- Okay, hi everyone.
Today, I thought I would talk about sensory needs.
This is something that is quite individual
to different people, and since discovering
I'm on the spectrum, I've been getting more and more
aware of certain things that I need that not necessarily
everyone else needs.
And starting to put better language around that
and things like that.
So today I thought I'd just give you a brief idea
of what things are like for me and some interesting
stories of what that's meant in different situations.
So noise for example, I've always known that I've been
quite sensitive to noise, things like car brakes,
big problem for me if they squeak too much.
No one else seems to get bothered by it.
And when I was younger, like I remember when I first
started going to like music gigs and things,
you know when I was sort of 16, 18.
I used to take cotton wool everywhere and so just in case
the pub was too loud or the gig was too loud,
I'd have cotton wool.
I played the drums and I would, other drummers wouldn't
care but I would always have ear plugs, things like that.
And now I've realized that
when there's a lot of background noise,
it actually takes a lot of energy out of me.
So if I'm in a really noisy situation all day,
then I'll it's actually quite mentally fatiguing
to be in that in situation.
So that's noise.
Touch, I used to think I was really sensitive to touch,
'cause I didn't like any kind of, any kind of really
light touch, I never really liked.
Now I realize it's actually the exact opposite.
I'm actually hyposensitive to touch, which means
I need really firm pressure on a lot of things.
That means that certain types of clothing,
I can't wear.
So I remember a time I used to have a woolen
school jumper that my parents tried to get me to wear,
and I remember this one time I had this huge fight
with my parents, saying I just did not wanna wear it
under any conditions.
And after some negotiation, we agreed that I would
try wearing it for the length of one game of pool.
We had a pool table at our, you know house at that stage.
And the game of, so I agreed to that,
and the game of pool went like this.
My dad broke, pretty good break,
all the balls went their separate ways,
didn't think anything.
And then my next shot was a really long shot,
all the way down the table.
White ball straight into the eight ball,
straight into the corner pocket.
It was one of the best shots I played,
and the game was over in about 15 seconds,
and I was very happy with that.
My dad didn't like that so much.
He thought I kinda cheated.
But anyways, so that was because I really don't like
the sort of light touch.
Another example is I can't sleep without a blanket on me.
I need something, something touching my skin at all times.
Sight is really strange.
I'm not sure if this is a sensory thing
or a neurological thing, but I can't see the whole picture
in one, and I've just only realized that this is something
a little bit peculiar to me.
I have really good sight for details,
but I kind of look at lots of little details,
and then put all the picture together later.
It's very hard for me to see the whole image in one glance.
And an interesting side effect of this is
I remember going to the cinema when I was younger,
and it was an unpleasant experience because I just could not
see the whole screen in one, in one frame.
Like I had to sort of look around at different things
just to put it together.
So that was a little bit difficult.
I've also realized that it affects reading
and things like that.
I'm not sure, not sure how to,
if I've explained that very well.
I've always known that I've been extremely sensitive
to smell, especially artificial smells like spraying
spray deodorant for example.
That means that I could be in my bedroom, upstairs,
and someone could spray deodorant in the bathroom
downstairs after shower or something,
and despite the floor difference and two closed doors,
I will still notice and like oh okay,
someone just sprayed deodorant in the bathroom.
So that's, that can be pretty extreme sometimes.
Makes it difficult to talk to people who smoke,
because that's quite a strong smell.
Womens with perfume is also difficult.
Walking through department stores that have
like a perfume section, I race through or I just hog my nose
or something like that.
And in hindsight, I wonder if this is one of the reasons
that I never took out the team sport,
because like locker rooms are particularly bad
with deodorant and BO and all that kind of stuff.
So yeah, I wonder if that's why I only ever did
sort of individual sports when I was growing up.
Okay, so taste is kind of interesting.
I knew I was always quite sensitive to this,
but interestingly, there were two foods that I often
had problems eating when I was a kid.
I just really didn't like eating them by themselves.
And that's rice and potatoes.
And very often kids are the opposite because they're
happy to eat those, because they don't really have
all that much flavor.
So at first glance, that's sort of sounds
like a hyposensitivity,.
I needed more flavors to add to it so that it was
palatable to eat.
But when I think about it now, it was actually
I was so sensitive to the taste, that if you cooked rice
in a plastic microwave dish, then it tasted
like plastic to me.
If you cooked it in a metal saucepan,
it tasted like metal to me.
And so I needed something else to mask that flavor.
Also meant that I couldn't eat things like you know,
cheese, or cream, or anything else that had
really, really strong flavors when I was younger.
Another sense that I only learned about recently
is the sort of balance and vestibular system.
And in hindsight, I remember watching people,
watching kids, watching other kids do things like
roll down a grassy hill and things like that.
And I thought, like that was the craziest thing on Earth.
Why would anyone wanna do that?
And after learning about this sense,
it makes perfect sense to me why that we're doing that,
because that were giving themselves the sensory,
the sensory input of what it feels like to roll downhill.
But that was never appealing to me, because if I ever did
something like that, I would just feel sick.
So sort of, same with carnival rides and spinning,
any kind of spinning is just too much.
I'll feel sick for the rest of the day.
I remember, I went on one of these like pirate ship things
that just goes up and down.
You know, nothing too fancy.
And I was like physically sick for the rest of the day
just as, as that was still affecting me.
Proprioception is another sense
that I only learned about recently.
So I guess the main thing with this one
is that it means I'm always moving a little bit.
So I'm very rarely completely sit still.
I'm either sort of pacing around or shifting my weight,
or you know, clenching my muscles a little bit,
or something like that.
I like really big movements, and I don't like to ever
completely stop moving.
So it's a little bit hard to explain,
but I guess the practical side is that I'm always moving
a little bit.
I guess actually a good example of this
is like a rocking chair.
People just like the motion of rocking and it,
you can feel it rocking, and it's just there's something
in that that's pleasurable I suppose.
So that is actually self-stimulating this particular,
this particular sense.
Anyway, this one's a little bit difficult to explain.
Hopefully you've got some kind of sense about it.
If I think of a better way to explain it,
I'm talk about it later.
So anyway, that's a little bit about me
and my own, my personal sensory needs.
Everyone is very different in this sense,
and I've personally have found it extremely
interesting to realize how different people
need different things in this particular arena.
And it actually explains a lot of behavior.
So I personally find that very interesting.
I hope you've enjoyed this video.
Okay, thanks for watching
and I will see you another time, bye.