How severe are your sensory issues?

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My sensory issues are very mild. I get headaches from fluorescent lights, but I'm not sure if that counts. I get annoyed by certain sounds, but they usually annoy NTs as well. I sometimes start to get bad sensory issues when I'm sick, but I usually get back to normal quickly.

I don't know how severe my sensory issues are but most high pitched sounds are usually agony for me and might induce a meltdown or shutdown where I'll scream and hit myself/bang my hand on the wall, or enter a daze and not speak and become inattentive.

Skin contact is often painful for me so I wear hoodies or jumpers to cover my arms and long trousers to avoid it. Light touch aggravates me and I might lash out from it.

Bright lights are painful too and might induce a migraine where my senses are heightened.

In certain shopping places or restaurants my eyes start freaking out due to the lightning, same with colors or how a store is laid out. It's really complicated to explain, but being in a store like Zellers (which shut down awhile ago) was a nightmare for me.

Some days my ears are more sensitive to noise than others, and same with touch. I cannot stand people whistling though, it annoys me and I try to stop them from whistling or make some sort of white noise to drown it out.

I'd say they are usually moderate. I go out of my way to either be in a controlled environment or be in situations where I am able to control things (as in opt out when it's too much, etc). It varies greatly with stress- On really bad days, I can be brought to tears if something slightly startles me; on really good days, I can even tolerate having the AC on in the car (rare).

acutely severe apart from sense of smell which was probably dulled by mums constant smoking,senses are one of the biggest causes of severe challenging behavior in KoR,am also a sensory seeker and have pica,which is partly a sensory seeking issue,partly a habit and partly a way to understand environment.

I have kind of a contradiction built into me. I love the atmosphere of the city with the lights, the excitement and even the crowds. But I also get sensory overloaded from this same thing that I love. So, I just have to enjoy it in modest doses and have a place where I can quickly retreat and withdraw to. I have the good fortune of having found a unique place to live in the Pacific islands that is somewhat exotic and has lots of diversity - but is also quiet and rural. I guess I could not ask for a better combination than that.

So, in answer to the question - I both like the sensory stimulus and get overloaded and distressed by it. I like spicy food and get indigestion from it too. So, I guess it's the same idea.

Last edited by r2d2 on 25 Sep 2014, 12:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

I cannot go out without noise-cancelling headphones and sunglasses. I get headaches and dissociative effects from fluorescent lighting. Travelling on the London Underground is a near impossibility for me. I have to hold my breath sometimes when I'm out because a certain smell will make me panic. When I hoover at home, I have to wear industrial-grade ear defenders.

Last time my dad took me to the big Tesco's in New Malden, I ran out screaming and had to wait in a corner of the car park for him to finish.

Extra Olanzapine and a 0.5mg Clonazepam pill help me a bit though. But I am very judicious with Clonazepam usage due to its addictive / tolerance properties.

I cannot cope with any form of touch. If someone puts their arm over my shoulder, or grabs my arm or similar, I get very violent and start screaming. I had to have a Grater Occipital Nerve Block injection a couple of months ago (goes into a nerve at the back of the head) and I ended up vomiting a lot because of the physical contact involved (not just the injection but the whole thing). I have actually lashed out and semi-assaulted people after they have touched me.

Only sense that isn't hypersensitive for me is my taste. I can eat most vegetarian foods (I refuse to eat meat, fish or gelatine), but I refuse to drink cows milk because I think I am lactose intolerant.

Light: difficult to look at anything white or light coloured, after-images, auras, flickering (fluorescent lights), headaches and migraines. I now wear Irlen lenses, which are honestly the BEST thing ever. They have given enormous relief.

Hearing: alarms or sirens are painful and make me feel physically ill. Little noises like clicking pens drive me absolutely nuts. When a lot of people are talking at once its moderately painful. I have to escape.

Smells: perfumes and deodorants are unbearable. I have to leave the room. Various other smells are bearable but disturbing. I can't concentrate if there's something smelly nearby, even if it's a 'nice' smell.

Touch: don't like to be touched by people unless it's someone I know well. Can feel after-touch. Urge to 'brush off' touch. Can't stand tags or seams on socks (wear them inside out), only wear natural fibres next to my skin.

Depth: My depth perception is off. Sometimes I feel I could literally fall into the floor. If I'm walking and there's something on the ground in front of me it kind of 'jumps up'

Last edited by Raleigh on 24 Sep 2014, 4:01 am, edited 2 times in total.

I actually have this too.
I get really excited by flashy stuff- but... heh, to some degree I have to be careful with that. Even though technically there is a specific rate at which flashy lights are supposed to cause seizures and I'm not normally susceptible to that, there are some frequent patterns that can make me seizurey and when I'm on overload I tend to be more vulnerable to having seizures- I'm not quite sure how that works.

But a great example of this was when I went to Las Vegas for my sister's bithday. It wasn't complete insane foolery like people think of when going to Las Vegas. Like we went to a Rat Pack impersonators show and went to good food and actually stayed at a place that was almost right on the strip but DIDN'T have a casino in it, thank the lord. And we saw some neat stuff.

I both loved the colors and lights but by the end of the weekend I was one "hot mess" and I knew it and I had a serious serious flip out, on the plane, on the tarmac. I am completely embarrassed by it but I had no way to predict it or really stop it- and I feel and felt awful about it. And, to be honest? I am shocked they didn't haul me off the plane. HOWEVER, because I was such a mess at the time, we had requested early boarding, and I suspect that may have been why they reconsidered deboarding me....

um... TANGENT.

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sensory?
I can't be touched lightly. This makes me FREAK OUT. I used to rip the tags out of my clothing all the time and it kind of pissed off my mom, just because it would destroy the seem too- all the way into the end of highschool I'd do this. At that point they started coming out with tagless stuff and so I started buying a lot of that. But I still change my clothes a freaking lot because the littlest thing can make me extremely uncomfortable [physically] and I will hyperfocus on that and it disrupts every thing else. I love pressure though and it really calms me down.

High pitched noises are difficult for me to tolerate, but I loved lower pitched stuff- I love lower oboe sounds, for example, LOVE bass songs, slap bass, cello. Violin is often difficult for me. Flute is variable, but lower range is ok.I feel like maybe I can be more sensitive to things that don't bother other people- but then sometimes I'll choose to have things as "white noise". So that might not make sense. Certain days are worse than others. Things that crinkle or rattle or crunch are bad- newspapers, paper bags, a windbreaker shuffling against itself, something in a jar shaking around, chips sometimes being eaten over and over.

Then sometimes I'll have spongebob on repeat in the background all day because I know all the episodes [I watch every day- no joke] and it drowns out everything else.

Smells are variable. a lot of chemical stuff can be really rough but I can tolerate it short term. There are a lot of "savory" type smells that I CAN'T deal with that other people love though and they really almost hurt my stomach haha.

A lot of lights hurt my eyes, I can get frequent head aches. Wearing sunglasses whenever I can really helps.

Walking down halls, next to fences, brick walls, etc... I feel a needs to rub them and it's stimulating in a good way.
In crowds and public places it can be stressful and exhausting, particularly if I'm already tired or sick- I have to mentally get through everything already going on.

I remember recently being with my mother and looking at a "dairy" case at the store. The store was ONLY flourescent lights, and we had been driving for like 6 hours, on our way to our cousin's house- we were picking up a couple things before we got there. All the non-dairy milk was mixed in with the dairy brands... I wanted almond milk but there were so many people crammed in all the aisles talking and we had already been in the store for like half an hour.

I was looking at all these cartons of milk/nondairy milk and I was "SEEING" them... but I couldn't understand them. I finally had to tell my mother what I was looking for because my brain, apparently, had just reached the end. I felt so helpless. I couldn't process anything in front of me despite straining to interpret the cartons directly in front of my face.

When I was younger I used to get literally terrified of a lot of noises- I didn't know how to react. They were painful and frightening- alarms, garage doors, vacuum.

I still really try to avoid being around garage doors opening, I don't vacuum, I can't function really when an alarm goes off. But... I guess it's better then when I was little and would curl into a ball and scream and scream?


Haha, way long. Sorry.

Last edited by SignOfLazarus on 24 Sep 2014, 4:01 am, edited 1 time in total.

highly situational.

My ability to supress my sensory issues is directly related to how much energy i have available; if i'm tired or need my attention for something specific, my sensory problems increase to where they are problems rather then annoyances (when both apply, they go trough the roof).

however, most of the time (when i have had enough sleep and able to relax somewhat), they are mere annoyances, i will do something about them when i'm able, but i wont complain and will compromise (like: you can leave the fluorecent lights on if you plug something into the power outlet)

Number one : Sound: Sirens, loud doorbells, bangs and noisy tools provokes a fight-or-flight response. (I went into shock as a small kid). Many voices make additional noise in my ears, just like I could never produce a real forte on the piano. Some small muscles seem to overreact in there.
I haven´t got a fire alarm yet.

Two: Balance. I would never have made it as a linedancer. Turning my head can make me lose balance, and I often, - in periods - use wall for support when going down stairs.
Three: Depth. Well described by Raleigh. I usually wait considerably longer than others for cars to pass.
Two + three: Some clumsiness.

Four: a bit of Irlen Syndrome: bubbly text and white rivers over the page, - peridically.
Five: Least: Sensitivity to labels in clothes, textiles and seams.

My sensory issues are rather mild. In fact, I don't think I've ever had issues with sensory overloads. O_o I've come close to it, but I never made a big deal of it. I do struggle with noises such as sirens, motorcycles, kids screaming/babies crying etc. It's at a point where I will cover my ears or try to escape. I also don't like unexpected touch either. I freak out and start screaming at the person touching me.

Also, I can't be touched when I'm sick either. I get defensive about this and start yelling at my parents of they touch me.

Unexpected touch, That is the best way to explain it for me. Even when it is a surprise hug when I see the arms come up I get defensive. Getting touched from behind. That for me is a NO!.

Loud sudden noises ring in my ear.

The voice from that little blue girl from the 1993 SteamLine dub of Akira. I wanted to take that VHS tape and choke it to death!

People humming.

Mine are pretty mild as well. To the extent that I have them, they're more like aversions than over sensitivity. For example, I don't like washing my face in the shower because of the way the water feels splashing on my face. But it's not something that I can't stand. If I really had to do it for some reason, I could without ruining my whole morning. I'm the same way with bright lights. I tend to prefer dark, indoor environments, but it's not so bad that it prevents me from going outside during the day for things that I like to do, such as running.

The only one I have that I would consider serious is there's an area on my stomach that I cannot stand to have other people touch. Sensitivity there is through the roof, like being tickled, but turned up to an 11.

I think I do probably have some more serious hypo-sensitivity issues, as I'm pretty much constantly stimming throughout the day. Those are a bit harder to notice though, since they don't really interfere with my functioning in any way that I can notice.

Mine are mild. I cannot stand sticky skin on my bare skin and I don't like unwanted touch and it makes me feel like my personal space is being invaded and I push them away, snoring makes me feel agitated and it's so impossible to ignore and I feel like punching the person for it, I don't like wool on my skin or some other fabric that starts with an A and I am not sure how to spell it, it also feels scratchy and pokey, I don't like loud sounds like sirens or motor cycles and bass, and those high pitch squeal sounds toddlers make and I get overwhelmed more often when my son has been hyper and jumpy and loud and dealing with a crying baby makes it worse.

Mine were worse as a kid and my mom said I used to touch from being touched from behind and I couldn't wear jeans or anything tight and didn't like things like lotion being rubbed on me and being out of the bath after taking one, and I had some clothes I couldn't even wear because they felt so uncomfortable and I hated sleeveless tops. I am sure there were more. Mom always had to take me clothes shopping because they had to feel a certain way on me and I think she didn't want to have to take anything back so she always took me with for new clothes to try on. I must have been an inconvenient when she told me that story so no wonder she had me do therapy for sensory issues.

But I have liked stretched pants as a kid which is contradicting because aren't those tight clothing? I also love getting my head rubbed and still do and being rubbed and I like to be cuddled if I want to.

I did have a sensory overload when I was walking into Macy's yesterday. They just put down some new cement at the side entrance and it had this strong smell and my senses couldn't handle it so it burned my nose and I had to hold it shut so I wouldn't smell it and I saw this other woman walking into the store too and it didn't seem to affect her because she didn't react to it like I did. This is rare for me when my nose reacts to a smell so I makes me imagine what it must be like to have this all the time or more often while everyone else like me deals with it occasionally.

I also forgot about the fact that I don't like tight clothing either. I don't have any problem wearing clothes, just as long as they are too tight on me. I actually find it hard to find the right clothes because of my weight. I can't even wear tight fitting shoes, so I'm always wearing skateboard shoes, even when I don't skateboard.

Bright lights I'm okay with... unless they are LED lights. Those, I have a tendency to find way too bright. I do have a hard time with the sun, which leads me to wearing sunglasses every time I go out somewhere. The sun is always twice as bright for me, and trust me... I'm not even looking right at or near it either. I don't know if it counts as sensory-related because I know NTs can have a hard time with this as well.

I also have this issue with tomatoes. I can't stand their taste or their texture. They just taste really disgusting for me. Meatloaf is also hard for me to eat because one bite into my mouth, and I start gagging.