I don't find sensory input painful, just agitating.
Over the past year I've been doing research on ASD and I seem to fit all the criteria. However I'm not sure on high sensitivity. All stories I've heard have the aspie feeling physical pain but I've never experienced this.
With sound I can tolerate it and even ignore it however if I'm in a bad mood or feeling agitated a seem to pick up noise better and everything seems more "intense" for lack of a better word.
A good example was the other day. I live in the tropics so it was ungodly hot and humid which I cannot stand, so I was feeling really agitated and edgy. I missed my bus and walked several km in the hot sun to try and catch the next one. When I got there a wasp attacked me. After I had got my errands done I went to the games store to browse and just chill out a bit. Group of noisy kids walk in. At this point every noise made me cringe and jolt inside and I just wanted the day to end.
Light: No major sensitivity here. In fact as a really little kid I used to love looking directly into lights and squinting my eyes (try it, it's pretty cool) .
Taste. One I'm the most curious on. As a kid I was a VERY picky eater. I liked corn, potato meat, bread, pasta and some dairy products . One reason I hated most vegetables besides the horrid taste was the way my mom would cook them. Over boiled to the point of being soft and mushy; that mixed with them tasting like methane made dinner a long and torturous experience every night. Once I even vomited around the age of 6-7 eating a beatroot salad sandwich. As I got older I came to tolerate and even enjoy a good deal of vegetables however I still cannot handle cooked tomato and cucumber that sloppy texture.
Though I love cold deserts even if they are bit sloppy though I still prefer them to be firm. Hated putting milk on my cereal and even now I only put a dash on so it isn't too soggy.
Is any of this fitting with hyper sensitivity or was I just a really picky eater?
Smell: I seem to always be the last to notice certain smells.
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Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 125 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 99 of 200
You seem to have both neurodiverse and neurotypical traits
Since Autism is a spectrum disorder, it's really foolish to think any "symptom" must match "as described" on the list.
Lots of sights, sounds, smells, etc. bother me, but enough to be "painful" is more an issue of how well I feel at the time. If I'm tired, it's more of an issue than when I'm rested.
I had a back injury back in '98. I was suffering from sleep deprivation as I could not get a proper night's rest. At first, I could manage. By the end of four months, I was snapping any stressor in my life...and I didn't know I was autistic back then. Of course, this is true with NTs. It's easier to marshal the strength to endure something when you're rested.
Pain is also a bit of a spectrum. I love it (sic) when a doctor asks how much something hurts on a scale of 1 to 10. I need frame of reference to gauge pain. Lots of things that hurt I just endure and eventually give it a low number. It's unpleasant, but it's bearable. Something that gets a 10 would be a ripped fingernail or a paper cut because those trigger a lot of pain receptors even though they are minor injuries.
I perceive sensory inputs much the same way. I think of it more as a filtering issue than being overly sensitive.
When calm and rested I can tolerate a bit of noise in short doses, I don't like it but I can block my reaction to it.
When tired or being subjected to excessive noise or stimulus I start to get agitated and get to the point where the noise must stop or else I'll lose control and say or do something I'll regret. Generally, I just leave the area thats causing the problem.
The noise is not physically painful to me but it triggers a similar response. Its not that easy to explain how it feels only the reaction to it.
I'm not too bad with light but bright light can be tiring for extended periods. Flashing or strobing lights bother me a lot more.
As a child I hated mushy foods or strange textures. I'm not so bad as an adult but I'm still pretty picky. There are some things I just can't tolerate eating such as Avocado or Banana - YUCK!
Pain is a strange thing to qualify. I also don't really understand how to rate a level of pain experience on a 1-10 scale - how do you define a 10? I have had a couple of things that have happened to me that makes me think that I don't experience pain as strongly as most people. Mild low level pain can be really irritating.
So what you've described does still fit within ASD type criteria.
