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
