what are sensory issues like for you?

Post Reply New Topic

For me, noise sensitivity is actually a more recent thing. It started in 2020. That said.... I'm beginning to think that I had more mild signs of it before, as I recall there being times where I'd feel kinda lightheaded or kinda sick. I was reminded of this today when spending a lot of time in an airport, and those feelings came back.... they felt familiar. My Loop earplugs are a godsend fr fr.

Other stuff.... I dislike tight clothing. Socks, or anything form fitting. It feels like the hairs on my arm are being pinched or something. That's how I've always described the feeling, and it's been present since childhood.
Sometimes my skin will also sting from the clothes I am wearing (but not for a long time, usually) and I'm unsure what causes that, if it's sensory processing or something else.

I dislike the specially scented bathroom or cleaning products and hate when I have to ring them up. Smell is too strong.

I hate dog noises and smell ― they provoke an irrational degree of discomfort in me and I don't have much patience for it.

I hate having water on my face ― again, it's like an irrational degree of discomfort.

I can't stand the sleeves on my jerseys when I prepare food, they're not ever a problem otherwise.

Anything I cannot ignore, anything too painful and anything distorted. It doesn't have to be external.

Most of my sensory issues related to intensity is internal. Taste would be my worst and I'm increasingly becoming less of a picky eater.


Most of my sensory issues are not very direct.
More like a form of communication interference.
More of an issue long as other people involved, especially with verbal communication -- than just me having issues existing with it.

Poor hearing processing doesn't do favors with my already bad verbal processing and poor verbal recall. It frustrates me as much it frustrates everyone.

I have a lot of sensitivities.
Yet I do not have poor tolerance to be distressed by it.

I used to have poor tolerance as a child, likely due to mental health issues.
Every noise then was triggering, like how one would keep provoking me into this form of rage because it disrupts the comfort and predictability of silence.

Then when the mental health issues are gone, so does most of my intolerances.

Gained Number Post Count (1).
Lose Time (n).

Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

I can't cope with noise. Other people's music is the worst, especially when it's the bass, then barking or the sound of drilling, repeated banging. Even people hanging around outside my front door and just talking makes me feels like I'm being personally attacked. Fortunately it is quiet where I am now.

Dogs can be a problem. I was put off going out walking for a few years after an incident when I was surrounded by two of them circling me and going absolutely crazy, like I'd walked into their back garden, but we were in a public space. They were small, so I was in no physical danger but the owner then started screaming repeatedly at them to stop and it went on and on and on, getting louder and more frantic and I just couldn't take it and I shouted out angrily and swore at them all to leave me alone, which did the trick, but the owner was shocked and I then felt I was in the wrong and I was really anxious about crossing paths with her again. Took me a long time to get over that and have the confidence to go back out on my own where dogs might be.

My most dysphoria inducing sensory issue is smell. My workplace smells, the streets smell my apartment smells. It's not that I have a strong revulsion as much as I fixate in it.

My least dysphoric sensory issue is with lights. Apparently I still experience lights more intensely than NTs but it's nothing compared to a friend of mine. She feels visibly pain from lights like at nightclub for example.

Blue LEDs are like my brain getting tazed.

Can't do:
Daylight indoors or out
Sunshine
Blue skies
Haze
Glare
LED lights
Fluorescent lights
Electric light of any type really
Pot lights in the ceiling
Flashing lights
Peripheral lighting to my side
Overhead lights
Lamps with exposed bulbs
Anything white (paint / furniture / clothes / animals / cars)
Non-dark screen computers

It's not just that light hurts my eyes, but I can't deal with visual overload from seeing too many things at the same time. I get really dizzy from all the colours and shapes visible in daylight. It's too much input.

This is just my list for lighting.
It's just as bad for all my other senses.

My hearing and sense of smell are by far the most sensitive. There have been times where someone has asked me 'what's that noise?' and I have replied by listing everything I can hear only to be met with shock.

'Do you mean the buzzing of the lights? The ticking clock? How this building creaks every so slightly? The birds outside? Children laughing in the nearby park? The conversation going on outside between our neighbours who are trying to decide what colour to paint their fence? My vote is duck egg blue. Dogs barking? The dishwasher in the other room? Could you specifiy a direction?'

'You can hear all that? How do you even concentrate?'

My family refer to my sensitivities as superpowers and my friends joke that I am part werewolf.

In comparison, I am the least sensitive to light. For example, my eyes adjust quickly when I leave a dark cinema room.

As for pain, I would say it varies wildly. Sometimes undersensitive, sometimes oversensitive. I don't quite know what's going on there. Although I did have a relative who couldn't feel pain at all... maybe that's relevant? Not sure why it flip flops so much though. Very inconsistent.

My sensory stuff is weird. In some ways I get hypersensitive, in others, hypo.

I like clingy things. Most of my clothes are skin tight because I seek that sort of pressure. If someone touches me and it's a light touch, like a tap on the arm, it might make me smack them. But if it's a grab, a tight grab to the wrist or arm, then it's all good. Gimme that pressure I'm also sensory seeking when it comes to touch. I have this need to touch just about everything that looks touchable to me. I also touch/tap/grab myself a lot. It's like I'm trying to make sure I'm still in my sack of flesh or something. I dunno.

But I get hypersensitive to things like sound. I can hear things like power boxes outside on telephone poles, things that are plugged in and not being used. Sometimes I kill the power to my house to get silence, but it never makes it completely go away. I don't really have sounds that are worse than others (though some noises do annoy me, they're not painful) but I hear so much that it's all overwhelming pretty much always. Ideally, I'd live in headphones blasting music to keep the rest of the noise soup away. That's not always practical/safe though.

Smells can bug me. I have an acceptable hoodie that I wear and will shove my face in it when I go places. I hate stores because there's so many conflicting smells to deal with. Lights make me nutty to. Being in public is a lot for me, so much movement and noise on top of it all. It's exhausting.

I dunno what it's like. It's like a lot of constant overwhelm from things that no one else seems to notice. It's like walking around with a second head coming out of your neck that's screaming all the time that no one else is aware of but you so you do your best to try to get on with your day while pretending it's okay because it's the hand you've been dealt and you can't just remove that screaming nightmare from you.

Wow. That sounds pessimistic as all get out. Sorry bout that.

I've always had a phobia of sudden loud noises if I know they're going to occur. I can be avoidant of sudden loud noises. It's my nerves, they're just so jumpy and I hate the sensation of jumping. Not sure if this classifies as a sensory issue or not.

I do hate noises like loud coughing and sneezing. But I think that's misophonia. And I get easily distracted by neighbour noise, which causes distress for me.

Unfortunately sensory issues can make you appear selfish to others but you're not exactly being selfish. It's just hard to adapt to certain noises and you sometimes wish you could just get away or the people causing the distressing noises would go away (neighbour wise).

I am the hypersensitive type, so I have a lot of sensory issues (touch, sound, smell, taste, sight, sixth). I run a fairly chemical- and condiment- free household. The only hyposensitive ones I can think of are my general clumsiness and when I am lost in my thoughts and forget to eat, etc.

I have been looking at my touch aversion and concluded that for me it is strictly sensory and not social. For example, I want to hold my husband's hand, but like in The Extraordinary Attorney Woo, you could time it - 50-some seconds tops. His hands are dry, his fingers coarse. When we are walking on a chilly day with gloves, I can hold his hand forever. I will hold my (NT) son's hand for minutes at a time (but he's young and runs off): his bare hands are soft. My husband offered to use more hand lotion.

Noise, noise is the big one for me.

Noise levels that for NTs would be completely fine and normal are just too loud and overwhelming for me. Just to give an example: a supermarket in the middle of the day. All the noise of the people in the store, the sounds of the carts, the hum of the freezers in the frozen section, the PA system, this is all something that I'd imagine the majority of NTs aren't bothered by, but for me? That will very quickly reach a level where I need to do something to tune out the noise otherwise I'll start feeling dizzy and woozy like I might pass out (I actually did pass out once when I was around 12-13 years old because of this) I wear my earbuds when I'm at the store now and they usually can manage to block the noise by themselves and if they don't, listening to some music will finish the job. Woe is me in the few instances where I've been in a situation where it's so loud even music doesn't help - and I don't want to damage my hearing by blasting the music directly into my ears

IDK if I have sensory issues relating to be touched. I know for a fact that I very much do not like being touched (I can just barely handle handshakes but even then I feel super uncomfortable doing it) and I'll get jumpy and uncomfortable if someone touches me, especially if it's unexpected but IDK if those are sensory issues or not. I also don't like the feeling of collared polo shirts on my neck, I'm fine with other collars just not on polo shirts.

Again IDK if those count as sensory issues or not.

I am lucky that I don't seem to suffer much from sensory issues. The two I notice for sure are I have trouble going barefoot a lot, I don't like the idea of my feet getting dirty. I also can't wear a new piece of clothing until I have washed it first. Something out the processing of it or something like that.

I might suffer from hyposensitivity in the area of smells. I don't seem to smell things as well as my NT wife and daughter.