Sensory issues

They can change over time or suddenly flick on out of nowhere for sure.

For instance; having had to wean me with in weeks of being born because I would not tolerate a bottle, my mother said, I ate anything put in front of me until my first school dinner and thereafter had major issues with food until adolescence and still have a fair few now.  From my perspective I still remember the utterly vile stench and nauseating texture of that school lunch even now, with the dinner ladies demanding that I eat it.  Basically, I think if something gives you a sensory shock, it can flip these things into being and they can take years or decades to dissipate again.

Others of my senses flit about all over the place.  I have been known to experience no physical pain when others seem to think I should be experiencing quite a bit, and conversely be in agony, when others think I am making a fuss about nothing.  There must be something other than simple touch/pain at play in my sensory system at that point.  But then I'm also a synesthete; another sense triggering something it shouldn't???  Who knows.

But yes, these things can suddenly pop up.  I don't think it's exactly age dependant, although I got better at tolerating somethings as I moved out of childhood.  As I am now middle aged I am finding it actually harder to tolerate others, which I used to manage. 

Hi Dawn, your part on school dinners has filled in a missing blank for me. I was the same with food, most things were okay until school dinners started. I can’t stand anything that is mushy. We were only allowed real potato’s once a week, the rest of the time it was this powdered potato mixed with water, it was grim and just tasted of metal. The smell of cabbage was overwhelming, I could smell it when I came into school in the morning, that gave it a full 3 hours to boil. Each table in the dining room would have a teacher sat at it to make sure food was eaten. Some teachers really shouldn’t have been allowed to teach. They most probably new a subject very well but didn’t understand children at all. I vividly remember one day when we had spam and as a so called treat a piece of tinned pineapple was put on top. I was told that I wasn’t leaving the table until I had eaten it. With each mouthful I was retching, the teachers response was that I wasn’t to wash it down with water, it was a treat. I think that’s when I became more intolerant to food. Liver and onions was another punishment but thats another story. It’s strange how your mind can bury these parts of your life and then they can seem like yesterday again.

School dinners bring back so many vivid memories for me too. The whole experience was a complete sensory overload in so many ways.

I can clearly remember the overwhelming noise from all the voices, the chairs scraping, the pots clattering, the cutlery on plates. This was all amplified and echoed off the tin roof, because the dining hall was in an old nissen hut.

The overwhelming smells were vile. Liver and onions is the worst ever and I could not even tolerate that at home  I remember the cabbage too!

Then the textures of the foods were completely off-putting too. They would serve up mince full of gristle, which made me gag. I agree that the 'smash' potato was vile!

Any attempts to get me to eat the food would result in retching. The more the dinner ladies shouted at me the more distressed I would get.

They couldn't get me to eat anything at all. They repeatedly asked my mum to provide lists of foods I would or wouldn't eat. That didn't help as at home, in a quiet environment, I would eat most things put in front of me. Eventually they decided I could no longer have school dinners and I had to go home every day at lunchtimes.

Those traumatic early experiences caused me eating issues for life. Even to this day I can't eat in noisy environments like restaurants or when there are other people there.

At school it was liver and onions. At home I think my mum didn't always cook onions with it, which is probably why I found the smell intolerable.

At school it was liver and onions. At home I think my mum didn't always cook onions with it, which is probably why I found the smell intolerable.