The senses:
Sight – Someone please cover my eyes! Why oh why do I torture myself by going to the bar? The lights are almost always humming, not to mention the flickering, and the color….and then if someone turns on some “cool” flashing lights….omg…..driving along and hearing/seeing an ambulance behind me….you bet I’m pulling over….not only because it’s the right thing to do but also because you cant close your eyes and cover your ears while driving…then the lights keep flashing in your eyes long after they are gone and the sound rings in your ears when its no longer there….omg augh.
It’s mostly flashing, flickering lights that bug me the most….some types of lights, like whatever ones they use in walmart…and the ones they use in the gamestop I go to….i don’t know what kind of lights those are but they make me soo dizzy.
Eyes, they do a lot. Do you know what your eyes do while your talking? They move, the pupils dilate and shrink, they reflect the things that are behind me and they show so much emotion. If I am looking at your face, I am probably watching your lips move, it may appear I’m looking into your eyes, and occasionally I am, but my eyes are usually on your lips, trying to concentrate on what you are saying. If I am not looking at you while you are talking I am probably missing most of what you said.
Edit to add: if im constantly looking away i may be nervous, overstimulated, or trying to process what you have said so far, i may need a change of scenery or i might just need a moment to process the conversation.
Taste – Tasting things is so much fun. Different foods, drinks, all kinds of things you can taste. But can you taste the air? I can. It usually taste like dirt, dust, or just this really weird indescribable taste. Sometimes I forget that I’m tasting the air and I think I have dirt or dust in my mouth and I try to spit it out. I can sometimes taste the silverware. I say I am tasting metal….i have no idea if that’s what the taste is but on those days I grab some plasticware.
Sound - I can hear everything. I can hear some things you can’t. Some days all the sounds blend together. Imagine hearing the lights, the electrical sockets, the tv, the refrigerator, the computer, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the kids yelling, the cars going by, the people talking outside the window, and the stupid cricket that wont shut up. Now imagine not being able to focus on just one of those sounds letting he other sounds go to the background. They won’t go to the background, each of those sounds blend together into one loud painful sound because you can’t seem to separate them. You could separate the sounds yesterday but today you are tired, someone upset you, or you are overwhelmed already. The only way to escape that one loud sound that of course is really a bunch of sounds, is to cover your ears, ideally put on some noise cancelling headphones….damn you really need to get away from all that stimuli. And omg….on any day if you are scraping your fork on your plate your spoon in your cup …just writing about it is giving me horrible goosebumps shudders (or any similar sound…nails on chalkboard comes to mind as does whistling)
Smell – I can smell everything, I can smell some things that you can’t. I get good naturedly teased that I have a hound dog nose. Your perfume and cologne make me dizzy. Your natural body odors, the ones everyone has, you know, the way your skin smells, the way your pits smell… I know its all natural. You can’t control what your body wants to smell like, I mean personal hygiene helps immensely ;) lol.
In my every day life, the smells of people don’t bother me too much, unless they don’t have good hygiene.
Too many smells in the same room/ area near which I’m standing make me feel dizzy, nauseous, and want to faint sometimes even sometimes will make me cry from being overwhelmed. The stronger the smells the worse I feel
Thirst - Unless I am already getting dehydrated I do not know to drink. I don’t get traditionally thirsty. If my mouth and lips are dry, I am lightheaded, or tired for no reason I begin to suspect that I should be drinking more and realize I am thirsty (more likely dehydrating).
I try to make up for this by putting an app on my phone that reminds me every so often that I should be drinking. It doesn’t exactly work if I decide to ignore it. Bad Girl don’t ignore your phone telling you to drink! lol
Hunger – Again I don’t get traditionally hungry. I have acid reflux. This is my biggest hunger indicator. If I haven’t eaten the acid will build up and make me feel awful (like my stomach is eating itself) . Wanting to throw up and heartburn are the biggest indicators. Dizziness or just feeling sick with being unsure why I feel sick is another indicator.
I try to make up for this by eating at the exact same time every day. Three meals and two snacks. The only problem with this is if I am not at home and I did not have any food I could bring that wouldn’t spoil and I have no access to food. Then I forget to eat until I feel sick.
Equilibrium and motor skills- Have you ever watched me walk when I’m tired? Or sometimes when I’m not even tired? I feel as though I look like I’m drunk sometimes when I’m walking. Tripping over my own feet, swaying, trying not to fall over. I really have to concentrate when I walk many days.
If you see bruises all over me its from being clumsy. I am constantly walking into walls and furniture and the corners of things, my spatial awareness is rough around the edges lol. Spatial awareness also included when I go to grab for a drink and I knock it over (that’s why I prefer my water bottle with a tight lid lol) or I reach for something and drop it.
I’m not sure what its called but I don’t know how tightly I am, or am not holding something, causing me to drop things….this is why I say I would prefer not to hold something breakable lol.
Between the not knowing how tight I am holding something and my lack of spatial awareness, if I am trying to hand you something, I might think you have taken it from me when you have not and I will let go….or I will think you don’t have it yet and you will try to take it and I won’t let go because I’m afraid of dropping it.
Time Perception – Remember what I wrote about ADHD? The part about hyperfocus? Autism brings a time perception problem my way. It’s hard for me to describe other then to say that my memories are out of order, I think things have happened more or less recently then what they have, or I don’t have my memories of certain things, and I have no concept of time. If it were not for clocks, timers, alarm clocks, and the position of the sun….i would never know what time it is or how long I have been somewhere or been doing something. One day I sat on a park bench people watching, bug watching, bird watching, squirrel watching lmao and I got there at lunch time…I though I was only there for like maybe an hour…but then it started to get dark and I realized I had been there more like 5 hours.
Touch- I am going to touch on touch in it’s own post.
Taste – Tasting things is so much fun. Different foods, drinks, all kinds of things you can taste. But can you taste the air? I can. It usually taste like dirt, dust, or just this really weird indescribable taste. Sometimes I forget that I’m tasting the air and I think I have dirt or dust in my mouth and I try to spit it out. I can sometimes taste the silverware. I say I am tasting metal….i have no idea if that’s what the taste is but on those days I grab some plasticware.
Sound - I can hear everything. I can hear some things you can’t. Some days all the sounds blend together. Imagine hearing the lights, the electrical sockets, the tv, the refrigerator, the computer, the washing machine, the dishwasher, the kids yelling, the cars going by, the people talking outside the window, and the stupid cricket that wont shut up. Now imagine not being able to focus on just one of those sounds letting he other sounds go to the background. They won’t go to the background, each of those sounds blend together into one loud painful sound because you can’t seem to separate them. You could separate the sounds yesterday but today you are tired, someone upset you, or you are overwhelmed already. The only way to escape that one loud sound that of course is really a bunch of sounds, is to cover your ears, ideally put on some noise cancelling headphones….damn you really need to get away from all that stimuli. And omg….on any day if you are scraping your fork on your plate your spoon in your cup …just writing about it is giving me horrible goosebumps shudders (or any similar sound…nails on chalkboard comes to mind as does whistling)
Smell – I can smell everything, I can smell some things that you can’t. I get good naturedly teased that I have a hound dog nose. Your perfume and cologne make me dizzy. Your natural body odors, the ones everyone has, you know, the way your skin smells, the way your pits smell… I know its all natural. You can’t control what your body wants to smell like, I mean personal hygiene helps immensely ;) lol.
In my every day life, the smells of people don’t bother me too much, unless they don’t have good hygiene.
Too many smells in the same room/ area near which I’m standing make me feel dizzy, nauseous, and want to faint sometimes even sometimes will make me cry from being overwhelmed. The stronger the smells the worse I feel
Thirst - Unless I am already getting dehydrated I do not know to drink. I don’t get traditionally thirsty. If my mouth and lips are dry, I am lightheaded, or tired for no reason I begin to suspect that I should be drinking more and realize I am thirsty (more likely dehydrating).
I try to make up for this by putting an app on my phone that reminds me every so often that I should be drinking. It doesn’t exactly work if I decide to ignore it. Bad Girl don’t ignore your phone telling you to drink! lol
Hunger – Again I don’t get traditionally hungry. I have acid reflux. This is my biggest hunger indicator. If I haven’t eaten the acid will build up and make me feel awful (like my stomach is eating itself) . Wanting to throw up and heartburn are the biggest indicators. Dizziness or just feeling sick with being unsure why I feel sick is another indicator.
I try to make up for this by eating at the exact same time every day. Three meals and two snacks. The only problem with this is if I am not at home and I did not have any food I could bring that wouldn’t spoil and I have no access to food. Then I forget to eat until I feel sick.
Equilibrium and motor skills- Have you ever watched me walk when I’m tired? Or sometimes when I’m not even tired? I feel as though I look like I’m drunk sometimes when I’m walking. Tripping over my own feet, swaying, trying not to fall over. I really have to concentrate when I walk many days.
If you see bruises all over me its from being clumsy. I am constantly walking into walls and furniture and the corners of things, my spatial awareness is rough around the edges lol. Spatial awareness also included when I go to grab for a drink and I knock it over (that’s why I prefer my water bottle with a tight lid lol) or I reach for something and drop it.
I’m not sure what its called but I don’t know how tightly I am, or am not holding something, causing me to drop things….this is why I say I would prefer not to hold something breakable lol.
Between the not knowing how tight I am holding something and my lack of spatial awareness, if I am trying to hand you something, I might think you have taken it from me when you have not and I will let go….or I will think you don’t have it yet and you will try to take it and I won’t let go because I’m afraid of dropping it.
Time Perception – Remember what I wrote about ADHD? The part about hyperfocus? Autism brings a time perception problem my way. It’s hard for me to describe other then to say that my memories are out of order, I think things have happened more or less recently then what they have, or I don’t have my memories of certain things, and I have no concept of time. If it were not for clocks, timers, alarm clocks, and the position of the sun….i would never know what time it is or how long I have been somewhere or been doing something. One day I sat on a park bench people watching, bug watching, bird watching, squirrel watching lmao and I got there at lunch time…I though I was only there for like maybe an hour…but then it started to get dark and I realized I had been there more like 5 hours.
Touch- I am going to touch on touch in it’s own post.
