Why do I never hear about hyposensitivities?

Post Reply New Topic

I see many threads about sensory overload and hypersensitivity but I thought some Aspies experienced the opposite?

I don't doubt that hypersensitivity is a pain. I don't experience it. I experience the opposite. You wouldn't think that feeling things less would be that frustrating. It's probably no worse than being hpersensitive but it's very depressing. One of the things that has a very negative impact on me psychologically is tactile numbness. It makes me feel like I'm not even alive. I get a pedicure and normally I feel nothing. When lotion is rubbed on my legs below the knee it's like nothing is happening. It doesn't normally provide me with pleasure.

The only cure to this numbness is unhealthy. I have to get into a sleep deprived state and then I can feel things. First I was surprised when I went to get a manicure after a long time without sleep. I put my feet in the water and it felt significantly hotter than usual. Then I got the lotion rub and it was amazing. I could actually feel it. I can never enjoy things like that normally. I don't feel anything.

I know it's not healthy to deprive myself of sleep but after my experience with it I felt like I had risen from the grave. In my normal state I feel dead and while I wouldn't want to be overwhelmed by everything I hate not being able to feel anything. I am constantly so underwhelmed that I desperately crave the stimulation I am incapable of getting normally.

I heard someone on this forum mention that getting plenty of rest helps with his hypersensitivities. I guess sleep helps the body filter out sensory input. For me it filters things too much and I end up feeling nothing. For someone with hypersensitivities there is no shield. So sleep helps people with their hypersensitivities but it makes my problem with being hyposensitive worse. The blast shield over my eyes becomes a pair of sunglasses.


Nobody ever talks about this stuff. I guess it's because most of the vocal people here are dealing with hypersensitivity issues. I'd be surprised if there wasn't someone here that could relate to what I'm talking about right now. I guess nobody's bothered to say anything.

I am hypo-sensitive to cold, heat and pain. Not healthy... At the same time, I am hyper-sensitive to sound...

On a few very very rare occasions my sensory expressions have almost shut down completely.

IMO, The worst feeling in the world is to feel nothing at all... I came close to committing suicide once because of it...

My youngest son was observed at his Psychological Evaluation to have some hyposensitivity to pain. He would work on something and bang his head against the cabinet behind him but not register any discomfort, which I wouldn't have noticed if the psychologist hadn't mentioned it. He does have some hypersensitivities to certain sounds and sensations, so he is a mixed bag. He was Dx'd with mild PDD.

I guess that ADHD is hyposensitivty, from experience of some who have it in my family. Seems they have a constant need for stimulation.

I can be a bit hyposensitive to cold, but not dangerously so - I can just tolerate cold weather temps better than most, which benefits some winter sports etc. I've read that a high tolerance for cold temps is a fairly common AS thing.

I bet you don't hear much about hyposensitivites because they're likely rarer AND its harder to notice and be bothered by something that's not there unless its very severe like your case.

I'm extremely hyposensitive to smells; perfumes, flowers, incenses are all pretty useless to me. It's especially evident when it comes to food. I can't really smell food at all unless I shove my nose right up to it, and even then I often feel the heat from the food in my nostrils but can't smell anything. I'm also quite insensitive to certain types of pain, namely the pressure, crushing, banging into things kind, but I feel cuts and scrapes pretty normally.

I am pretty much the same as this. Plus the lack of smell = lack of taste. Most foods taste fairly bland.

Hyposensitive to pain, proprioceptive, and kinesthetic sense. I've had large farm animals step on my feet without noticing for example. Sharp paints, like needles, I notice a lot though. I only miss out on the blunt pains.

Smell of unleaded gas doesn't bother me nor that spray stuff teachers use for whiteboards, or smell of sharpie pens ink. Those bothered lot of people but not me. I enjoy the smell of those. Even skunk smells don;t bother me. I used to think it was a good smell until I asked what it was and Mom told me it was skunk and I thought "that stinks?" because it wasn't even bad like TV shows made them out to be and people. I also don't have a very good sense of smell. People can smell better than I can. This can be bad because I have drank sour milk or wouldn't notice a food is going bad unless I see mold.

I have gotten used to pain so by 5th grade I could fall down and not cry and the pain wouldn't bother me. I think me being clumsy and falling down a lot made me tougher and got used to the pain I didn't feel it as much.


I don't seem to get cold easily as others do, my put a blanket over me the other night and said it was cold and I was fine. I can feel the cold now but I am fine and have no blanket on me. But yet I get cold easily when it's freezing out. Funny enough, I am hypersensitive to the heat and I used to get hot easily due to hormones. I would be hot while everyone else be warm or cold. The hot flashing issue went away when I lost weight at age 15 or unless my hormones changed again after puberty and it was just a coincidence.

I remember another time I had a wart on my toe, I went to the doctor to get it frozen and he said there will be a sting when he does it. I didn't feel a thing until after he was done.

It's really weird for me reading about peoples' hyposensitivies because I am so hypersensitive myself. I just can't imagine how it must be. I have hypersensitive everything, including something called interoception, which is awareness of your internal organs.

I guess more people are hypersensitive than hyposensitive, that's why it gets talked about more.

It may be that it is easier for one to notice that they are more sensitive than others than that they are less sensitive than others--cringing in pain is fairly obvious, whilst a lack of feeling has very little external signs. For example, my hypersensitivity to the cold is extremely obvious, as I start trembling and pacing long before most other people would, but I only notice my hypersensitivity to heat when others notice that I am wearing a jacket in ninety-degree weather-- in normal attire, this would likely not be very apparent at all.

Same here. I am at least somewhat hypo-sensitive to temperature extremes and certain types of pain (I really have no idea where the lines are supposed to be); and yet I am hyper-sensitive to sound, people touching me, clothing types, etc. I never really thought much about it until recently but I have never been asked any questions (besides courtesies) more than "Aren't you cold?" and "Aren't you hot?" I always just figured others were wimps. Most winters I go out in T-shirts and a coat which I always leave undone unless wind is blasting snow in my face. I do feel the difference in temperature, but the only way I feel uncomfortably cold is if I get cold for long enough, persistent periods of time that my hands get really numb or my nose starts to run. It's kind of like there is a really long delay before I get cold. Sometimes it only hits me an hour after I'm back in a warm atmosphere. On those rare occassions I feel truly cold, it takes me a long time to feel warm again. All my life I've driven a Jeep with a soft top and cold air blowing into the cab through the doors. I never use my heater, even in the winter time. The rare passengers I've had in the winter think I'm insane. I love taking the doors off when it's cold or raining at which point I get a lot of strange looks. Last night and today I have kept the window of my apartment open wide to let out the smell of polyurethane fumes from one of my projects and I slept well while the temperature outside is 0-5 degrees celsius. My window is often open into October and November, while everyone else has long had their windows closed. Unless my nose starts running, I'm completely comfortable, even in my T-shirt. Maybe I just enjoy the smell and feeling of breathing nice cool air.

I'm a little more sensitive to extreme heat than I am the cold, but I still would wear three pairs of socks in my steel-toed work boots which people always thought I was insane for doing. I would wear dark blue coveralls in the hot summer sun. The most uncomfortable I got was with the collar and sleeves rubbing my skin rather than from being hot. It takes a lot of effort for me to start sweating. How hot I can make my showers and baths would probably be uncomfortable for most people. I've actually had to resist turning up the temperature because my skin will show signs of being angry at me later if I'm not careful.

When it comes to pain it's wierd. I feel pain/discomfort temporarily when I receive blunt-force trauma. It smarts: especially when I stub my toes or shins. Burns are very painful for a long time. I feel pin pricks and needles (I actually enjoy touching cactuses and thorny plants), but when I get lacerations I feel very little in terms of pain. I'm more 'pained' by how bad or how much blood there will be as I can't tell the difference between a deep or shallow cut from the feeling so I sometimes imagine the worse. Sometimes if I'm not paying attention, I'll end up finding out I was cut but have no idea how or where I did it. When I was young I once got into an accident where I received a 5 inch gash in the back of my head: the only reason I knew anything was wrong was due to the horrified look on my brother's face and the blood that was dripping down around me. My mother remarked that I never cried once and wasn't overly concerned, while she was and others seemed to me to be freaking out. It was one of my first major injuries so I guess I was not concerned because there was no pain and I couldn't see it, and I had always heard people talk about pain when things were bad: if there was no pain, it couldn't be bad. The only time I remember any pain from that incident was when the doctor had to reopen the almost closed wound to look for a broken tip of the needle since it took him a while to realize the tip was missing. I may just have been annoyed.

I tend to be a little hyposensitive to temperature. Granted, I live in an area where it never gets ridiculously hot or ridiculously cold, but I seem to tolerate warm or cool weather better than most people who live around here. "Aren't you hot/cold??" is a common refrain I hear.

I think I might be hyposensitive to pain but I don't really know. I don't have any way to compare what I feel to what other people feel, but I either bruise a lot easier than other people or they feel pain a lot more acutely than I do. Or both. Sometimes I won't realize for a while that I'm in pain. And even then it's kind of a distant "hmm... something's wrong" kind of feeling that I have to suss out.
In the past year I've crashed my bicycle twice (once landing on my face and once a full body slam onto the ground) and slipped on icy stairs once. The face-plant from my bike required 5 stitches (not bad really and the Dr was cute and conversational), the full body slam was just really embarrassing and I was a little sore after. I'm still prone to sitting crooked because of the stair debacle but I'm not sure if that's habit or because of any actual injury.
Meanwhile, a coworker called out of work and complained endlessly because she stepped on a dustpan in the dark and hurt her foot. And displays areas where very painful injuries apparently occurred but have left no mark. (that's why you put away the broom and dustpan when you're done! Yes. I'm a little judgy)
Anyway, I jokingly said to a friend that freeing a slept-on-folded-over ear was "the worst pain ever". He said, "you must not have felt much pain" (way to kill a joke, brother!). He's had a compound fracture of his forearm and it occurred to me that maybe I haven't actually felt real pain. I mean, I was joking about the ear, but I don't really know if the pain I've felt is legitimately bad or not. I've always been able to function through it calmly, but then I've also never been seriously injured. I've only ever needed stitches twice and totally made do without them once (I stepped on glass, if it's not a facial injury who cares. Right?

Exactly. Whenever I cook for myself I smother everything in pepper and chilli, that takes care of the blandness.