Mild, Moderate or Severe Sensory Issues?

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It’s a tie between sound and touch, but I chose sound in the poll, because while I can avoid people touching me, I can’t avoid being assaulted with sound all day.

Sound - I am very sensitive to sound. I cannot have a tv on on any meaingful level of volume and sleep. I can read in silence or with the tv or radio on, but once a human speaks, I am rendered unable to concentrate. tapping, beside my own, will drive me up a f*****g wall. sounds, period, drive me nuts. sound is my most sensitive sense.

Sight - this is a moderately severe sense. I see something with an odd texture and it will make my skin crawl. flaking paint is a prime example of visual ickiness for me. also, when I am reading or concetrating really hard, movement will interrupt me just as quickly and badly as sound will. very sensitive to bright lights, especially natural bright light.

Touch - I am sensitive to light touch. I also feel internally ticklish when emotional and touch is intolerable.

Smell - most smells are not strong enough to trip my gag reflex, with the exception of crap, ham, and bacon, if I am in a mode where meat is intolerable.

Taste - the bad taste of something, coupled with a bad feel in my mouth will trip my gag reflew in a hot minute.

Sound - Sometimes they turn off the cable box (black screen) but the TV is on. I can always hear it from 2 rooms away. My speakers emit an ambient sound that is ear splitting. Whenever they are not producing sounds they must be turned off.

Sight - I recently found that if I look directly at the sun and blink rapidly, my eyes adjust and I don't get headaches. This has been a life saver.
Touch - I can't allow anyone but "the one" to touch me, and I have not found the one. I don't like to touch myself, especially arms and legs and chest and back and sides and feet.
Smell - normal.
Taste - food critic.
Temperature - normal
Empathy - minimal

Sound: Moderate. Loud noises are awful, and sound tends to be the sense which makes me overload because of too much input.

Sight: Mild. Sunlight and other sharp light are problematic but I don't have any other issues with it.

Touch: Moderate. Mostly related to clothes (some clothes are really bad for me). I'm okay with hugs but unexpected touch can startle me.

Smell: Mild. Cigar(ette) smoke is the only thing that comes to mind right now, but there are a couple of scents I have a lot of issues with. The rest is okay.

Taste: Mild. Food shouldn't be too hot (in either temperature or peppers) but it's otherwise okay.

Temperature: Moderate. My fingers get cold extremely fast, but I am otherwise completely okay with cold. Heat is more of a problem because it makes my brain shut down.

#1 Touch
#2 Sound
#3 patterns

Touch drives me mad. Music, with its patterns and conveyance of emotion effect me deeply, even to the point of complete distraction. I see arrangements of objects and I automatically arrange and sum them in my head (often imagining what they would feel taste or smell like, their weight, the possible sounds they could make, ect). In stores with music that's too distracting I just leave. Most times while at home I won't listen to music because I can so vividly conjure up things I've heard into my conscious that I get more enjoyment from anyways. This brings me to my grievance about store music... Even hearing it makes me feel as if I'm being forced to pay attention against my will.

Its a strange life. I've told some people these things and they don't seem to understand (except one open-minded psych major, who also happens to be a close friend). /cheers

Touch--moderate to severe...can't stand any tags in my clothes, tight fitting clothes drive me crazy, most shoes, I can't wear, and even the ones I can come off when I get in the door, I can handle hugs and touch from others if I expect it, some fabrics, like wool and velvet, I can't wear at all. If I am wearing something uncomfortable I can't concentrate at all. Sometimes food textures bother me.

Sound--also moderate to severe. When noises are too loud it seems like my ears get overpowered and what I'm hearing sounds all broken up, if someone is talking very loud or shouting it is hard for me to "get" what they're saying, loud music is *generally* okay but if I'm having a bad sensory day I can't deal with that either.

Taste--mild, only with certain very strong tastes I may start to gag

Sight--moderate, bright sunlight bothers me and I can't deal with flashing lights or strobes at all.

Smell--mild to moderate, strong perfume gives me headaches, can't stand cigarette smoke or burning leaves.

~Kate

Apparently auditory issues are generally the most severe among autistics.

For me, it's:

Sound: Moderate to severe - loud noises and crowds bother me, certain kinds of sounds get me really upset, and fire alarms send me straight into shutdown (though part of that is flashing lights)

Sight: Mild - flashing or sparkly lights are either pleasurable or overloading depending on whether I'm trying to pay attention to something else or willing/able to stim with the light

Touch: Mild - I'm fine with being hugged or touched (only by family or very close friends, but I think that's more related to trust than sensory issues) but I'm picky about clothing and flinch at unexpected touch, I also don't feel the 'electric shock like' sensation from touch that people more tactilely defensive than me describe

Smell: Mild I guess, I'm mostly hyposensitive to smell (have no idea why people claim flowers have a scent, for example) but can also be overloaded by bad smells especially in the bathroom if someone used it just before me (especially a guy, guy pee smells disgusting)

Taste: Moderate - very picky eater, but not to the point where you can count on your fingers the foods the person eats like some autistics are

Temperature: Mild - hypersensitive to cold, hyposensitive to hot, my dad calls me a 'hot house flower'

Proprioception: Moderate to severe - in karate class when doing the moves I need to either look at my feet or close my eyes to focus on feeling my body, I also have a lot of difficulty imitating movements, and tend to walk into things because I don't know where my body is in relation to the world

Vestibular: Moderate to severe - I have very poor sense of balance, can't stand on one foot and move the other leg around, when I'm tired I have trouble walking because I list to the side and almost fall

Pain: Mild - hypersensitive to pain

Sound: Mild, I don't like unexpected sounds or background noises, but loud things don't bother me. I actually like noises like rubbing balloons or fingernail on blackboard.

Sight: Very mild, don't like bright lights, but I have some eye problems so it might be due to that.

Touch: Moderate to severe, this is the one I voted for.

Smell: Moderate

Taste: No obvious sensitivity, although I generally don't like acidic food like orange or pickles. It might be because I have very strong stomach acid, though.

Sound: Mild. It usually doesn't effect me too much but everything is elevated.
Sight: Very Mild. Colours are always extremely bright to me, this doesn't really cause me any stress though.
Touch: Moderate. I can't touch certain things, it drives me up the wall.
Taste: None/Normal
Smell: None/Normal
Temperature: Severe. I can't stand heat and humid places. It drives me up the wall to the point where I eventually have a meltdown. (Meltdowns are extremely rare for me these days)
Pain: VERY Severe. I'm hyper-sensitive to all kinds of pain. I can't stand it!

Sound: severe; i have, as others put it, 'clarc kent hearing' and i cannot stand high pitches and/or volume, standby equipment bothers me and fluorescentlighting makes me go insane

Sight: high; i have trouble with bright lights, especially strobes; i might have epilleptic traits, but never looked into that

Touch: depends; high for light touch, very mild for 'pain'

Smell: none; i can barely smell anything unless i actively try to pick up on one.

Taste: very mild

Mine would have to be touch. I can always close my eyes or wear tented sunglasses for sight. For sound I can crank Eminem on my headphones or tell the person to shut up. I can't do anything for touch.

Sound: I think this is probably the thing I am most sensitive to, however my sensitivity is rather mild, I'd say. A loud voice sends daggers through the brain and makes me feel exhausted. Same goes for concerts.

Sight: I think I'm more sensitive to light than most, but it is not too much of a problem for me. I hate flickering or flashing lights, however.

Touch: I'm quite sensitive to itchy and rough fabrics as well as clothes tags, but it's not much of an issue. This being said, I don't like being touched unexpectedly. A sudden hug or tap on the shoulder usually makes me jump, which alarms some. When it comes to temperature, I often feel colder than others and enjoy colder foods. I like all the food and drink I have to be slightly warmer than body temperature at the warmest. However, when I eat things, if there is something in the food which doesn't quite match the texture of the rest of it, say a stray breadcrumb in a soup, I will immediately feel very nauseous.

Smell: I tend to smell things more easily than others, but I've no problem with smells.

Taste: I have oral allergy syndrome which affects my ability to have some foods, but it is fairly easy to avoid them for now. I'm a vegetarian and I dislike the taste of meat. I tend to like a mix of strong and bland flavours in one dish, but ideally would have a small amount of strong flavour and a large amount of bland. For example, if I were to eat chilli, I would like the chilli on around one-third of the plate and rice on the other two-thirds, side by side. For some reason, I enjoy food better this way, even though I sometimes put each part of the food on the same fork.

Most of my senses are both hypersensitive and hyposensitive.

Sight - severe
I'm extremely sensitive to light. Even normal daylight feels painful. Sunlight, fluorescent lights and other bright lights feel like torture. I wear sunglasses a lot and keep my home rather dark. Seeing a lot of movements or different objects at the same time can also be overstimulating or overwhelming, causing me to try to "block it out".

Smell - severe
Certain smells make me really nauseous, especially the smell of tobacco, coffee and beer. Even just a vague smell of those can make me feel really nauseous and unwell.

There are some other smells though that I can't seem to get enough of and I smell them as much as I can whenever I get the chance. Some of those include some unusual smells that many people find unpleasant.

Sound - moderate
I can hear a lot of sounds that most people don't, and some of those sounds are really uncomfortable or irritating to me, especially the low electric buzz of various electronic appliances, lamps or electricity inside walls. Some sounds made by electronics drive me nuts after just a couple of seconds of hearing them.

On the other hand there are also certain sounds that I find extremely pleasant and love hearing, including many sounds that other people find uncomfortable.

Touch - moderate
I find certain kinds of touch really uncomfortable and annoying. I especially hate wearing clothes and shoes because of the way they touch me. I also have difficulty eating crispy food because of the way it feels in my mouth.

There are certain kinds of touch that I really love though and can't get enough of. I really love being in water or under my heavy blanket. I love touching certain soft things. I love being petted on my back or head like a dog.

Taste - mild
Taste is my least sensitive sense. I'm sensitive to artificial sweeteners and artificial food coloring, but I only occasionally have other mild sensory issues from taste.

Sound: Loud noises do bother me, but I put up with them. White background noise really doesn't bother me much at all; it's people talking, babies crying, and dogs barking that irritate me. Other things, like fire alarms hurt my ears, but that's within reason. Any sound over 85 decibels can actually damage one's hearing, so it makes sense that I would feel pain, considering that fire alarms are meant to be around 85-120 decibels. What bothers me the most about hearing people talk isn't so much the sound itself, but the fact that my mind cannot multitask, and when I'm listening, nothing else gets accomplished. This causes frustration more than anything.

Sight: I'm usually fine whenever I'm inside. In natural settings, I'm not bothered too much. It's things like parking lots that make me blind. The concrete reflects the light, and no matter where I look, I can't squint my eyes enough. Sometimes I find it difficult to drive east early in the morning and west late in the evening, because it's just too bright I can't see. Still, it's an easy problem to fix with sunglasses.

Touch: I hate being touched, but I don't get any physical pain from it. I am hypersensitive in this category, but it's usually a good thing. I can usually feel ants crawling up my foot before they bite me. I'm also better than average at tuning out some types of pain, that's always a plus. I am bothered by many different types of clothes, but as a simple solution, I just don't wear anything that causes me discomfort.

Smell: If anything, I am hyposensitive to smell. My mom always smells things that I don't. My sense of smell is abysmal at best.

Taste: I'm not sure. I am a rather picky eater, so it would make sense.

Sound: Very, very severe for me. Any loud sound whether it's sudden or sustained gets to me fairly quickly. For example, our neighbors a few nights ago decided to have a combo techno/rap music party. The sound was coming through our walls & windows, & even the pillows & mattress would not dampen the sound. Had to call the cops to complain, only to hear that our town has no noise ordinances. Also, booming bass from cars, Harleys, sirens, & other stuff get to me too. Multiple sounds completely overwhelm my system....causes me to have meltdowns.

Sight: Flashing lights bother me but not as severely as sound does.

Touch: depends on the touch. From a stranger, it bugs me a lot so moderate to severe. From my sweetheart, he can touch me all he wants...mild if at all.

Smell: moderate regarding strong smells of perfume or cleansers...hate those aisles in stores.

Taste: mild.

Sound: The hardest of the five senses for me. Anytime I am forced to go to a loud restaurant or any place that has sustained noise louder than people talking in outdoor voices , I want to cry after about half an hour and go home. Interestingly enough, I talk in a whisper in real life because if I talk in what I consider a "normal" voice, people will think I am yelling and/or mad at them.

Sight: Flashing lights bother me, but I just close my eyes.

Touch: Doesn't bother me unless we start talking about stray hairs. The surest way to freak me out very quickly.

Smell: I don't really have problems with it, although I may be able to smell a little more than normal.

Taste: I'm a picky eater.