Sensory Overload

Sensory Overload, when your mind can no longer understand and interpret the information handed to it by your own senses. A common part of living on the spectrum is not having a great deal of control over your senses or the information they generate for your mind.

Rather frequently this is portrayed stereotypically as a young child, invariably on the spectrum, wearing headphones in a crowded place. Whilst this may not be entirely incorrect it also isn't fully correct either. Sensory overload can happen to anybody, anytime, although it is of course more likely to strike people who already have trouble keeping their senses in check.

For me the problem does indeed more often lie in there being either too much noise around me, there are too many distinct sources for me to block out in order to pay attention, or that there is a source I am not currently paying attention to that is simply confusing my attention, more often than not this could be other people trying to have a conversation in the same room.

This however is not always the case, equally I can quite as easily be overloaded by something as innocuous as the weather; to my eye the sky does not often appear blue with fluffy clouds, or grey and overcast, but rather a constant bright white, with mere hints of colour, not unlike an overexposed photograph.

Partly this is because I suffer from some kind of hypersensitivity, through Dyspraxia, for which I usually wear adapted glasses to cut out the worst of the light, but when I am at home I do not wear these glasses as I feel it rude to wear such items indoors. And second to this my Dyspraxia generally confuses any and all sensory information I am receiving.

This is of course, great fun, in high pressure situations, or in environments that you do not have any control over. Where invariably, some level of sensory overload is commonplace, and in some cases a constant.

Continuing on with our description, it isn't solely large, or otherwise heavy, stimuli that can trigger it. Small things like the tag in the back of a t-shirt can very easily assist in overloading your body's senses. I have to remove all of mine, otherwise they cut like knives into the back of my neck - or at least, that's what it feels like to me.

In addition, because many fabrics feel like sandpaper against my skin, I pretty much only wear 100% Cotton t-shirts against my skin. Though recently I have branched out into 50% Cotton and 50% Modal, and I find the increased softness, and decreased weight, quite agreeable.

Rather understandably, I am also a member of the "no touchy" squad. To me, even sensations I know are coming can be upsetting and off-putting, sensations I do not know are coming therefore, can easily be a one-stop shop into overload territory. Most things have to be prepared for, or obviously pre-empted from quite a way out. For example, I can deal with a handshake, or even a short embrace, upon meeting someone, because I know it's likely to happen. But, generally, cannot handle more spontaneous occurrences of the same.

As mentioned in my first post, rather briefly at the very end I must admit, I also have difficultly in properly processing temperature information. This once again falls under the remit of sensory information being processed either incorrectly, or not at all. And in general, exhibits itself through an intolerance for heat. As the mercury rises above even the mid-twenties, Celsius, I can start to feel light-headed, faint, and find it near impossible to focus on anything.

Essentially my body is being barraged with sensory information that it can't handle, and it's now unable to keep itself cool. So it goes into a kind of "get me home" mode, where the only thing I want to do it lie down, and eat a box of ice lollies. It is worth noting however, that the opposite doesn't happen, when it's actually freezing (below zero Celsius), I just feel cold. And whilst I do still find it difficult to focus on anything, this is usually because I'm usually pre-occupied with not freezing, with no feeling that my senses are confused.

Less overloading, but equally off-putting, and totally confusing to me, are both smell, and taste. In general, I would say one is under-developed, and the other is over-sensitive, sometimes to the extreme. But I could just as equally say that both are confused, and don't really know what to do with the information they are given.

Certain foods, are like eating sand, or chewing rubber, or shattering glass, or sipping slime; you probably get the point by now. A great many foods are not like food at all, but something else. And all because my senses of taste, and of texture, cannot correctly understand the sensory information given to them. And it is the same with various smells. Almost anything that can be sprayed from a bottle, has a texture like sandpaper in the back of my throat; and on the back of my tongue, is enough to make me gag.

Nonetheless, there are certain textures, and certain aromas, that are not only not negative, or otherwise uncomfortable, but that are highly agreeable, to my senses. Though they are very few, and very far between. Amongst them lie soft, but not really chewable, textures like mashed potato, highly flavoured foods like ramen noodles, and items that are strong in both departments, such as scotch whisky.

To conclude, I guess it could remain for me the task of explaining, or elaborating, how exactly one deals with this. In a sentence I could say it is just a case of "You like what you like, and you do not like what you do not like", with the adage that the subset of things I like, is probably a lot smaller than the average. This probably isn't a satisfactory conclusion, but regardless, it shall have to do.