Sensory Difficulties

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For those who have sensory difficulties, are they hypersensitive or hyposensitive? I am hypersensitive in my sight, hearing, touch and smell. I like studying in dim light, I can't have high contrast screens, I wear earplugs or headphones with music when I go out, I can't stand light touch and my sense of smell is very powerful

Why must it be only one?

My son has been assessed and identified as having complex and varied sensory processing difficulties. He, like many people with sensory issues, is hyposensitive in some areas and hypersensitive in others. This sort of mixed hypo-/hyper-sensitive profile seems to be common.

I have hypersensitive sight and hearing, but nerves to certain areas of my body are hypo sensitive.

I've always been hypersensitive to sensory inputs such as lights; loud noises (my biggest sensory issue); all kinds of smells and strong odors; the taste of various foods; and the touch of certain materials like cotton, paper, and styrofoam.

I'm hypersensitive to smell. Any air fresheners you put in a room will give me a headache. Also, I can't stand the smell of cheese. I hate cheese.

My senses are both hypersensitive and hyposensitive.

My sight is very hypersensitive. Bright lights are very painful for me, especially sunlight and fluorescent lights. Normal daylight is uncomfortably bright. I prefer dimmed lights or dark. I almost never switch on the lights at home and if I do, I keep them dimmed. When I'm outside at daytime, I wear sunglasses most of the time, even on cloudy days.

My hearing is both hypersensitive and hyposensitive. I can hear a lot of sounds that most people can't. The electric buzz of electric appliances is really uncomfortable for me, while most people don't even notice it. Recently I went and closed all windows in my workplace, because there was a really painful, high pitced sound coming from a truck that was left running outside the building. None of my colleagues had heard anything, but I felt like my ears were being stabbed, the sound was so loud. I find groups of people talking loudly uncomfortable and it gets even worse if it echoes. And then there is the opposite, sounds that I find very pleasant. Surprisingly, that's usually loud sounds, like explosions, things breaking etc.

My sense of smell is hypersensitive. I smell things way before other people smell them, and sometimes they don't smell them at all while I'm even getting nauseous over the smell. The smell of tobacco makes me nauseous, so every time some of my neighbors decides to go out for a smoke (or even if their window is open while they smoke inside) I need to quickly close all windows and doors of my flat. I smell it instantly when they start smoking and get nauseous. My husband sometimes thinks I'm imagining things or overreacting, because he can't smell it at all until they've been smoking for a couple of minutes. I have similar problems with certain other smells.

I'm both hypersensitive and hyposensitive to touch. Certain textures are uncomfortable and I hate wearing clothes and shoes or feeling dirt on my skin, but I like being under a heavy blanket or being wrapped tight into a fleece blanket and I love the feel of water on my skin. I touch my way around a lot, often using touch more than vision to figure out my place in space or finding things. I have an extremely high pain tolerance and have for example walked down from a mountain with a broken knee. I felt pain, but it wasn't that bad and I didn't think I was that badly injured. I also sometimes get minor injuries and have no idea how it happened, because I didn't notice when it happened.

It's a combination of both for me. My sense of taste and smell are definitely hypersensitive - there are lots of foods I absolutely can't stand because the texture makes me feel ill and there are lots of food smells that just make me feel sick, and most perfumes and air fresheners just give me a headache. There are certain noises that really set me on edge, vacuum cleaners are the worst and actually make me feel like screaming when I hear them. My sense of touch is mixed though - there are certain materials I can't stand the feel of (such as velvet) and I have to rip labels out of all my clothes as they irritate me too much. On the other hand there are certain materials I really like the feel of (frosted glass, clean duvet cover, furry things), I can't sleep without a quilt on me as I have to feel something on top of me and there are certain sensations that are supposed to feel painful that actually feel either the complete opposite or else I don't notice at all.

I have trouble with certain combinations of sounds.

I still haven't quite figured it out, but when it happens everything is like white noise.

I can't pick out individual sounds or focus on people talking to me.

A siren can quite often do it, but only when I'm in a crowded place with lots of other noise around me.

At home the combination of talking and the microwave or jug while I'm watching TV can do it.

I just lose the ability to process and separate all the sounds around me.

I also find music so intensely satisfying in a sensory sense that I can actually react quite aggressively (though not physically) to interruptions.

This is particularly bad if I happen to be out at a cafe and I hear a song I like in the background while I'm supposed to be having coffee with someone.