as an uncontrollable instant reaction which is jarring to my family. Thankfully that doesn't happen often.

Actually, I picked my WP user name Magna as it's a Latin word for LOUD.....

At church, the music is really loud, specifically bass sounds and drums. It's really uncomfortable for me, but I love singing along, so you can see my dilemma... screechy mikes are my name, and loud crowds wipe me out. After church, I'm wasted. I have zero energy left.

Certain smells make me feel physically sick, specifically lawn chemicals/weed killer/fertilizer. My mom hired a lawn treatment company to renovate our lawn. They sprayed something on it that made me feel horrible. The smell seemed to penetrate my body. The rest of my family seemed to have no problem with it, but I didn't even want to go home from the gym because I knew I would feel sick!

Whoops! I meant to say, screechy mikes are my BANE not my name!

okay. so
SOUND.
my bane and salvation. my ears are oversensitive, both as part of autistic buildup, and as a compensation for my degraded sight. many a sound will drive me in meltdown instantly. especially shound of my kid's tantrum yelling. but also sound is my way to orient in enviroment, which is why i never wear any earmuffs when i am outside. also, music of my chosing is like well, a rebreather mask for somebody who cant breath normal air. sustains my life.

touch/proprioception.
i am in constant need to feel my own body, which is why i keep minor movement on, exept if in public, where i do my best to not. as to touch, very much depends on who and how. some touches can melt me down. some can pick me up. generally i am a hug addict (but only with very certain ppl), luckily so is my kid xD UNLUCKILY she likes to make loud noises in my ear when we hug(

smell
my smell sense is somewhat a mystery. it must have originally been oversensitive, then i had it fried with repeated overstimulation. i cant smell certain array of things. i can very much smell much else. LUSH shop, f**k it, i go different aisle. i cant be 50 paces near that place without a gas mask. my kid's body smell is a bliss. and well, et cetera. what wasnt fried is clearly oversensitive.

temperature.
extreme sensitive. there is a very narrow window of external temperature where i feel comfortable. otherwise, if both temperature around my body, and that of air i inhale, is wrong, and it usually is, well. im ouch. i use very hot shower for stimming and solving problems with my fried spine aches too. and need to alwlays have a window be opened, or i panick in closed room. it suffocates me. also i wear a straw hat at all sunny summer days, to prevent heating of my head by sun. it feels like being pushed into ground. or a hood at non summer, to not look too weird, ya.

sight.
my eyes are one of my weak spots, in terms of not doing their job properly. also, the same hat helps with too bright sun, but i dont wear sunglasses, because my normal glasses would get in the way, and cant afford special sunglasses with correction. on the upper side i dont have those issues with blinking, and a well-tuned stroboscope is fun to me.

taste
some textures of food are bad. generally there should just NOT be any sort of skin or fat on the meat, or i'd never be able to eat it. also, certain tastes really stim. which is why comfort eating is a big issue of mine, one im not solving.

sense of surrounding
ya, weird thing. i can sense things without touching, seing or hearing them. i allways know if somebody is behind my back, even if they are very quiet, and it totally drives me nuts. i forbid to be there, and my kid often would try to break that rule. i can sense the room with my eyes closed. cant explain how it works. something not human. something outside x5 sensorum. anybody else with that? (and ya here is the informational cocooning i had described before in other topic. i sense it)

tags on shirts are irritating/itchy/scratchy. acrid-tasting and smelling stuff - cucumbers and olives especially are nasty to me in this regard. eating fat on meat is a no-no. grease is a no-no. rancid oils are a BIG NO-NO. cigarette and cigar smoke are nasty, burning stuff likewise. harsh sounds with lots of sawtooth waves and spikes in the sound wave. penetrating sounds that are like a laser beam to my ears. sharply percussive sounds that are like a jackhammer to my eardrums. temperatures consistently above about 70 are too much for me as I dislike the sticky slimy oily greasy smelliness of sweating. BO I can handle for only about a millisecond. strobing lights make my brain fuzzy. bright lights are too harsh for my eyes to handle for more than a few seconds. solid gray is depressing and sometimes disorienting, solid matte black likewise. i don't like being crowded for any length of time. i don't enjoy heights unless i'm on a plateau. i don't enjoy having to balance on something precarious.

Sounds, tapping, movement while I’m trying to eat (I just end up giving up) lately lights flickering any crowd noise on television ie sport, political chat shows, the sound of electricity.

But my favourite thing is sitting on the floor of my shower it calms me blocks out the world blocks out the sound happiness is.

Sound: Every time I listen to music with earbuds or headphones, I need to take a break after a few minutes because my ears start to hurt a little and feel hot. If I'm in an area where the music or just the noise in general is too loud for me, I cover my ears with my fingers discretely or leave the place for a little until my hears feel. Loud noises hurt my ears.

Taste: When it comes to food, I'm very picky despite the fact that I'm 19. I don't like foods that are bitter, feel wet, slimy, too sweet, or too spicy. If I eat any food that I don't like, I have a gag reflex that makes me feel like throwing up and then my eyes get all watery.

Touch: I like to wear loose fitting clothing. I like wearing stretchy skinny jeans , yoga legging/pants, athletic shorts, hoodies, Adidas pants, sweatpants and sneakers. I hate tight pants because they feel like a straightjacket for my legs. I like to be able to move around.

Smell: I can smell things from far away (further than most people) and I can even detect the slightest or most discreet smells. My dad used to call me a bloodhound because of this when I was kid LOL

Sight- I wear glasses because I can't see from far away.

Sound-
I don't like television. Sometimes I can't stand music from a radio or from very loud microphones.

Sight- I still don't like television. I like a bright room. Sometimes I'm picky about the kind of artificial light. I love fire and sunlight.

Smell-
I hate the smell of tobacco smoked and in it's form before being rolled or smoked. Trash burning is a little annoying.

Touch- I like touch a lot. I don't like wearing certain clothes though.

Taste- I don't think I have much a problem with that.

relate on tobacco. HATEHATEHATE. and too many ppl do that with reckless abandon, breaking any existing rules of DONT do that around people (even around kids!! !)

I'm most sensitive to sound, incredibly oversensitive. I feel my ears hurt from too much sound and too loud which is funny because I listen to a lot of loud, heavier music . In periods of my life in which I am extra sensitive I even avoid wearing headphones especially outdoors when I need to turn up the volume a lot to hear the music properly. I pay attention to sounds nobody else really hears too unless they stop and listen because I tell them to such as the neighbours talking a bit louder than usual, it disturbs me greatly. Before concerts I have anxiety because of the loud volume. I avoid any place where they play loud music. If i'm at a restaurant with a loud volume due to many people talking at once I can tolerate it and don't think much of it but I almost always have a tension headache later. I always react to sensory overload with tension headaches, I can also get incredibly tired and zone out a lot.

Next is vision. Bright lights especially outdoors hurt my eyes and make them tear up. Flashing lights are very disturbing as well.

My third is touch. I cannot stand when people touch me unexpectedly such as greeting me with a hug - even a handshake - or putting their hand on my shoulder or something, just a touch like that makes me flinch and feel uncomfortable. I can greet close friends with a hug but I prefer not to. In a relationship though I on the contrary crave touch and want to be close to my partner as much as possible.

Scents I have no problem with. I don't even usually pay attention to scents at all unless it's like incredibly strong so that everyone would react on it not just me.

Taste is fine, i've never had any problem with not being able to eat certain foods. I have some foods I can't stand and others that I love just like anyone else but i've never been a picky eater, like if I absolutely have to eat a food I don't like I can do it.

I have to look away when I see video/film judder on-screen, it just makes me shudder.

Touch: tight clothes that touch arm pits, leg pits, any of the pits. My skin on other people's skin. Dry, powdery textures like flour, cornstarch, dust, chalk, baby powder, etc. Dry foods like white meat poultry and potatoes. Anything tight on my head. Uneven pressure, watches are a good example.

Sight: over sensitivity to the bright sky outside, I mostly look at the ground when I am outside. Fully exposed light bulbs, especially when you can only see them out of the corner of your eye. Visually cluttered spaces.

Sound: chewing, smacking, slurping. Humming, whistling, passive singing. Pots and pans clanging together. People with annoying voices. Loud conversations, continuous laughter. Multiple noises at once. Repetitive coughing, or sniffling.

Smell: brown sugar, walking through the brown sugar section of the store I have to stop breathing through my nose. Medical smells. Ketchup. Pickles and olives. The smell that comes out of the men's washroom.

I hate being in large crowds because that right there covers a couple of issues of mine--loud noises and being in the middle of people with hardly any room to get out and walk by myself. I need lots of breathing space, and crowded places aren't exactly conducive for getting that.