as a kid how did you decribe sensory overload

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My ex-wife did that to my daughter too.....
Can't tell you how many times she'd call me to 'talk to your daughter' because she did some stupid thing every kid has done before. It would always end like this, "She just doesn't get how this makes me look!"

I felt like Linda Blair or Beetlejuice when I heard that. My head would just spin.....

I got to escape, I got to find a dark quiet room. Although nobody knew at the time that's how I dealt with my sensory overload.

I was always getting grounded. LOL

Their punishment meant a reprieve for me. I remember many times thinking how nice it would be that I would be away from people. No other thoughts, just 'away'.

When I was a kid I didn't know what sensory overload is and would not have described it because I didn't know if I was experiencing it. This was back in the extremely ancient 1980's, long before I'd be diagnosed with Asperger's, and I didn't always have the words to describe or explain my feelings.

Of course, overload is used to death now. Cuteness overload, chocolate overload, overload overload...

Grounding didn't work for me, because my room had all my stuff and i was happy there. My folks took away privileges (No Star Trek for you! No library, trip to someplace cool, etc.)

It drove my teachers nuts that I would just walk away from my desk or group and put my self in a closet although I wanted to be with the group I just wanted silence at that moment but nobody figured that out I never got into any real trouble just the usual question why are you doing that?! you can't go in the closet! My parents couldn't make heads or tales of it either but it worked for me.

They took away all 'entertainment' items. Two things happened...I read a lot of informational materials and...I couldn't read my comic books, but I could see them. So, I started copying covers. They let me do that. So, I was in heaven. LOL

This a thought though specific to the topic. We are mostly adults here (as I have seen...but, maybe not) and most here are in good command of their language skills.

So, with that in mind, try to describe 'vanilla' or chocolate' as a flavor. Not texture, just the flavor alone.

I can't.

Hm. I tended just to make progressive statements like "he's too close", "he's touching me" or "that's my chair" "I won't sit in that chair" "get out of my chair" or "he's cheating", "stop him cheating" until I exploded.

With hearing, I said my hearing aids were uncomfortable. I eventually managed to say they hurt me (I was believed after they found a blister in my ear!) but they've always been dubious about my complaints about them being to loud because they shouldn't be.

I never really talked about it when I wasn't upset, and when upset (even now) I'm too overwhelmed to explain it).

Some of the children I've worked with have said things like "it's too noisy", "I'm cross" or "its bubbling up". But mostly they just run, meltdown, etc.

I've had some "I'm angry", "you're ugly/stink/insert insult" and "I hate you". Usually followed by being really stressed that they were mean and said 'bad words' and that everyone will hate them forever. Often when asked the children 'don't know' why, or explain that someone cheated/it wasn't x's turn, etc.

I've also met a boy of 7 with ADHD who was much more able to describe it and white empathetic about the boy in the paragraph above. I can't remember what he said, but it was quite a technical understanding of ADHD and the brain which only a child who knew about their diagnosis could have.

I never really had meltdowns (when I did I would bite myself , not say anything). I had shutdowns. which made people think I was lazy daydreaming, sleepy or exceptionally calm when inside I felt like I was being electrocuted by roaches crawling all over my body while I was held underwater silent screaming in a rave.

As a kid all they would see is the shutdown or self induced narcolepsy and I would barely be able to function while actually under the stress. Just say I was "burning" or "couldn't breath" if asked. Crushed and drowned was something I had actually said then (Not since I drowned, that was actually a lot more peaceful).
My dad however would say things like."Okay, Gigi's all shopped out, let's go home". Or "What have you been doing Pumpkin? you can have a break now." My mom caused most events inadvertently. I had a posted schedule for my day that my dad and I laid out carefully . She is impulsive and has disconnect with cause and effect. She often threw my schedule off to accommodate a whim.
But keep in mind, my dad was a writer and I had been helping him edit by looking things up in dictionary and thesaurus since I could read. At age 9 I had plenty of descriptions and was also aware I had something. Overwhelmed and overloaded were two words I still would not have likely used though, unless I was trolling my then still illiterate mother with "big words". But that would be self defeating if I wanted "it" to stop.

Hypersensitivity would cause me physical feelings of discomfort or pain, and I could describe those as being uncomfortable and painful. Maybe itchy or annoying.

The other aspects of sensory issues, I was not aware of.

If other people caused trouble for me, I was likely to refer to them as "stupid" for lack of a better term. (I wasn't really referring to their cognitive or academic abilities.) But this was more for people who were deliberately mean or unreasonably annoying through negligence, not people who were problematic by accident.

Well with me, the odd thing was that even though I had a good vocabulary at a young age, when it came to sensory overload I actually didn't and couldn't find words at all to describe what I was going through. All I knew was just a completely visceral, indescribable agitation and discomfort that I realized was related to whatever stimulus was bothering me -- visual, or audio, or physical -- but I vividly remember two things:

A deep bewilderment within myself of WHY the light or sound or clothing or whatever was making me feel so bad.

And an inability to actually put into words anything like: "It's too loud in here," or "my clothes are driving me crazy."

And this was even though I actually had a great vocabulary, was a very literate writer for my age and could normally express myself well when speaking as long as it was with people I was comfortable with.

Yet somehow when I had sensory issues it was like there was something cutting off my ability to express them, and all I felt was the crazy-making effects of the sensory overload.

So I would become cranky, crazy, restless, angry, as a child, and I mostly knew inside myself what was bothering me (but sometimes not, with it only occurring to me later) but I couldn't even put it into words.

It was a nightmarish kind of prison I lived in, like a "word circuit" got broken during overloads.

Sorry that doesn't help much as it's about complete loss of words instead of helpful words.

Yes, this, this, this!

I just now looked back at the other posts after my own post, and this is essentially what I was like and what I was trying say. I lost all words and just acted out helplessly, and it was a horrible feeling.

When I was a kid I used to faint from sensory overload. I would say that I felt overwhelmed or that I felt unreal. Hopefully that helps. And yay fellow Potterhead! woohoo!!

Too much stuff!

Well this is so strange because, those exact words are what I'm only just now managing to say as an adult now!

If I can get words out at all in the middle of being overwhelmed, it's usually "Too much stuff going on right now, too much stuff going on!"