Autism and the annoying sound of a motorbike

Sensory processing difficulties are often the cause of debilitating shame, but if we can accept ourselves as we are despite our oddness life is more enjoyable.

Aug 11, 2024

As a therapist, I have noticed a common tendency for clients to preface a revelation about something embarrassing with something like, 'I know this sounds ridiculous.’

I got into a habit of asking, 'Who does it sound ridiculous to?' as a way of highlighting that it's often self-image at the root of the shame rather than the judgement of others.

This week, I've been working a lot with sensory processing disorder and hypersensitivity which made me think about the strange aspects of myself I have happily come to accept.

One of the most challenging parts of adult ASD assessment is having to answer questions about your childhood because it was such a long time ago and, when your parents are long dead, there’s nobody to ask about how weird you were as a kid.

All my sister could remember about me was that I was full of rage and very solitary, but other than that it was a process of stitching disparate memories together and trying to make sense of what might be relevant.

I found it easier to remember the strange behaviour of my siblings.

For example, my sister trying to walk down three flights of stairs on Pointe whilst eating a bag of ready salted crisps and the sorry but predictable consequence. My mother raged more about the crisps all over the carpet than the heap of daughter at the bottom.

Or the time my brother, always fascinated with electrical gubbins, started up an old generator he’d got his hands on and left it running in the cellar while he went for a bath. It burst into flames and caused a substantial fire that nearly burned the house down. That it happened a few months after the death of my grandfather was, putting it mildly, poor timing.

Or my brother wiring my great aunt up to the mains and my mother arriving home just before he would, presumably, have flicked the switch.

Most memories of myself seem to revolve around different places on my body where I got chewing gum stuck. Up my nose and in my belly button on two notable occasions although not on the same day, I’m not an animal.

Over the years, examples that might have been useful in my assessment have frequently come to mind in tandem with bewilderment that I hadn’t recalled them at the time. Chief amongst them, are illustrations of sensory processing difficulties and hypersensitivity.

Some have only become noticeable in later life or perhaps simply reached an uncomfortable crescendo, while others have been with me for my whole life, idiosyncrasies that feel perfectly natural and so, I suppose, easy to overlook.

When I was a child, my father would sometimes sit with me to watch TV and I would grab hold of his hand and rub the rough skin on the side of his finger for comfort.

If the skin wasn’t sufficiently rough I would pick at it with my nail until it was, occasionally making him yelp with pain when my excavation was too intense.

It’s one of the most soothing and happy memories of my childhood, watching ‘Dr Who’ while happily peeling the skin from my father’s hand.

Eventually, I grew up and no longer had use of his hand but, ever the pragmatist, I cultivated a rough patch on the side of my own index finger which, I am proud to say, I have maintained consistently for nearly fifty years.

When I started to use my own digits for comfort I discovered to great delight that it’s also extremely pleasurable to rub it on the seams of certain t-shirts where it 'snags' in the most satisfying way. I can’t be more specific. Garments either ‘work’ or they don’t.

Unlike many neurodivergent people, I never really developed an aversion to the texture of any food except jelly. I may have inherited this from my father along with my fear of balloons although he would eat jelly if he was able to sprinkle sugar on top of it.

‘I like the contrast of textures’, he would point out.

Come to think of it, I can’t abide the texture of tofu either but perhaps I ought to try sprinkling it with Demerara.

There’s always been something powerful related to touch because as much as I would kill for a rough finger (this is not a euphemism) I can’t tolerate the feel of a microfibre cloth or a dishcloth left in cold water, both of which make me want to remove my spine and beat people with it.

As someone who simply cannot bear feeling hot the summer brings multiple challenges.

I swear I’ve lost friends through complaint that the temperature has broken 22 degrees and that winter can’t come soon enough.

Then there are the flies and their selfish and unnecessary buzzing. Why can’t they fly about quietly so that we can live together in harmony?

I'm against killing any living creature, but I can feel my fuse burning down when, despite opening every available window and door, a fly decides it would prefer to buzz around banging into the glass until I have to retire to my bedroom for a little cry.

And it's not just flies.

A loud motorcycle passing by evokes such a powerful internal volley of abuse and momentary hatred for the innocent rider you’d think it had driven straight through my garden decimating the vegetables the slugs haven’t got around to.

The beep of the washing machine when it has finished its cycle, the cacophonous racket of the blender, and the toilet flush on an airplane which I can only use with a well-practiced manoeuvre that involves me pressing the button and swiftly putting fingers in my ears so that I can’t hear the sudden rush of air as the contents of the bowl are emptied into the ether, are all sounds best avoided if possible.

Someone recently recommended some ADHD music on YouTube which is supposed to help concentration for a chaotic mind but after listening to it for a couple of minutes I wanted to smash things up with a hammer.

Other than that, I’m fairly stable.

Apart from issues of stationary.

Lined notebooks are too arrogant. I don’t take well to being told what to do and the lines are restrictive in their inference about the way words ought to be written, at what angle, size and how far apart.

I’m a big fan of pencils but not ones that feel at all scratchy when I write with them. If that’s all there is available I’ll use a gel pen (black) instead as long as its point is no less than 0.5mm and no more than 0.7mm.

The paper in a notebook needs to be the ‘right’ thickness which is impossible to define but, like the rough skin on the side of a finger or the seam of a t-shirt you’re rubbing it on, something you instinctively know.

Some of you reading this might associate with similar oddities but, if you do, I hope you'll also recognise that, for the most part, these strange strategies we have adopted to help us through our lives are not harming anyone. Therefore, they deserve the same level of kindness and understanding that we might afford to someone we care about who can't wear socks unless they are made from bamboo, can’t bear the feel of aluminium foil and shouts at the dog leads to ‘fuck off’ when they get caught in the hood of their raincoat.

The Multipotentialite

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