IS IT SHOWING?

Dear Persons,

In IS IT TOUCHING?, I explored how the traditional view of sensitivity is limited --and somewhat discriminatory toward highly sensitive people and people with sensory processing differences (SPD).  I meant to put forth the idea that the way we perceive and process things should be recognized as a sort of neurological/physical/emotional/temperamental spectrum. Simply put, we have widely divergent levels of physical and emotional sensitivity. Furthermore, as self-advocates and advocates for our children and loved ones, it is up to us to decide whether our sensory (I include emotions as feelings here) processing differences are problematic, or glorious, or both, or neither...

This post was one of my most-read ever, and elicited many responses, both public and private.

One interesting theme that emerged from these conversations was that of EXPRESSION. I heard from people who have incredibly strong sensory and/or emotional feelings – but hardly express them at all. And I heard from people who feel they are “all over the place” in a sort of hot mess way and want to calm their actions, reactions and attitudes down (here is where some calming sensory activities might come in handy!). I heard from parents with super-sensitive, expressive children whom they are trying to understand...In short, it emerged that what we show (in those actions, reactions, and attitudes) is not just an exact reflection of what we feel.

So, this month, I’d like to bring your attention to the possibility that sensitivity does not correlate directly or evenly with expression or external reactivity. Some people develop coping mechanisms to hamper their reactions because of cultural or familial pressures. Some are naturally less expressive. Some people stuff their feelings. Others let it all hang out, sometimes in spades – intentionally, or because they cannot suppress the expression of their reactions.

Another manifestation of the sensitivity/expression interplay may be seen in those of us with sensory processing differences where certain stimuli that might seem minor to others (tags on clothing, bright lights, strong tastes or textures in food, temperature variations...) are interpreted by the brain as major. This may then result, expression-wise, in sensory overload or “acting out” or “shutting down” or...

At the extremes, you get people who may appear histrionic – your drama kings and queens who scream when stepping into a puddle of water (guilty) or a person gives them side eye; or your heartless stoics, who don’t even flinch when a finger is cut off or a loved one dies.

Notably, the histrionics and the stoicism may reflect/express SIMILAR levels of sensitivity, exteriorized in different ways. What we are experiencing inside is not always expressed in ways that exactly match our inner experience of intensity. People can be low on the sensitivity scale, but high on the expression scale; or they may feel deeply, yet not be expressive of that externally...

We may feel or express less – the proverbial “stone;” we may feel or express more, experiencing or acting explosively, like “fireworks.” These two things – what we feel and what we show - don’t usually occur in a matchy-matchy fashion.

What’s more, sensitivity itself can be emotional, physical, neurological...; while expression can be through actions, words, attitudes, moods...AND, as this scale shows, these factors can intersect in a Full Spectrum of ways!

Figure I – Showing Chart: Sensitivity and Expression: Stone to Fireworks, Squared

In addition, our attempts to modulate our expression are not always in line with our intentions.

As I wrote in IS IT TOUCHING?, I am a total sap and literally – embarrassingly! -  unable to not cry under a variety of circumstances, from funerals and other clearly sad occasions to anything touching (try this for a tear test), sentimental, or even joyous.

On the other hand, things that move me powerfully but are hurtful, complicated, or angering can overwhelm me and cause me to shut down and seem withdrawn or even cause a meltdown (internally!). And I am just one feeling/expressing person, a fraction of my Full Spectrum family. I am still trying to figure out my son, who sometimes can appear extremely insensitive as a reaction to sensory overload; my daughter, who seems impervious to all but a very few extremely, tremendously sensitive areas; and Pardner, who has the rare gift of being sensitive but non-reactive, observant and caring, yet as steady as can be. But Pardner has his areas of sensitivity, too: do not put your bike up against his car, nor, if you are a child with potential child gore on your hands, or a hairy cat in your arms, should you “touch the threads.”

So, finally, our sensitivities and expressions thereof can also vary from experience to experience, with different situations being more or less

Manageable/controllable,

moving/touching/intense,

and/or expressed

!

In the neurodiverse world, terms like “over-responder” and “under-responder” get thrown around, as if there is a mean level of response that is correct. Add on different ideas about social cues and behavior, reactions that may be judged “inappropriate,” or “unexpected”...Whew. I’m looking to expand our perspective on what’s a natural part of the range of human being, not criticize people. Human sensitivity and expression weave together in diverse, complex and fascinating ways, in a dynamic matrix represented here by a spectrum from stones to fireworks.  

What holds for all of us is that we want to be our healthiest selves. We have the privilege and responsibility of figuring out what that means - for our children, for ourselves, for our communities.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

 

Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop — a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it’s like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo!

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BOUNDARIES

“F*cked up people will try to tell you otherwise, but boundaries have nothing to do with whether you love someone or not. They are not judgments, punishments, or betrayals. They are a purely peaceable thing: the basic principles you identify for yourself that define the behaviors that you will tolerate from others, as well as the responses you will have to those behaviors. Boundaries teach people how to treat you and they teach you how to respect yourself.”

Cheryl Strayed

Dear Persons,

Boundaries keep us healthy.

Boundaries can be any shape (including partially open), thick, thin, obvious, subtle, situational, universal, expressed, internal, pleasing and convenient for others– or not, ordinary, extraordinary, permanent, flexible, temporary,...Boundaries can and should be of any type that promotes our health and healthy relationships. Boundaries consider and encompass ourselves and others as PERSONS.

Figure I – Visual Rendering of a Full Spectrum of Boundaries

A lack of boundaries finds an interesting overlap between neurodiverse people, who, for a variety of reasons, may be unaware of the possibility/necessity of certain boundaries, and unhealthy-to-toxic families, where vulnerable members (such as children, or, sometimes [and by no means only], women) may be abused or exploited partially because of weak or nonexistent boundaries in the family dynamic.

People who desire full health can learn about healthy boundaries and enact them. This can be challenging, especially at first, because new routines and behaviors always are (hello, transitions!), but also because sometimes others may take boundaries as a personal offense, or as selfish, or a burden.

Refer those chumps to the above quote. .

Basic well-being in life also embodies healthy boundaries (eating habits, personal safety, fitness...). For people who are highly sensitive, people with sensory processing differences, and people on the autism spectrum, among others, healthy boundaries may further include a diverse range of choices, such as:

* Not shopping at big box stores (this may hold, too, for people who have boundaries around consumption, or around economic ethics regarding working conditions of employees and/or manufacturers);

* Limiting the number of steps in any set of instructions, whether at school, work, or home;

* Allowing fidgets, pressure devices, what-have-you to be integrated in the classroom or workplace;

* Limiting or specifying social interaction;

* Avoiding fluorescent lighting, certain smells, loud noise, crowds....

* Finding mutually satisfying means of communication;

* Choosing clothing, food, etc. that does not hurt, distress, or irritate us;

* Deciding the conditions under which we will choose to share our unique circumstances and needs...

We have the inherent right to deduce and determine what feels safe, healthy, and appropriate in our lives. We can and should ask those who value our mutual health and relationships or who are charged with our wellness, working conditions, and/or education (and/or the education and/or care of our children!), to honor those boundaries.

Incidentally, healthy boundaries also allow us to more abundantly exude and take in all the good stuff.

Figure II – 

Person with Healthy Boundaries Enjoying The Good Stuff

I never knew all this; that’s why I am sharing.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

[EDIT, 1/13: My dear online friend Kmarie  Audrey posted this deeply thoughtful and interesting post after reading the above: 
http://worldwecreate.blogspot.com/2016/01/boundaries-christianity-grace-and.html]

Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop — a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it’s like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo!

An InLinkz Link-up

IS IT TOUCHING?

Dear persons,

I just finished reading Little Women to G and Z. That book is way longer than I remembered - and – seriously?! - emotionally grueling. As had happened throughout Little Women, but on an even more snot-filled, ugly-crying level, I began to lose it as I tried to read those last pages aloud. The closing bit, where Marmee says, even after all the poverty and hardship, and even though her daughter Beth died (sorry if I am giving anything away here), “Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I can never wish you a greater happiness than this!” And she says this simply because they are all together...I can’t even type it without sobbing.

As I read to her, as she often does, Z observed my emotional reaction and asked, “Mom, is it touching?”

Honey, to me, just about EVERYTHING is touching.

You can just look at my red, blotchy, slimy face – or your brother’s: Yes. It’s touching. When a bird lets another bird go ahead of it at the birdfeeder? Touching. Something on the radio about helping people? We will probably at a minimum get misty-eyed. When there’s a video of a baby seal? Touching. Human interest piece in People magazine at the dentist? All those interspecies friendship books? Elderly people holding hands? Yes. Anything to do with animals, life, death, romance, family, and so forth is fair game for being touching.

At the same time, on my own, I’ve been dipping into The Highly Sensitive Person, in which I was *stunned* to read that 42% of people describe themselves as “not sensitive at all.” And here I’d always thought everybody was just better at managing their feelings and reactions than I was – because there was something wrong with me. Something weak, or ignorant, or lame; a lack in me which rendered me less adept than the majority of people...People who didn’t seem to cry or laugh quite as readily, people for whom interacting with others, for example, seemed to be much more clear cut, less laden with strong, overwhelming feelings, and MUCH less daunting...

I’d assumed everybody was “like me” and that it was my “fault” for being unable to “master” my feelings and reactions. Now I see another healing, liberating spectrum! I wouldn’t quite put my Z in the “not sensitive at all” category, but on a sensitivity spectrum we clearly occupy different spaces. And this holds true for her sensory processing as well: she’s impervious to hunger, noise, lack of sleep, etc. in a way that’s inconceivable to the SPD-ers* in the family.

In Figure I, I’ve charted approximations of our family sensitivity levels relative to one another (P=Pardner, Z=my daughter, G=my son, F=me). This is obviously simplifying and generalizing, but it also clearly indicates a Full Spectrum of sensitivities just within one family.

Figure I – Touching Chart: From Squishing-Touching to Not Touching

Knowing that others have different sorts and levels of sensitivity, doesn’t mean we ourselves necessarily should attempt to change our own feelings and reactions – even if we are able (?). But that knowledge opens our eyes to possibilities of different perspectives - and perspective, as I tell my philosophy students, is the key to a lot. It’s marvelous to see how we all shine in different ways. It’s intriguing for me to imagine the experience of not sobbing at the drop of a hat; for Z, learning about things that are “touching” is inspiring her to find her own tender spots.

Guess the Full Spectrums will keep learning from each other.

We just started By the Shores of Silver Lake. You know, the Laura Ingalls Wilder where Mary goes blind and Jack, their loyal, loving dog dies? It’s going to be you-know-what.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

* SPD-ers: people with sensory processing differences

Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop — a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it’s like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo!

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MORE OR LESS

We’re more and more aware that our sensory sensitivities are intricately interwoven with our mental, emotional, physical, and neurological proclivities. This holds equally true – in very different ways – for my son and me.

Just as I often suspect I feel “too much” as compared to others, I think too much as well. Here’s an example: I was in a local coffee shop, reading a sign on a muffin: “Uni        Corn Muffin,” it read, with the “Corn Muffin” part all typed and official and the “Uni” handwritten.

I began to consider this puzzling marker...Did it herald some sort of prestigious, single-source, locally-farmed corn? Just one particular type of corn, a Silver Queen or Butter n Sugar perhaps? Or were they referring, trendily, to “uni” as in sea urchin?

I definitely didn’t want that!

“Um...what does that mean?” I asked the incredulous cashier, pointing to the sign.

“Unicorn?” she said, with pity.

Oh.

Pardner asked me not long ago, “When do you decide to put on lipgloss?”

I think he expected an answer along the lines of, “When I don’t have any on.”

I, however, gave him a very long, involved answer, touching upon the vicissitudes of being a ghostly-looking white person, what sorts of textures there are in lip things, the many, many sensory and chemical qualities that can be wrong with various lip-related products, what makes for a good lip gloss, and, most importantly, how incredibly painful it feels for me when my lipgloss wears off in even a tiny part of my lip...

                                              Figure I – Amount of Dry Lip That May Lead to Crisis

There’s a potential world of pain in a dry lip, and I say this as someone who bears the chronic pain of rheumatoid arthritis with nary a whimper (rheumatoid also brings me raynaud’s syndrome, which adds to dry lip – help!). I say this as someone who has lived quite a life and is amply endowed with “perspective.” I am pretty butch...but don’t leave me stranded without my chapstick. Burt’s Bees original, to be precise, with the Lip Shimmer on top.

Some of you will be reading this aghast. Indeed, I might be called an over-thinker, and/or an over-feeler by many, be it regarding muffins, lipgloss, or just about anything else. Others will be nodding along, having experienced life with sensory processing differences.

I am not saying people with high physical sensitivities necessarily have high emotional ones, just that our physical, emotional, neurological, intellectual, and all other “parts” are so intricately related. Sometimes our “parts” complement each other – and sometimes they exacerbate each other. We notice and feel and think and so on, more or less, more and less, more and more, less and less....It’s part of who we are.

Take my G, he’s a smart, caring, and thoughtful giant little dude, but, as I have mentioned before, he wouldn’t notice if there was a pound of schmutz on his mouth. In sensory processing lingo, he’s an “under-responder.”

                                    Figure II – Putative G Mouth: Yes to Schmutz, No to Crisis/Cleanup

Perhaps partly because of this less-sensitive-to-irritants way of being, G is so relaxed and natural about life. He’d read “unicorn,” no problem. He has a carefree heart. He feels a lot, but his feelings, so far, are remarkably positive. In contrast, I have to work pretty hard to stay upbeat, because of all that’s literally weighing on me. Being more sensitive overall – an “over-responder” - has a lot to do with this need to make quite an effort just to function at times.

G’s executive functioning is almost non-existent, and I know this, along with some social differences typical of neurodiverse persons, as well as non-noticing of schmutz (and other hygiene issues), will bring him many, many challenges in the years to come. But how about his EQ (emotional intelligence)? Off the charts. What balance and wholeness this seems to bring him!

Just yesterday, G pulled his socks on over soaking wet feet without screaming. In fact he was smiling and chattering while he did so. How liberating would that be? I wouldn’t change either of us  – and I am not crazy about the judgy aspect of terms like “over-“ and under-responsive” – but I do find our differences fascinating. I watched him doing this little thing I could never do, and I marveled at the range of ways of being whole, at how our mores and lesses -- RATHER THAN MAKING US MORE OR LESS -- make us, us.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

Welcome to the Sensory Blog Hop -- a monthly gathering of posts from sensory bloggers hosted by The Sensory Spectrum and The Jenny Evolution. Click on the links below to read stories from other bloggers about what it's like to have Sensory Processing Disorder and to raise a sensory kiddo! Want to join in on next month's Sensory Blog Hop? Click here!

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TEACHABLE MOMENT

WE ARE NOT YOUR TEACHABLE MOMENT

We are a Colorful Family. When we are out in public, we are usually the ones people are looking at. Because we are unusually attractive. OR, perhaps, because one of the kids is usually doing something "interesting" and one of the parents (usually me - Pardner is a chef, and chefs quite a lot) is usually doing something "creative" to try to channel the "interestingness."

I’ve realized over the years, because I find myself staring when I see families with differences or public challenges, that some people—like me -- look on with identification and empathy.

Some look with scorn and judgment (those guys don’t even deserve this sentence).

But the other group consists of the ones who want to use my family to teach “tolerance” – which feels a little condescending -- or those who (much better) are aiming for respect and acceptance, whether of neurodiversity or ethnic diversity or any other inclusive impulse…

Um, may I just say that being anyone’s “Teachable Moment” can be a wee smidge annoying? But okay, I get it, people.

So here’s my Lesson Plan for this Teachable Moment:

                                           Figure I – The Full Spectrum Family Lesson Plan

Guess what. It's a spectrum. Is yellow "better than" violet? No. Red vs. green: who wins?

Nobody.

Neurotypical's not better than neurodiverse -- and vice versa.

White? Brown? Peachy keen? Melungeon? Different?...Equal.

Orange? Blue? Indigo? Sensitive? Impervious? Female? Male? Trans? “Normal?” Weird?” Can’t tell?

Equal.

Please think carefully before you approach us just because one of us is brown and might not be “mine,” or because one or two of us seems quirky…unless you do so under an equal and inclusive flag.

Whatever we are representing to you, it’s probably not our "fault." It’s not even necessarily that interesting.

There's nothing wrong with us, or at least no more than there is with any other given family. And we all need to learn to get along. Best we do so with the basic assumptions that no one is a specimen and that we are all equally valid members of this funky human rainbow.

Thanks – I needed to get that off our Spectrum.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

An InLinkz Link-up

“HURTASELF AGAIN!”

Every time we have a Silent Contest (a.k.a. “Mom’s only time to not hear talking all day”), G brings up the time his sister and cousin stole his french fries at a diner with his Full Spectrum Grandparents. Apparently, he’d been trying to win $2 in a table-wide Silent Contest (apparently, grandparents also like quiet moments), and was unable to protest the theft because of the need to be Silent.

So, naturally, he’d prefer NOT to have a Silent Contest, because he is still traumatized by The Incident. Which happened at least four years ago.

I tell this story because, well, I get it. Some of us with sensory processing differences are extremely sensitive emotionally as well as sensorially. And – whether through our senses or emotions – when we feel things, we feel them more deeply and intensely than the average person, so that sometimes they are unbearable…and sometimes they are unforgettable.

I think of it like grooves on a record (remember those? C’mon hipsters!): the original grooves are deeper, as they are more strongly felt; the grooves that remain over time are worn away more slowly, if at all, because of their original depth. Literally, though, it’s the neural connections experiencing and recalling these feelings/events that are more robust. This might account at least partially for G’s and my eidetic memories, with which we are able to visually recall whole swathes of text or things we’ve seen or heard (transformed into text, for me).

At the same time, the processing and memory space taken up by these strong feelings seems to preclude the remembering of – or paying attention to - whole other piles of things. We may seem flaky, or physically uncomfortable, or socially awkward. We may get lost – directionally or in other ways. Sorry!  Brain full!

When I was a little girl, every time I would get hurt I would say, “Hurtaself…AGAIN!” Even then, I associated pain with previous pain, and strongly recalled other injuries, because they really, really hurt. (I remember{ed} the good stuff too – that’s now one reason I remember to write thank-you notes! – but that’s another story.)

                    Figure I – “Hurtaself again,” Adult Stubbed Toe Example

Think I’m being dramatic? Last year I had one of those cavities where you chew the wrong way and you fall down in agony before even having the time to think about it. I went to a local dentist and he could not numb the tooth. I went to an Ivy-affiliated dentist several hours away who was likewise unable to numb the tooth. The fancy dentist told me my tooth was “enervated,” meaning that the nerves associated with the tooth were many and widely dispersed and thus it was impossible to eradicate the feeling in that tooth. I would need to go under general anesthesia to get this tooth fixed (both dentists were able to put temporary “band-aids” on the tooth). 

Enervated. In general terms it means to make weak or lessen someone. But in teeth it results in Feeling More. That sounds about right for just about everything in SPD land.

Love,

Full Spectrum Mama

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