Growing up with no-one understanding your sensory overload.

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I'm not sure about others, but this has been extremely hard for me.

My main problem is hearing. Touch is the second worst offender for me, then smell.
But to cut a long story short I was born with one normal ear and one extremely sensitive ear.

This ear has caused me a lot of grief and gotten me a lot of telling offs.

Certain people's voices trigger an extremely uncomfortable physical sensation throughout my body. They are usually softly spoken voices and "ssssss" sounds.

If you can't imagine it, imagine a fly softly walking over your skin. That's the feeling I get inside me, and it concentrates on the inside of my ear.

I've gotten told off for refusing to let people sit on a certain side of me because of their voices. Once mum was talking in a very soft angry voice and I had a meltdown and yelled "SPEAK NORMALLY OR LEAVE ME ALONE!" at her. Of course It wasn't understood.

How are you supposed to make people understand? I want to donate my body to science so then they can see if I have 3 times as may hairs on my cochlea or something.

I have the same problem with loud high pitched sounds in which it feels like an auditory assault.
But people whispering in my ear gives me the sensation you describe....I just wanna smack people who try to whisper in my ear.
But if one ear is more sensitive than the other, just explain to folks that whichever ear is very sensitive, and to please stand on your other side when talking to you.

Have you thought of using an earplug in that ear??

Jojo

Yeah. I'm going to get some.

Thanks for replying.

Your welcome, they make earplugs for women...I use those cuz the regular sizes hurt my ears, so you may want to look into that also

Jojo

Oh, I don't know how many times I've asked my mother to stop yelling, and she insists she's not yelling. Apparently defining her tone of voice is more important than the fact that she's hurting my ears.

I also overload easily from some smells (perfumes, some soaps, cologne, cigarette smoke). Growing up, I remember every time we'd get into the car, my parents would immediately light up and I'd lose it from the smell. My mother knows I have an extremely strong reaction to this but continues to do it when I'm in a car with her.

Dealing with sensory overload every day is the main reason I'm always exhausted. There are certain sounds that just make me want to curl into a ball and stick everything I can reach into my ears to block out the sound, and loud noise causes me physical pain in my chest and head as well as my ears. Other sounds just make my skin crawl and I get this weird itch in my ears. I have issues of some sort with pretty much every sense and spend most of the day either slightly uncomfortable or occasionally in complete pain. Nobody asks if I'm ok because when I'm in distress I sort of shut down from the neck up and can't move my face or talk or cry, so when it's at it's worst I can't even let people know there's something wrong. Earplugs only help so much but they're always good to have available.

As for how to make people understand, the best way I've found so far is a 2 part explanation. I tend to go for a simple "my senses are much more sensitive than other people's so things that don't seem to bother others cause me pain" then elaborate on what specific things are problems for me. I have a few friends who've tried to remember which things are problems for me and if we're out and about and something happens that they know distresses me, they try and get me away from it. However, there are people who will never understand or care much. People like that are usually the type of people who hear whatever they want to hear, so "certain things cause me discomfort" gets translated to "I don't like certain things and say they cause me pain so I can be manipulative" in their minds. I really can't understand people like that, but unfortunately they exist and I've encountered loads of them.

Yeah no one really did get it........I always just got told.
'stop complaining.'
'quit being so selfish'
'all you ever do is complain'
'quit being so sensitive'
'you're just too sensative that's all'
ect.

that did wonders for my self esteem knowing all I ever did is complain and I was horribly selfish(even though I tend to put others first), kind of added to my negetive self image.

I can kinda relate to your situation. Both my ears are really sensitive at times. Like, if someone turns the car stereo volume up too loud, I start to get this sick feeling in my stomach. I hold my hands over my ears. Usually I calmly ask my mom/brother/whoever's driving to tuen the volume down, and they do. I just explain that the stereo is to loud and it's making me feel sick to my stomach. I am also sensitive to touch. I hate people touching me, or bumping into me,or anything of the sort. If it happens in public,I try my best to ignore the touch. Nobody who knows me well enough touches me because they know I don't like being touched.

My main issue is tactile.

'I didn't hurt you! I barely touched you!' etc.

Barely touching is the worst type.

I'm not sure if this counts as sensory overload but certain sounds or scents (especially if I associate them with something bad or can't quite identify what they are or where they are coming from) send me into a panic attack. Some of these sounds and scents are faint enough that other people can't hear or smell them, or at least say they can't.

Whispering drives me crazy! I hate it, but somehow I ALWAYS get stuck right in the middle of the group of girls that whisper constantly. I want to turn and yell at them to eather SHUT UP OR AT LEAST TALK IN A NORMAL VOICE! That or I really want to stand up and ask the teacher loudly if I can move because people can't stop whispering for 10 mins! But I can't push my self to do that so I end up laying my head down and plugging my ears untill it starts to hurt, though it's not like anyone ever notices.

Also at the fair at my town I had a sensory overload and got called sefish because I started to cry. I was crying because there was a lot of people, music, flashing lights, and it was dark so the lights were even worse.

I don't like loud sounds except for my music which I turn up as loud as I can to block out everything else.

I never knew that sensory overload could happen; I was always told that I was too sensitive or hearing/smelling things.

I have perfect pitch; music that is flat, sharp, or otherwise out of tune cause me physical pain.

Yes, I suffered quite a few smacks upside the head as a kid when my parents thought I was just throwing a typical tantrum. Still happens today, only without the physical abuse. Now it's just verbal abuse. I'm moving up in the world.

I grew up not knowing what the deal was with me and did my best to ignore things that I found unpleasant, not giving them attention.

Now that I am diagnosed it is very apparent to me what slows me down, shuts me up, and makes me so incredibly irritable and distressed. I am at an impasse of sorts because now that I notice my sensitivities they bother me more than they used to as they influence my conscious, day-to-day. Intentionally shutting off the senses without anything triggering it can make me much more sensitive when an overload occurs. I've stopped doing that!

The sensory sensitivities vary for me. Some days will be easy going with little dissonance throughout the day. You can only go so long though in a cacophony of sensory over-stimulation before you start getting overwhelmed. I would have different symptoms even though at the time I didn't know they were a result of ASD. Migraines, panic attacks, depression, anxiety, lethargy, all of that.

I was always sensitive to bright lights and the "Hiding from the Cars Night-Game" my sister and I used to play while sitting in the backseat of the car of a sudden made complete sense - that and the migraines I would get if I got so engrossed in what was on my monitor that I would forget that the sun had set, without turning on the room light.

Sound can be any sudden, loud, abrupt noise. Sound that I'm prepare for doesn't 'jolt' me. If there are too many sounds vying for my attention I can't multitask them and I get frantic, especially when I have someone on the phone who needs information, and another person off the phone talking to me.

Touch is something I have only recently been understanding. It's one reason why I always have my feet on my chair - I hate the feeling of hardwood floors or carpet sometimes, feels like vertigo on my soles. Similarly I've been noticing I don't like the feeling of high-gloss papers (environmentally unconscious) or heavy recycled paper products (environmentally conscious). Working in an office as a clerk was hell! I compensated by having rubber finger stubs on forefinger and thumb at all times! Usually the cheaper the quality of the product is the more I hate touching it! It's a good sixth sense. Cotton is also a sore subject. I hate grabbing the wrong towel in the morning, the one without fabric softener on it that sucks all the moisture out of my hands.

I have sensitive taste too as far as - I hate bland food. Everything I make is heavily spiced-seasoned-dressed. I don't enjoy eating otherwise.

I couldn't understand prior to diagnosis why my energy level in comparison to my peers was devoid of any semblance of normalcy. "I'm tired." "We're all tired." Those are the kind of responses you receive - so I thought it was simply me being petulant, odd. I worried that they would think I was being a miserable sot and/or the manipulative-attention sort. I had a weekend job and even though it was only 15 hours a week, when I got home, I couldn't do anything except feed myself I was so exhausted mentally - my studies in college suffered as a result.

It's very much an invisible thing. I think the part of ASD that is the most exhausting is dealing with the emotions of others, especially when there's confrontation or discord, and lots of yelling.

This is a huge problem for me. I lose track of both conversations and get panicky because I am afraid that I'll not make any sense particularly to the person on the phone. My hand gestures do the caller no good (obviously) It's nice to know I'm not alone in this.

I have also noticed that I can read while listening to music but only if the music is non-lyrical (e.g., most techno or classical)
Lydia

I had a meltdown at a wedding and ended up crying and eventually managed to lock myself in the bathroom and lie down for a while on my own. It was noise that did it as so busy with so many people I didn't know well (husband's side of the family) and then the disco started and you could hear it even shut away in the hotel room. I felt better and went back, but realised I couldn't say I felt overwhelmed by the noise and number of people, but they seemed OK with my husband's explanation about needing to lie down. I feel guilty that I hid away for over an hour as people did miss us and it was a little strange.