Mild, Moderate or Severe Sensory Issues?

Post Reply New Topic

Temperature: I can't stand heat or else I start sweating. I have my heater below the comfort zone or else it's too hot and my husband thinks our apartment is cold but to me it's just right. I am not sure what temperature I have it on. It's above 50 I know that and I keep it between there and the other line above it.

I cannot stand hot weather either so I go naked in the summer but I leave my panties on of course and my bras. I used to have them off too but not anymore. But with fans blowing now I don't have to take my clothes off anymore.

Coldness, I am hyposensitive to it unless it's really cold like in the 30's or with humidity that makes the air colder. Yeah see above in the first paragraph.

I've been told I like it cool so to me it feels right while to everyone else they are freezing.

Sight: Nearsighted, often have double vision or only one eye open, otherwise normal-- no unusual sensory processing.

Hearing: Trouble figuring out what people are saying (hearing "mumblemumble") and sensitivity to noise. Varies based on my stress level-- baseline mild, can't go to see movies or concerts, noises cause me pain that are loud but not bothersome for other people; can have conversations but people talking in the background is distracting, so I can't parse words at parties and can't stay on topic if there are only a couple of background conversations (but can parse words... from all of them). Under stress significant-- cannot reliably get through a day without overload or pain from this sense, cannot easily parse words but can usually still manage conversations as long as no one uses any words I don't know or am not expecting to hear.

Smell: No significant issues.

Touch: Varies. Worse when tired? I do think it has some influence. Anyway, my wardrobe is restricted partly because I cannot tolerate the feel of most clothing. Periods have required careful choice of products, but are not unbearable with proper care. (The sensory side, anyway.) I count my issues with food texture as a touch issue, rather than a taste issue, though these do not vary with the others and have gone in a rather straight line from severely restricting my food choices (though allowing a number of not-very-healthy processed foods of uniform texture and some healthy options such as most raw vegetables and fruits) to restricting them a little but allowing me to eat a wide variety of foods representative of all styles of cuisine, many of them healthy. (I still cannot eat some things, though, these also being a large number of foods representative of all styles of cuisine. But the big change I see is I've gone from choosing foods because I don't hate them to choosing foods because I like them.) Other people touching me is often an issue, but I can be physically.

Taste: No significant issues, unless you count issues with food texture, which seem unrelated to other tactile issues, as taste rather than touch.

Temperature: I like it cold, but do not consider this an issue. I have a temperature-related stim, however.

Vestibular: Used to be severely hyposensitive. Now normal. I liked being hyposensitive better.

Touch: Severe.
Sight: Moderate to severe.
Sound/smell/taste: Moderate.
---
For sight, my severity varies depending on the day. Sometimes, I can barely sit in a room that has fluorescent lights, while other times, I am merely annoyed/bothered by the lights. But my tactile sensory issues are a big problem, and they control every aspect of my life, from how I dress to how I have to sit. Tactile sensory issues are the #1 thing I hate about Asperger's, and I would get rid of them in a heartbeat, if I could.

Sound: Mild / Moderate
Sight: Mild
Touch: Very Mild
Smell: Severe (Much more severe as a child)
Taste: Strangely enough, not a problem.

_________________
THINGS I LIKE
Parasaurolophus, Plesiosaurs, Dinosaurs, Pterosaurs, Music, Tuna, Chocolate milk, Oreos, Blue things

Parasaurolophuscolobus. Parasaurcolobus. Colobusaurolophus.
....And Nunchucks are my friends.

Sound: Severe. I usually have to wear earplugs to concentrate if there are any noises in the environment at all. Even small noises can distract me and very loud noise are painful especially if I'm tired.

Sight: Moderate. I'm easily distracted by movement in my peripheral vision and I don't like bright light or colours. I'm extremely short sighted so if I remove my glasses I am much more relaxed.

Smell: Severe. I find strong smells extremely distracting and sometimes disturbing. Some smells I find utterly repugnant like urine, sweat or eggs.

Touch: Moderate. I'm quite sensitive to touch but it's easy enough to avoid being overloaded if I have comfortable clothes and shoes.

Taste: Moderate. I usually have mints so I don't get distracted by strong tastes after I've finished eating. I don't get upset by any flavours when I'm eating but a strong after taste can be very irritating.

Balance, vestibular: None. I have extremely good balance and almost never fall over. I can enjoy balancing on moving vehicles like a bus or train.

Temperature: Moderate. I overheat very easily but I don't feel the cold unless it's very, very cold.

Proprioception: Mild. I sometimes bump into things when I'm especially stressed or anxious but I have reasonably good proprioception.

Pain: Moderate. I find pain, even mild pain, to be quite a distraction but I can adapt to a constant level of pain quite easily but not to pulsing pain like with some toothaches.

They're all probably considered severe, but in order from most severe to least severe it's:

Sight
Sound
Smell/Taste
Touch

But somehow that doesn't really get to the heart of what the issues are.

I constantly hear sensory issues described entirely in terms of:

1. How sensitive they are (how much or little of them you can detect).

2. How sensitive they are (how much or little pain or discomfort is caused by the sensory input).

3. Things like misophonia (with all senses), where you're not actually necessarily sensitive to it, but it causes extreme anger or disgust.

But I've noticed that most people I've known with extremely severe sensory issues, don't just have those three sorts of things. We have senses that break up into pieces. We have trouble interpreting sensations at all and just experience the world as an opening of the floodgates to sensation in general, drowning out all idea-thought and other such things. We often have learned to deal with the world in terms of sensory patterns rather than ideas because all the sensory input makes ideas difficult or impossible to sustain very long. We may experience distortions as well. Some of us, despite severe sensory issues, are able to for instance walk into a very very loud concert or dance and simply experience the flood of auditory/tactile (and possible synesthetic) sensation this causes. Because if your brain isn't trying to interpret the world around it, what the sensory issues cause is more an extreme loss of that interpreting ability rather than an "aaagggggggghhhhh I can't hear myself think!" response. So despite intense sound sensitivity I often can handle concerts without earplugs (I know not healthy but I usually forget them). Oddly the only thing that becomes difficult in that situation is the applause. At any rate, there's an entire world of sensory issues that never gets talked about much on these forums so I always mention this in any sensory issues thread I end up posting in. Because what people with this form of sensory issues experience can be quite different than people with only the usual kind (and with often less of it than people with this form have).

Sound: loud sounds can be very dangerous to me. i can faint from the pain in my head, which isn't helped by the fact that my tmj disorder affect my ears strongly. i can't ever go to concerts or most clubs.

when i was 15, i went to a concert and started to lose feeling in various body parts. i thought i was dying or having a stroke. apparently, i experienced sensory overload. that was the worst it's ever been with me losing feeling in more than half of my body but i've experienced it to lesser degrees in the years since. i'm very careful to keep sounds around me in check or get out of a situation where i cant.

Sight: only eye contact makes me extremely uncomfortable

Touch: certain fabrics and textures are extremely grating to me. i have a phobia of tulle. touching it makes me feel ill. usually i can make myself better by touching very soft things, like my favorite plush items or a baby.

Smell and Taste: no issues that i know of

Sight: mild, certain patterns trouble me and I need to look away, but bright and neon lights don't.

Smell: no issues

Taste: medium, can't stand sour food, but that's preety much it.

Sound: severe, certain noises are horrible: vaccums, hair driers, etc. Also people talking is an issue unless I can concentrate on something else (the callcenter is no problem during shifts, but once, I stayed there longer for some gaming and only one person was still on the phone on the other end of the room and it was sooooooo distracting). Bars and other noisy settings arejust not my things, they make me meltdown (work fsor does not, probably because I can hear the user well via the headset). Music immediately catches my attention much more than words.

Touch: high. Seriously, guys and gals, are there no clothes, which are not unbearable? Fleece is worst. Another bad thing are paper napkins and certain kinds of toilet paper (I need the cheap, hard kind). I mean, I have gotten used to it, but I still hate getting (un)dressed because it means that I have to consciously touch these things...

Temperature: I likeit warm, but I guess that is just a preference.

Balance: none

Sound: Moderate to severe, I have to plug my ears if trying to concentrate and focus on something.

Sight: Mild, bright light

Smell: Mostly mild but can become severe with certain chemicals used in cosmetic products.

Taste: None

Touch: Mild, can't stand the feel of wool on my skin. I have always liked the feeling of cool wind and like to have a fan going when every one else is wearing their jackets.

Oh, my order of sensory issues goes like this:

-Taste

-Touch

-Smell

-Sound

-Sight

Sound: Severe, I can't stand loud high frequency sounds. I do like loud music.

Taste: Medium, I can taste things I don't like easily and have a very narrow food preference

Touch: Severe, I hate being touched by others.

Smell : Severe, I can smell things from far away and I find some smell irritating and gives me headache

Sight : Sever , espacially in the morning, when the sun goes straight in your eyes. It gets some tears to my eyes

FOR ME:

Sound: Moderate to severe. It depends rather strongly on the volume and pitch.

Sight: Mild to moderate. Bright lights are mildly annoying, bright sunlight drives me bonkers, flashing lights make me want to scream

Touch: Moderate to severe. I buy clothes based on texture, rather than fashion. I can't stand having rough textures against my skin. Most of my food issues center around texture (gritty specifically, I hate Doritos. With an all consuming passion)

Smell: Moderate. Oddly, 'stinky' smells bother me less. Skunk, poo, stuff like that doesn't bother me nearly as much as perfume. I hate most perfumes, they give me a headache in seconds!

Taste: Mild to non-existant. I have things I don't care for (but who doesn't?) but texture bothers me more (see above)

Taste: Moderate. Ther is a lot of things I cannot eat or drink because they taste horrible to me. I am over sensitive to metal taste in food so stuff like carrots taste horrible.

Hearing. Mild. There are sounds I can't stand like babies crying but not very many

Touch. Moderate: I have like numbed feeling and am very resistent to cold.

Sight: Mild. As far as I know my 20/20 vision is normal. I do not like bright sunlight though

Smell. Severe. If I smell something offensive I will probably throw up. My sense of smell is one I almost wish I didn't have.

Sound: severe. Noises that don't belong in a setting bother me especially, like furnaces, vacuums, loud speaking voices, noise pollution, etc. But this seems to completely disappear when I'm around friends, however- or maybe I just mask it really well. it's weird.

Sight: mild. Fluorescent lights and blinding natural sunlight bothers me, but that's it.

Touch: moderate. i don't like being touched unnecessarily or unexpectedly, especially when there are loud noises going on as well. I'm not too picky with fabrics except I can't STAND polyester anything, it needs to be cotton or not feel like straight-up polyester. Wool is fine as long as it's not scratchy. I don't like liquids that are too cold or things that leave condensation on my skin. I also generally only like warm foods unless they are meant to be cold (like cereal and milk). I don't like cold meals like salad or sandwiches with cold cuts. can't stand potato salad or cole slaw or anything like that, the texture drives me crazy.

Taste: none - there are foods that I cannot eat due to allergies, but i don't really have many sensory issues relating to taste. it has more to do with the texture of foods.

Smell: mild - gross smells bother me, but that's about it. I also don't like scented beauty products, but that's an easy one to avoid.

Does anyone have any suggestions for dealing with the noise issues? I have a very loud family that likes to yell and it's driving me crazy, and they seem to be taking it personally when it's not about them at all, it's just their loud voices. I've also been having a lot of trouble in noisy public places and this hasn't happened for a long time, since I was a child. I just ordered some noise isolating headphones, and have been using earplugs (but they hurt my ears sometimes), so what else do you do? I also have valium but don't like to take it too often. Any suggestions?

Sound is definately my most sensitive sense, but I'm sensitive in many ways.

Sound: Severe - I'm getting antsy just typing on my keyboard.

Sight: Severe - I can't stand going outside sometimes, even if it's overcast (which thankfully, it's overcast quite often where I live)

Touch: Moderate - I can deal with textures, but anything making contact with me that I don't intend to have touching me feels horrible.

Smell: Severe - I'd rather not get into this.

Taste: Moderate - I can handle most tastes, it's mostly the texture of certain foods that can tick me off.

Sound: Severe - CRT TVs on anywhere in the house are headache inducing. Sudden changes in volumes bother me, high pitches bothers me and I can hear them very easily. I hate things labeled ultrasonic because they're not. I've had to walk out of class because of my sound sensitivity because of how bothersome the florescent lights were.

Sight: Moderate to Severe - UV bothers me, flashing lights bothers me, lights behind fans bothers me, headlights in cars can shut me down completely sometimes (so I don't even sit in the front seats of cars, it can from the back seats). When I'm having a bad sensory day then peripheral vision at all bothers me, so I sometimes just cut out my peripheral vision. I was told when I was about 17ish that I probably had 20/10 vision, but they couldn't test for anything better than 20/15, so they couldn't identify what my vision actually was.

Touch: Moderate? - Being touched when I don't expect it bothers me but I can deal with it without snapping, certain fabrics I can't deal with wearing, touching uneven temperatures bothers me a lot. For numbers of problems caused touch is probably least, because its the most controllable. At home I tend to not get dressed and instead just wrap up in blankets, because blankets are much much more comfortable than clothing. Some foods I can't eat because of the textures, including most ways you can theoretically cook an egg (if you get it scrambled amazingly, to the point where the textures of both the egg white and egg yolk have swapped, I can eat it and it only goes to the taste sensitivity and me needing more flavors than just egg to eat it).

Smell: Severe - I've seen an allergist and he's said that my nose was one of the most hypersensitive ones he's ever seen. I can smell and get migraines from levels of things in the air that most people can't smell. My smell problems cause me to just live inside my apartment because outside the air is so bad and in here we can keep things like my air cleaner running constantly.

Taste: Moderate? - When I was younger this would probably have been severe, but the fact that I'm a hypertaster doesn't bother me nearly as much anymore. I taste things very strongly, and when I was young I couldn't stand strong flavors because of that. As I grew older I grew to actively enjoy some strong flavors despite the hypertasting. Currently I still have major issues with drinking straight water, to the point where if I can do that then you know I'm incredibly dehydrated. I am a vegetarian because the taste of meats (including fish) disgusts me. Certain strong flavors are still too strong even if they smell good, like coffee. The level of salt in foods that tastes right to me are pretty strongly lower than they are for other people, even those who tend to use low salt levels - people will complain about there not being enough salt to taste the flavors it brings out, and if they put it to the "right" level of salt, the salt is getting overbearing and messing up the taste to me. Taste is also not hard to control.

So most severe to least severe is:

Smell - Severe
Sound - Severe
Sight - Moderate to Severe
Taste - Moderate?
Touch - Moderate?

To me severe is "this drastically interferes with my life and is severe enough that I can't do anything to control these without major sacrifices" and moderate is "this triggers overloaded type responses and/or has things I just can't do, but the overload responses go away quickly after removal of input and the things I can't do are controllable rather than take over my life".

I think under some definitions I might qualify for severe in all of them...

Both my smell and sound sensitives have caused people to tell me that I'll probably never be employable just because of how severe they are, both in terms of how much I notice and how much they interfere with my life when they are there. Much of my life is avoiding migraines because of my sensory issues leading to migraines (as well as other headaches, overloads, and other such problems)