Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
my mother has always been a lover of animals, and we have always had some sort of pet within our home, especially dogs. I am now an adult but I still live at home and support my family financially. I have a particular sensitivity when it comes to my senses of sound and touch, finding loud noises or persistent unwanted noise to irritate me greatly and cause an intense anger response. I've never really acted upon these feelings, instead I have become quite proficient in bottling them up and appearing relatively normal on the surface, however the sensation is so strong that it tends to cause me to shutdown after too long.
we used to have 3 dogs; 2 smaller dogs that were more of my mum's dogs, and 1 big border collie, Ozzie, who was practically my best friend. He made me see the best in dogs, and was one of the only sources in my life who made me feel unconditionally loved. however, he had to get put down earlier this year and i was devastated. following this, i've started to dislike our small dogs more and more, without Ozzie being there to remind me of the good. Shortly after he was put down, my mum bought herself a third small dog without first asking me whether or not I was ready and willing to attach to a new dog, and now I've been expected to train and dog-sit them even though I wasn't given the opportunity to accept these responsibilities. She had never trained the previous two and is making very little effort to train the third, so I am now having to try tolerate 3 uncontrolled, whining, screeching, barking, and biting dogs without my head exploding.
A result of this frustrating situation is that my willingness to tolerate my sensory issues with the dogs has decreased. I've made my mum aware of how uncomfortable and upset I get when the dogs, especially now that I've received my diagnosis, but instead of finding ways to train her dogs to behave properly and respond to commands to get them to calm down, I am expected to just simply tolerate it and try to out-reason my disability and sensory issues, with her responses being like: "but you need to understand they're just dogs", "you need to understand they're just anxious", "you need to understand they're just playing", or "you need to just learn to tune them out".
What about my anxiety?
What about my feelings?
what about my enjoyment?
What about my diagnosed disability, which explains that I can't tune these noises out?
it upsets me to see the dog's feelings being more valued than mine, surely the more easily controlled variable is the dogs temper, rather than my autism? suppressing my responses in these situations is profoundly uncomfortable and will surely wreak havoc on my mental health, even more than it already has.
Has anyone else here been in a similar situation? do you guys think that I'm in the right? have you any advice on how to approach this situation and improve my quality of life, even though I've already told my mum about this multiple times? How do I learn to process these feelings in a more healthy manner, in order to avoid potentially hours of rage and discomfort?
This has ended up being a very lengthy post, so I appreciate anyone who took the time to read it and respond. Thanks
A fine example of neurotypical lack of empathy, I'm afraid. We always had cats, I have never had a sensory problem with them.
Thanks for your response, glad that you cope better with your pets. I've previously lived with plenty of cats as well and I manage better with my senses around them, but I've always preferred the emotional connection I was able to make with dogs.
I certainly think that I've not been shown the same level of empathy that she's shown to the dogs. She seems to only sometimes take my disability seriously, until its inconvenient. For example, I also have fibromyalgia, which she sometimes takes seriously, until she needs help moving heavy furniture. Then its just expected of me to get it done. She seems to accept that I have autism, but doesn't accept that I suffer from the symptoms of autism.
I have the same problem, my wife and daughters (one of whom is also autistic) accept the theory that I am autistic, but do not seem to be able to allow me to show that I'm affected by it. We were walking between a theatre performance and a restaurant and the streets were very, very crowded and I was feeling rather overwhelmed, so speeded up to get to the restaurant more quickly. I then get told off for leaving them behind, though they knew where the restaurant was. Even when I explained why I had gone on ahead it wasn't accepted as being valid.
We always had Siamese cats. The oriental breeds have a temperament that is somewhere between that of other cats and of dogs. They will play fetch and can be encouraged (not taught) to do tricks, they can be walked on a lead, they demand a lot of affection and are very talkative. However, they never fawn on their owners and retain the self-possession of a cat.