Most of my sensory “issues” would not be significant enough to notice if I lived in a quieter, slower, less populated piece of space-time. Were I living in human pre-history, I might not be considered to have sensory issues at all. It might be that I would instead be recognized as a person with some senses tuned exquisitely fine and the community might value and support me for those delicately tuned senses. But I live in the here-now, so this is what it feels like to be me:

My hearing is the most fine-tuned and the most problematic of my senses. I have heard bats echolocate. Not squeak (I heard that, too) but the actual echolocation sound. I can only hear it in the very lowest range (bats go up to around 100,000 Hz. I can hear up to around 25,000 Hz. Bat echolocation goes down as low as 14,000 Hz.) but I can hear it. Having hearing up to such high pitches meant that it took me years to be taken seriously when I said I couldn’t hear human speech very well.

Many people lose hearing in the higher end of their range as a result of time and aging. When I complained that I often couldn’t understand speech, but my hearing tested as better than perfect in the high range, I was sent away with, “maybe you’re imagining it.” But the difficulty never went away and now I understand it by a name: central auditory processing disorder. I usually shorthand-explain it as “kind of like dyslexia of the ears.” It’s neurological. I have a great ear for music but words get jumbled. Sometimes I shorthand it even more into, “I’m hard of hearing. It helps if you face me when you talk to me.”

On top of all that, I have vestibular hyperacusis. This one has a shorthand, too: it’s like a kind of synaesthesia where high-pitched sounds get perceived as motion. Sometimes it’s a pleasant motion but more often it’s a harsh, nauseating jerk. Oh, also those sounds hurt. I used to say “loud sounds hurt,” but years of self-observation have changed that to “high-pitched loud sounds hurt” because I’ve discovered that I’m fine with loud low-pitched sounds and I especially love listening to bass guitar or deep drums (not high pitched snares) at volumes loud enough to feel in my body as much as hearing in my ears.

But I’m supposed to be telling you how it feels to have this combination of hearing/vestibular sensory defensiveness.

Squeaking door hinges hurt. Beeping cash registers hurt. Whistling teakettles hurt. That humming sound fluorescent lights make hurts.  Sirens hurt. Doorbells hurt. Forklifts driving in reverse hurt. Garbage trucks backing up hurts. Salvation Army bell ringers hurt. My cell phone hurts. The beep my car makes when I open the door with the lights on or the keys in the ignition hurts. Fryer timers in fast food restaurants hurt. Loud motorcycle engines hurt. Sudden laughter hurts. Intercoms hurt.

The world hurts.

A great blog post about what it is like to have SPD! Click the link to read the rest of the article.

Liesel, Mod.