Senses

I've seen a few people talking about thier sense and sensory overload here, does anyone else have muddled senses? For example if I'm watching a cookery program I can smell the food as well as see it. I think it's partly because I've got whats called a Perfumiers Nose, in that I can detect individual scents from a blend, like a perfume and obviously its partly because I enjoy cooking so much and creating recipes that I can imagine what somethings going to taste like. My daughter has full on synesthesia, if someone says a word to her, like brown, it will have a smell, taste and texture thats not associative, she wouldn't hear the word brown and think of chocolate for example. I don't have this and she's not ASD, but my senses do "bleed" into each other a bit, but in an associative way.

I have huge problems with sound, or rather noise, I rarely go to pubs, restuarants or cafes because with all the people talking around me I can hear the person talking to me. It's worse in low light levels, I never realised how much I unconciously lip read. I can only describe it as being like having a load of radios, all tuned to different stations around me, I might be able to hear a radio from 3 or 4 tables away but not the one in front of me. There's a little girl in the garden over the hedge from us who squeals, whenever she does, which is often, I pretty much go into a spontaneous low earth orbit. It puts me off of being in my garden, and I love my garden. I happy that this little girl, her friends and siblings play outside so much and have a Dad who's still out at 10pm on Xmas eve finsihing off a fairy castle for them to play in, but I want to enjoy myself too and I can't. Headphones and earplugs are out because I have PTSD and if someone came up behind me to attract my attention and I didn't know, I'd go into instant fight/flight mode and probably hit out and I'm to well trained and could really hurt someone believing they're an attacker, when all they've done is come to ask me if I want a cup of something. It's one of the reasons I live in the countryside so as I can be away from the crush of humanity, but a few years ago I had to move to a village from the remote house I lived in before, I would love to go back to living with my nearest neighbour quarter of a mile or more away, but for the moment thats not possible. There have been times when I feel so overwhelmed by noise that I've wished I could be deaf.

Some music is OK, it depends on if I like it for one thing, but ambient lift music or onhold music really makes me grit my teeth. I don't like listening to music with other people very much as they talk over it, rustle and generally interupt. I like to have my music enveloping me, I want that nice feeling of being part of the music and someone coming along and disturbing me feels like a assault. I rarely listen to music anymore as I don't get the space I need to enjoy it.

I'm usually alright with textures, there are some nylon fabrics I can't touch as they set my teeth on edge and I'm not bothered by lables or seams like so many of us are. I don't like being jostled, being in crowds or anything, partly thats noise, storm force auras, and just generally to much going on, but sometimes it's about the building. I hate cinema's and theatres, being in an empty one is bad, the ceilings are weird, the accoustics are strange and the ceiling are to high. I get the feeling that the roof's going to fall on me and I get so upset that I wish it would just to get it over with. I'm similar on tube trains, but not with aircraft, and theres no way you'd get me on Eurostar, I'd melt down so much there'd be nothing left of me but a puddle!