Sensitivity to Light, Smell, and Sounds?

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oh! so that is what I am seeing! I thought I was seeing auras or something because everyone always looks like they have a blurry yellow line all around them at night, and in low light in the day. I always wondered!

Merle

I am hypersensitive to sounds and to smell, but not to light, only when someone switches a light on when it's been dark for a long time, but hey that's normal. I am also sensitive to touch as well.

Yup, same as me. Nobody else I've mentioned this too has shared this experience except for people who have grand mal epilepsy and only then just before a seizure. If I am in low light all the time I see the haloes all the time - a constant mild seizure? I don't know, it's very puzzling but otherwise seems benign, although trying to absorb what someone is saying when they have an eerie, flaming glow around them is difficult!

Well then have you heard of this book? It might be a better fit for you:

"The Highly Sensitive Person" by Elaine N. Aron, Ph.D, research psychologist, university professor and psychotherapist. She studied temperament, stimulation, arousal thresholds, stress & coping mechanisms, and says that 15-20% of a population or a species is more easily stimulated (and overstimulated) than the rest of the herd. That proportion seems true in all higher animals (it's useful to have a few who are aware of subtle signs.)

But with our culture's insensitive bias, we don't get the respect we deserve for being smarter and more aware than the average bear. I have the book; it's very gentle and validating
Anyway, wikipedia and her site [http://www.hsperson.com/] have other research, and her subsequent books, The HSP In Love, and The HS Child.

Star Wars toys! I have a few; the best was a large X-wing, but lost in a move.
(I'm also very aware of stuff getting to recycling...)
When a siren vehicle goes by, I have to cover my ears and don't see anyone else doing it. And I turn the rear-view mirror down because the lights are too bright at night. And thankfully, most places here (suburban South Jersey) are smoke-free now.

Hey, thanks for the validation! And welcome to WP.

Wow...sheltered and coddled against the big bad world? How did you come to that one?

First of all, simply being allowed to wear a hat and sunglasses indoors, is not asking much. I learned long ago not to care what others thought of me. Personally, I learned to judge people on the content of their character and their abilities rather than their appearance. I don't care if someone dresses a certain way or has lots of peircings or tattoos or whatever. Respect is not given it is earned!

Secondly, I have every right to fight for my own comfort. As I've made clear, or maybe not, I walk away when the surroundings are too overwhelming, even though the simpler solution for me is to change the environment altogether by getting rid of the coffee machines and turning out all of the lights.

I don't knuckle under. I fight for the little man, which is sometimes me. Mostly it has been small groups, minorities, etc. that I am not a part of, but due to my own issues with society, I can relate to.

I believe you have to fight for your right to wear your sunglasses at night. Nobody gets to decide how you make yourself comfortable.

"None but ourselves can free our minds!" -Bob Marley

I have a very big sensitivity to sound. Everything seems amplified a few decibels, even the quietest of sounds. My smell is apparently really good too. However, I am not sensitive to light. I am sensitive to touch, though, and it makes me jump when anyone tries to touch me.

Tim_Tex was not the first to greet me! Boo on you Tim!

I should have included touch as well in the poll. I am always wearing loose clothing and can't stand stuff that isn't soft. I would ensconce myself in Veluxx if it was socially acceptable. I never really considered this odd or different until talking to so many people here.

I also wanted to add to my introduction that I am extremely sarcastic. After over 2,000 posts, some people don't get that and at times I forget to be sensitive to the difficulty some people have getting sarcasm. If I ever offend you, in all likelihood it was not meant that way. Just send me a PM and let me know and I will try and make amends if necessary.

Light and sound are worse, but smells sometimes trigger panic attacks. When I'm tired everything is louder and brighter, and my sense of smell is confused. ("Do I smell smoke? No, it's my popcorn.") If I can hear a certain higher register of sound I know I need a nap to "reset" my system.

Re a Dx - I'll use mine to get an Occupational Therapist with experience in AS. This is where the permission to wear sunglasses will come from. I don't think I'd tell the office about AS, just "I'm fine, it's a small neurological thing that doesn't connect very well, occupational therapy compensates." At least, I hope that would work.

I keep saying and I'll say it again - this book is the best thing I've found -

Too Loud, Too Bright, Too Fast, Too Tight: What to Do
If You Are Sensory Defensive in an Overstimulating World
http://tinyurl.com/34e4ja

Sounds and light

Sudden loud sounds triggers an agressive response.

Once someone at work suprised me and yelled really loud and touched me, I turned around in rage, grabbed him and threw him down on the ground knocking things all over. This was in a restraunt when I wa 17 and during business hours. I was the manager running the night shift also. That put me in an awkward position also.

Lights, bright lights and the such really bother me. I got good night vision and is easier on my eyes. Driving at night is a pain because of the headlights, especially those morons who seem to not to know when to turn off the high beams.

Ditto for me. My rear view mirror is always flipped down for glare and I drive in the left lane exclusively to keep the glare out of my left side mirror. Daytime running lights even bother me.

Bright lights and computer screen glare give me major headaches, that's why I have my computer screen's background as black or blue rather than white. Tobacco smoke is another major irritant, it gives me a headache and makes me feel light-headed.

While noises and lights do not incapacitate me, variations of them do irritate me very much.

I wear ear muffs (the kind for shooting or work enviroments) when vacuuming.
I cover my ears when I flush public toilets (the ones in homes are generally much quieter)
I can't stand cars honking, those car stereos that invade my body with the pulsing of their bass
Those loud whiny kitchen appliances really get to me... again, if at home, I just wear hearing protection
I really dislike public places with lots of people talking all at once... like in restaurants.

I prefer to be in the dark, or the dark with one small light on. I purchased a cheap lamp for work so I could turn all the lights off except for the lamp, to do my work in. I did the same thing when I was in the Army... I would go to the sick-bay (I was a medic), and work on all the medical charts and shot records at night when everyone else was in town getting drunk and what-not. I could have all the lights off except one desk lamp.

When I drive at night, I am so glad to have electric mirrors on my truck doors. I can adjust them down so I don't get the headlights in my eyes. I have these tiny fish-eye mirrors on both so I can see when someone is getting close to me, so I drive fine without the large mirror surfaces blasting light into my eyes.
The big problem there are the cars coming towards me

Bright flashing, strobing lights are something I can always do without. I guess I tend to have pretty good night vision, so I get around in the dark fairly well.

I am particularly sensitive to sounds but very subjectively. I have worked in mainly industrial environments and some machines will stress me in only moments whereas others I learn to deal with, I love music and I like it on the loud side [I want it to sound in balance, as natural as possible if it is acoustic and powerful as hell if it is electric or electronic. I love warm analogue source sound but have almost no interest in digital and in fact find digital sound stressful, particularly if it is loud. For example I can not handle a DJ at a Rave who plays off CD's or MP3's.
I find car stereo's passing the house where all I can hear is the bass pumping and the panels rattling horrible, but if they have a party across the road and I can hear all the sounds I handle it better, well, other than the anxiety of all those people in my proximity but that is off topic, lol.
I find bright light distressing and tiring but have quite excellent night vision, mind you that might be because I have the lungs of a Rasta, lol.
peace j

Sounds and smells, doors banging, dogs barking, alarms anything, I cant stand it, but allways thought this was just a syptom of being a highly senstitive person or anxiety caused by my abusive childhood where the sound of a car door shuting and a front door shutting was the signal my stepfather was home to kick me in the stomach whatever.

The other thing I cannot stand is artificial chemical smells, I drive old cars that smell of oil and leather, new cars make me feel pysically sick just getting into them and those piosonous chemicals leaching out of the plastic.

I'm light-sensitive and some chemicals such as fertilizers and insecticides give me a really bad reaction. Other than that my sense of smell is actually rather poor.
There are some sounds which I find highly annoying, but it's not really a matter of hypersensitivity.

All three (light, smell, sound) to some degree, as well as taste:

a) Taste, smell: I HATE most cheeses. I get nearly get physically sick in Italian restaurants. Cheese is probably the biggest factor in most of my sensory defensiveness. For some reason, (as long as there's some sort of meat on it) I can eat most pizza because I can't really taste the cheese, as well as eat things like Cheetos and cheesecake. But when it comes to aromatic cheeses and restaurants like Maggiano's and Carabba's, I nearly gag. I think's also because I'm sensitive to garlic, so that's a double-whammy.

b) Sound: One of my pet peeves and probably my least favorite sound is the squeaking of wet rubber. If I were to somehow go to hell, I bet my own personal hell would include the constant squeaking of rubber and other high-frequency sounds. I don't let others know how much it affects me, but inside I'm going batshit insane because of how much I hate that sound.

c) Another part of my taste that is unique (and I'm sure many on here can agree) is that I'm sensitive to texture. I mostly prefer crunchier foods with a more distinct physical structure than something just gooey or mushy, unless it's ice cream or something. This is a large part of the reason why I crunch ice too much and even chew on plastic bottle caps. Then again, I have a very strong jaw.

d) Last but not least (at least in terms of entertainment value, haha), I have a strange desire to chew on new leather and even vulcanized rubber whenever I'm in a shoe store or an auto shop of some kind. The thought has literally entered my mind sometimes about how nice it would be just to buy something (preferably relatively cheap) with new leather just so I could chew on it.

I'm willing to bet at least one of the above admissions is something that people w/o AS have NEVER said...thank you for letting me share, because I've never admitted most of this to anyone, lol