Chapter Fifteen: Sensory Overstimulation

Q:		I’ve heard that some people with Asperger’s can suffer from sensory overstimulation. Do you experience this yourself?
A:		Why, yes I do. End of chapter.

Just kidding, of course. You know you wouldn’t get me to stop talking that easily!

Sensory overstimulation is definitely an issue I experience, like many of my Aspie peers, and it’s an Autism symptom that, I have to say, I’ve always found baffling. I mean, Asperger’s and Autism are all about social and communication differences and difficulties, and yet there, smack bang in the middle of the lists of traits, are light, touch, sound, taste, and smell sensitivities. How is that even linked to the same area of the brain, I’ve wondered. And also why poor motor skills?

But regardless of the strangeness of the symptom, it seems that sensory hypersensitivity in people on the spectrum is a real and serious thing. For me, it’s noise and light that particularly grate on my nerves. Oh, if only I could turn the volume down on people! Where is that switch? Don’t people realize how loud their voices are? And who made the sun so bright? But these things are what they are, so we deal with it the best we can.

I read an article on this topic quite recently, actually, which I found rather fascinating. It was a new study pinpointing additional brain synapses as a possible underlying cause of Autism^[24]—i.e., too much information is being passed from neuron to neuron within the brain—which could certainly shed some light on this link that’s been puzzling me. How amusing it would be if such a complex condition as Autism could all be linked in the end to something as simple as excessive local brain signals. That would certainly make it easier to diagnose and work with.

But these are new hypotheses yet to be proven and reproduced, and I’m no expert on the matter, so whatever the cause, I’ll move on to answering this chapter’s question by discussing the areas I know about—the two great sensitivities that affect my day-to-day life: noise and light, and I’ll also make a few comments on touch.

1. Light sensitivity:

It wasn’t until diagnosis—much later in my adult life—that I actually realized I had light sensitivity, and quite badly at that! The signs were there, but it took me a while to put two and two together.

I knew I got frequent eyestrain headaches. I knew that I needed the brightness on my TV or computer fully down or it would hurt my eyes. I knew my mum or husband would sometimes tell me to stop frowning when I really wasn’t, and sometimes, I couldn’t stop. And then one day, it dawned on me: I’m not frowning. I’m squinting. In fact, I’ve spent so much of life squinting that I have a pronounced frown wrinkle between my brows, one of the only wrinkles that I have!

There were also other tells. I’ve always had dilated pupils, which I’m guessing might be linked, as I’ve met other Aspies who are the same way. In fact, I had one friend who said when he spaced out—daydreaming—sometimes people would think he was stoned. His pupils were always so large, they always looked dilated, which caused him the occasional problem! But the strongest giveaway, the one you think I would’ve picked it up from, is the way I feel when I’m in the sunlight.

How many times have people said to me, “It’s a beautiful sunny day,” or, “I hope the sun will be out tomorrow,” and I’ve privately thought, “I really hope not! I hope for a pleasant, overcast day. Please give me miserable weather! The kind that makes me relax and feel at peace.” I know that other people love frolicking out in the sun and enjoying the brightness of summer, but for me, having that direct sun on me drains my energy and has always made me, subconsciously, that little bit tenser. And no, before you suggest it, sunglasses don’t fix it! They help, but they nowhere near solve the problem!

Sometimes, I’ve found the sunlight a big challenge when taking my children out to playgroups at parks. People just love to gather at parks, so there are often meetups there when the weather is “nice,” and it’s great for the kids. It’s just unfortunate that I have to socialize in a setting with the added burden of the sun taking away the energy I need to make that extra social effort. Why can’t we meet in some creepy, dark, shadowy place? That would be fun too, wouldn’t it? A perfect place to bring little children. Do you think I could convince people? Oh well, I guess not.

In my last job, I remember how something amusing used to occur repeatedly. My boss, Tony, and I (both of us!) had a habit of arriving early in the mornings and sitting in the office with the lights turned off. He was a little light sensitive too, I believe, and it really wasn’t that dark in the office with the sun rising outside, just pleasantly dim.

However, when other people arrived, we would constantly be asked, “Why are you two sitting in the dark?” And then they would disturb our peace by turning on all the lights. Flick, flick, flick. And in that instant, the fluorescent glare would be on me, and my restfulness would be gone. I hate that feeling of people flicking the lights on.

Tony and I continued the trend, and people continued to think it was strange. But I love the feel of a dimly lit room, and I had no intentions of changing that when I didn’t have to. If I could have left the lights off all day, if other people had never come in, perhaps the office would have been a more pleasant place to be!

Sometimes in the evenings, I like to go for walks once the sun has started to set, and I enjoy that feeling of peace and darkness. It gives me a natural high. I’m alive again, like all the burden of the daytime has been lifted off my shoulders. It gives me the urge to skip down the streets and spin and twirl, absorbing all the life around me. That feeling is elation, and it’s one of the few times I feel like I really know myself.

2. Sensitivity to touch:

Now, touch sensitivity is a topic I decided to slot in here at the last minute. I know it’s a bit random, considering that I’m not someone who suffers a lot from touch sensitivity! I’m fine with various clothing fabrics and clothing tags, and touching odd textures doesn’t irritate me, so I can’t really relate to the extreme texture issues that some Aspies experience. However, I’ve noted a few things about myself in regards to physical touch that are sort of interesting.

I know that when I was young, I was always acutely aware of the sensation of someone touching me. At school, when people would brush my skin or touch my neck, it always felt uncomfortable or even a little alarming to me. I remember one day in high school how some girls started touching me on the neck repeatedly because they were amused at how I tensed up and reacted. It became a joke for them to try and get that reaction out of me.

I do remember that as a child, my mother almost never hugged me, and for most of my life, I assumed that this was because she wasn’t the physically affectionate type or didn’t wish to touch me. I found it sad and took it an indicator of a lack of affection for me. But in a recent conversation with her, she told me that as a child, I didn’t like to be touched. I withdrew. She said I pushed away her attempts to hug me, so she stopped trying. So it seems that maybe I started it!

Nowadays, as an adult, I wouldn’t describe myself as particularly averse to being touched. From a partner, I enjoy general physical contact as a sign of shared affection. Similarly, with my own children, it feels natural, and I can enjoy it from people I have an intimate level of friendship with.

However, there’s some degree of discomfort and awkwardness when less-familiar people try and hug or put their hands on me. I still tense up in the same way that I did as a child and secretly want to pull away. I always assumed that this was because I’m not used to it and I’m unsure of the proper way to react. There’s a degree of self-consciousness that comes with it, and heaven forbid I put my boobs on a person the wrong way and give mixed messages! But who knows? I guess it does create a lot of feeling, which is sort of unwelcome from anyone but those who are closest to me. Is that supposed to be a part of the same sensitivity? I’m not sure.

3. Sensitivity to Noise:

Last but not least, we come to noise, one of the most difficult sensitivities to avoid. Loud noises can be quite a problem for sound-sensitive oddities like me, because almost everywhere you go, where there are people, there’s going to be noise. And no amount of standing at the back or making grumpy faces at the crowd is going to solve that! (And no, I don’t stand there doing that… well, much.)

When I was younger, I must’ve had a better ability to just tune the noise out and get along with my day despite the irritation, because I always could push through it. But nowadays, I find I can tolerate it less and less, perhaps due to having to deal with it for so long each day. I have friends on the spectrum who describe noises as being physically painful for them. One person I know, David N., likened it to someone stabbing him in the ear repeatedly. I never thought I had it that badly, but I have to admit, lately, with children in tow, it’s starting to feel that way for me too.

It seems that for each Aspie, noise sensitivity can present itself differently in regards to which particular noises will set them off. Some people can’t stand dogs barking. Meh, they’re okay to me. And I can tune out kids playing better than most! But I do seem to have a lot of issues related to adults talking too loudly or too many adults talking at once.

For example, I find sports commentary irksome, especially as the commentator gets excited over the action unfolding and starts to raise his pitch… and he passes to so-and-so, and so-and-so passes to so-and-so… SO-AND-SO KICKS IT DOWN THE LINE, AND IT’S A GOAL! [YELL A LOT MORE DETAILS HERE!] Please don’t put me in a car with someone who “just wants to catch the score” on the radio. I think I’d rather jump out the window while the car was going than suffer the drive! I won’t look kindly at you turning the radio on.

Sometimes it’s just that person in the group with the unusually piercing forms of expression—you know, the one with the loud outbursts—who’s too much to handle. My mother-in-law has a sudden, loud (hammering the eardrums) laugh. And I’m sorry, Celia, to put that in here. I still love you!

Another common sound barrier that I keep running into is that racket you get from large crowds of people, such as the type you find in a crowded restaurant or at a street gathering or festival. Of course, it’s overstimulating and wears me down rapidly, as you would expect, but even more awkward than that, I seem to become socially inept in the noise and can’t make out what anybody is saying!

I don’t know how many times I’ve sat in a restaurant with friends feeling self-conscious because I just can’t hear what the smiling face next to me is chatting away about. There are only so many times you can say “pardon” and “no” and “I agree”! I have no choice in the end but to fade out and stop trying to pretend. I’ve often had the feeling that I’ve become a third wheel, even when I’m sitting right in the middle of the group. It makes me feel really alone, as odd as that sounds.

For much of my teenage years, I suspected that perhaps I had problematic hearing because of how much difficulty I’ve had interacting with people and following what was going on when I get stuck in groups like this. However, in a visit to an ear doctor a few years back, I learnt that the opposite was true. The specialist told me that I would be the sort of person that would notice obscure notes in a symphony that (and I quote him) “us mere mortals wouldn’t.” My hearing was exceptional. So I asked him why I have so much difficulty understanding people, and he explained that it’s a brain thing.

Who knew? It turns out my brain is different!

In fact, I learnt something interesting recently that suddenly made a lot of sense. Apparently, it’s normal for human brains to be wired to tune in specifically to conversation over the background noise and chatter, so most people can communicate with each other more easily, even amongst a crowd. However, for some Aspies like myself, the brain doesn’t differentiate the voice of the person talking to me over every other tap and click and conversation going on in the room.

So I’ve learnt that is my problem. I hear too well! I hear everything in the room simultaneously—every sentence, every person shuffling in their seat, every tap of a spoon or fork or dish, the song and any background buzz from the radio (I hate white noise), every single conversation going on in the room. No wonder I’ve been having all this trouble!

On a somewhat related note, talking on the telephone is another task I’ve always struggled with for reasons I can’t quite pinpoint, although I’m pretty sure it, too, has something to do with my difficulties hearing what the other person is saying over the background static and making out their meaning without being able to watch for gestures or expressions on their face. I can do it well enough when I try, but it requires so much concentration to understand what the other person is saying back to me that it exhausts me. So it’s a task I tend to avoid except for the people in my life that I’m most comfortable with—and unafraid to offend!

Socially, this can be a big setback, because so much catching up is done over the phone, and if you don’t call people, they might make the assumption you’re not interested in making an effort in the friendship. I get the impression with my mother-in-law sometimes that this is a barrier to our relationship. I think she leaves me alone because I don’t contact her much, and maybe she sees me as aloof or disinterested in being close with the family. What she doesn’t realize is that I don’t call anyone.

In fact, the only people I’ve called voluntarily in many years are my mum and my partners. Then, much more recently, I also started to make the occasional call to my friend, Paula, whom I’ve started to get along well with and feel a certain degree of safety around. This is a huge breakthrough to me, to reach phone call level with a friend. It means I trust them so much that I’m not even afraid to lose them by misunderstanding and saying wrong things on the phone. It’s almost unheard of for me to do it voluntarily. Yet I’m pretty sure Paula wouldn’t even know it’s a big deal. It’s just something I started doing one day after many months of friendship.

Anyway, last but not least, I thought I would end my “noisy” section with a story about action movies, because the sound that action movies make when playing in the background is definitely a noise to top them all! They don’t just sound like screaming and destruction. They’re the sounds of screaming and destruction blasted right into my ears!

My little story is about one holiday when Robert (my husband at the time) and I had rented a house in Bright with two other couples who are close friends. I was heavily pregnant at the time with Isaac, so the other couples were quite accommodating and gave us the biggest room with an en suite^[25] right up at the front of the house. It was actually a rather comfortable holiday where we all had fun sitting around the fireplace and even played games in our pajamas one evening, you know, just to embrace the stereotype.

Anyway, one evening, the boys decided that they wanted to sit in the main room and watch an action movie together in the evening. And that was fine. I wasn’t particularly interested, so I excused myself and headed to bed, as I was awfully tired in my third trimester.

The problem was, however, that our room was the one in the house adjoining the main TV lounge area, and the sounds from the movie in the next room were loud. I lay in bed and tried to rest, but the noise was hurting my ears that little bit too much for me to sleep. It wasn’t unreasonably loud for a movie viewing, just loud enough for the sudden loud bursts to grate.

I considered asking the boys to turn it down, but I couldn’t decide if that was a reasonable and “normal” thing to do. You see, back at that point in my life, I was still very self-conscious and unaware of my different sensitivities. I spent a lot of time analyzing my actions to make sure my behavior was “right,” and if unsure, I tended to err on the side of caution. I was unsure.

In the end, I was too agitated by it to stay in bed, so I went into the en suite, where the noises were quieter, shut the door, and made myself a little nest of towels on the floor to lay in. It was quieter, and at least I could get peace that way, though it was a little uncomfortable, and I awkwardly tried to rest. After around an hour, the noises finally stopped, and I was able to go back to bed and get some proper sleep.

These four people are among my best friends in the world and would probably be more understanding than anyone, but I guess this is what happens when you have no label to explain why your needs are different from others’. Repeat bad reactions to my seemingly fussy requests, which were actually quite serious for me, taught me not to ask for these “silly little allowances” any more. The world had me convinced that I was the one being fussy and unreasonable.

I’ve heard other Aspies say before that they would never wish it upon anyone to go through life with this syndrome not knowing what it is. And it’s for reasons like this that I wholeheartedly agree. My life would have been so different if I’d only known then the things that I know now and been able to explain my needs better. It would have given me the confidence to actually ask for what I needed when I was uncomfortable. Imagine how much better my world could have been if I had only had that.