Too loud, too bright, too fast, too tight

Oh, sigh!!!!

I am incredibly sensitive to the sound of paper against paper - paper towels, dry markers (and I want to be an art teacher, oy!...), and -eep- cardboard boxes (especially closing them!.) Makes moving exceedingly diffucult. I also dislike the noise flash bulbs make when left on, that high-pitched whine.


An ex-boyfriend of mine's mother was so sensitive to the smell of popcorn, she could smell an approaching movie theatre from inside the car.

OHMIGAWD, Dag!
The sunglasses on a cloudy day! It's me, again.
I've been known to wear my sunglasses inside a classroom at night, when the lights were bothering me.
People always comment on me being a 'movie star', because I'm always wearing my sunglasses. It's all fitting together a bit more.

Omigod... Yes to all. I have to get this book.

Do you remember, Beth, when we were going to meet in Tucson and I couldn't find a picture of myself without sunglasses?

Yipes.

Yesyes. Although the first hundred pages are frustrating, she goes through sypmtoms and cases and reasons and one feels increasingly crazy, but then she gets into techniques how to deal with it....that feels better. but just the simple thought that this has a name and i am not merely a deranged psychotic helps a lot!

Sometimes at the end of the day, when I get home from work, I like to sit with no television or radio going for a while and just enjoy the peace and quiet. The only time I've ever experienced anything like the type of sensory overload described here was the one anxiety attack I had. I managed to escape the overcrowded shopping centre I was in before I was completely overcome.

I've learned to unwind. For myself, sensitivities to noise (loud music) and crowds are symptoms of too much tension coming from other sources. Not from the music or the crowds, they are safe things I can vent over. Each day I take time to unwind, a little yoga breathing, a little stretching, a little sitting in reflection, maybe ten minutes sometimes more. There comes a great calm.
And when I sit next to the guy on the crowded subway car with his hissing headphones invading my space, I smile at how little I'm bothered.

===

Relaxation and yoga does help to lower the stress, but unfortunately many of these things are caused by 'miswiring' in the brain. Emotions are primary, thus when you get startled by noise, or upset by touch, no reasoning will help. but everyday training and proper diet (both food AND sensory diet) help to maintain a lower level of stress overall. i will report back whether those exercises from book are any good. hope it will be a major success story.

Hope so too!

I really identified with what you were saying, and patiodog's list ('cept for the pummeling, though I've been in similar "do NOT bother me right now!!" situations), but the book's list ain't it.

Do clothing labels bother you so much that you have to remove them? No.

Do you find many different foods repulsive? No.

Do loud, sudden, or piercing sounds startle you? Er... (And aside from me, aren't those kinds of sounds, by definition, startling?)

Do you need to wear sunglasses even on a cloudy day? No.

Do you feel panicky going down an escalator or driving through a tunnel? No.

I mentioned before, general stress level has definitely been a big issue for me with this. That and the supremely unhelpful "don't think about it" trick. (Supremely unhelpful in terms of "How do you do it?"/"Well, see, I, um, just do. Heh.")

i also don't have issues with touch / taste/ visual things (except i cannot stand when somebody has a tick (sp?) of sorts), it is mostly human sounds for me. those are quite sufficient though to make my hair stand on end, and tremble out of rage inside. i get mean to people i love and sometimes run away from them to be alone. luckily EH has a job from 5am to whenever, ususally does not come home before 8pm or so, if he's not on call, so I have plenty of time alone. Am fearing the day when I will start a full time job though.

Mark your calendar for six months from now, I'm very interested in how the exercises go for you Dag.

Joe

;-) many people are, especially those that have to live with me!

Generally, clothing labels do bother me.
Cloudy days are when I"m most likely to need sunglasses. On a sunny day the glare all comes from one direction, but thin clouds can tend to spread it out. Generally, my eyes seem to be sensitive.

I also don't like watching television in a darkened room. I prefer to have a light on somewhere.

I'm Vampira. I don't like a lot of light. It hurts my eyes. Makes me irritable. I tend to draw curtains, only have one, or two small lights on. I wear sunglasses when there's nearly any light outside. If it's bright I wear sunglasses and a big hat.

I have been known to wear some clothes inside out to get away from their labels. It is really hard to get labels out of clothes without tearing them or leaving an even rougher spot. Grrrrrrrrr. Sometimes you have to remove them and then resew the seam... I hate that. I cannot imagine not being annoyed by labels -- they are prickly and stick right into my tender skin.

Ickly foods... anything soft. I hate pudding. <shudder> I also can't stand a piece of gristle or fat in meat. When I was a kid, I was so afraid of bones in fish that I refused to eat it at all.

I will startle at the noise of an airplane going overhead... or a truck going by. I am distressed by too much noise though, like anything, I get used to it (sort of). When I go to our beach cabin where it is fairly quiet, I get annoyed with the neighbors if they make noise. If you've ever seen a high-strung horse startle at something that all the horses just go "ho-hum" -- well, that's my reaction.

I do go on escalators, but I don't like it and always hold on like a little old lady. I've had to learn to be brave for my kids though. It used to frighten me a lot if I were carrying bags and holding my kid's hand AND trying to go on an escalator. The solution is to put the bags down between my feet. Tunnels make me panic, but if I'm driving I just try to look for the opening on the other side. There is a tunnel/bridge/tunnel at the mouth of the Chesapeake where I nearly had a fit when we had to go back down into the second tunnel if we were ever going to get out of there. We had to stop at the bridge and let me get my bearings. I'm not good in caves or on bridges either, but these are things I've had to just force myself to overcome. The list didn't mention amusement rides but I am very distressed on a Ferris wheel. (I can handle a roller coaster & most other things, though I don't really like the nausea.) Last time I was on one was when my kids were about 4 and 5, ie. 15 years ago. It was a little one for little kids but I became so scared that THEY were comforting me. What a weenie. They thought it was funny.

I didn't like, ah, to list them, anything wiggly or wormy, as in pudding (I still have never had tapioca, but now it's because I never run across it), spaghetti, custard, aspic, cooked eggwhite as in fried eggs, and so on.

Some part of all of this many of us are describing is within normal range of yuckiness decision-making, normal range sensitivity about touch or noise (um, is it heightened in serenely raised only children? anyway, even normal has a range...)

What dag has been describing really trims your life, and as she said, has made her feel as if she had some weird unexplainable psychosis. This sensitivity is probably well explainable if we knew more brain physiology. I mean we as humans, I figure the complexity of patterns is immense.

Noises only bother me when I didn't get enough sleep

Anybody else bothered by heavy dark print?

I asked you once before, kjv, to cut that out, since it would make your posts easier for some of us to read, and you told me to forget it (I forget the exact words.) I say this not about content, which is always another issue, but just about the print. Heavy dark print is usually taken as shouting on the internet, and that is fairly true, visually.