Category Archives: Sensory Related

Anything related to sensory issues, overloads, or nice things.

The very well-printed back of the business card of the Geeks Public House in St. John's; "Games, Comradery, Drinks"

Review: Geeks Public House, St. John’s, NL

So, last night (Dec. 28th) my youngest sister and I went to the pub owned by a friend of hers, the Geeks Public House on Duckworth St. in St. John’s.

As many of you probably know, bars and pubs can be nightmares for autistics, between the screens, the lighting, the volume of the music (whether live, on TV, or from CDs or the radio). However, Geeks Public House is specifically designed by the owner to be a quiet, accessible space – essentially a board game café that’s actually a bar rather than a café. (And unfortunately, given it’s in what was an old house on Duckworth Street, it doesn’t have the greatest physical accessibility; there are no ramps, and the stairs can be a bit steep.)

I was rather looking forward to it (especially after being at Ben’s Bar in Churchill Square the night before for a cousins’ night, and having live music played there; the songs were ones I like, but the volume was horrendous and the only reason I stayed past the first few minutes was that I wanted to spend time with my cousins). Said youngest sister (aka the SLP sister rather than the teacher sister) had promised to “kidnap” me there sometime while she was down here for the Christmas/winter holidays.

Continue for Full Review and Pictures!

#SensoryAssault at the Avalon Mall

…And we’re not talking about the holiday shopping crowd or even the people smoking in places that are specifically marked as non-smoking (though I consider that a sensory assault and a health hazard as well).

As with all malls, there are a large number of stores in the Avalon Mall, and three (or four) have been problematic, sensory-wise, until about a few months ago (when some were added, see below). Bath and Body Works – in the section between CIBC and Scotiabank, and the escalators; Saje – second floor between the cinema and Lawtons; and The Body Shop – across from Saje, all have very distinct and strong smells coming from them, that can be rather aggravating for anyone with hypersensitive smell, or a sensitivity to particular types of fragrances. As you probably know from other posts on my blog, I’m both. Sephora, as a makeup store, can also have problematic smells at times.

There have also been complaints about the new restaurant/entertainment section, The Rec Room, in terms of the light and noise, but I haven’t yet gone into that section, so can’t say anything from my own experience yet.

But now there’s a (sort of) new store, set right in the open area where the Santa Claus is, next to Laura Secord (of all things!), called Lush.

Lush has a wonderful reputation in their home country of Great Britain for being environmentally aware and focused on products that are healthy as well as beautiful – I made a new friend through doing NaNoWriMo this year who just immigrated from England, and she uses their products exclusively. There were a number of articles about their opening the store in the Avalon Mall.

Unfortunately, walking anywhere near the Lush store is a nightmare – I used the term sensory assault for good reason.

Click for Details

Update: Life and #AutismPresentation (Help?)

So, it’s been a while since my last update. Not as long as some intervals, but definitely a while. In that while, a lot of things have happened.

My middle sister got married (yay!). (It was lovely, small ceremony.) I was diagnosed with psoriatic arthritis (answers, at last, to the pain and inflammation!). I joined the Newfoundland and Labrador Centre of Applied Health Research Autism Research Exchange Group (as well as two other Research Exchange Groups). I applied for and became a member of the Newfoundland and Labrador Autism Action Council (which will be working on the provincial Autism Action Plan – let’s hope it has better final results than CAPP did!).

Today’s post is about a presentation that I’m doing on Thursday to the Autism Research Exchange Group, on sensory issues.

Continue reading

Recommendation: BBC – Autistic Women

I’ve mentioned before that my dad reads the BBC (BBC Video Article: Cat Helps 6 Year Old Autistic) and he sends me interesting articles. This was one that he sent to me today.

BBC: “It all made sense when we found out we were autistic”

This is an excellent article, I can’t praise it enough. It’s about seven women (the first interviewed plus the six that are pictured at the top), all of whom received late diagnoses as autistic, and what that meant for them. And all of their stories resonated with me in some way or another. (One read about being autistic thanks to her mother’s work, and recognized herself in that – that was me except with my sister’s studies, for example.)

The article is focused on the fact that autism is very underdiagnosed in females – at least one of the women has a son who was diagnosed at four and a daughter who wasn’t diagnosed until she was thirteen, for example – and how these women found out they were autistic, and what it meant to them to be diagnosed. In a lot of ways (except for the fact that the article is basically all the women’s stories, with no additions or questions listed, except the numbers at the beginning of the article regarding autistics in the UK), it’s a mirror of the interview I gave the CBC last June.

I highly, highly recommend reading this article. The stories in it are wonderful and moving, and very, very true to my own experience, and so likely will be for a number of other autistic women.

‘Later!
🙂 tagÂûght

#SensoryIssues: #Interoception – #Toileting

Disclaimer: As far as I’m aware, I had no issues with toilet training.

So, a few weeks ago, I saw a comment somewhere (I no longer remember where, but it may have been Twitter) that essentially claimed that the only reason autistics might have trouble with toileting issues is low intelligence (note I didn’t say “IQ”). This is my response.

As we know now, most – if not all – autistics have trouble with sensory issues; sensory issues that when unaccompanied by other elements are diagnosable (in North America) as Sensory Perception Disorder, or SPD. Those difficulties can be summed up in three parts: hypersensitivity (overly sensitive to stimuli); hyposensitivity (very not sensitive to stimuli); and sensory seeking (seeking out certain sensory stimuli). Note that sometimes hyposensitivity and sensory seeking end up focused on the same form of stimulus, and one seeks out that form of sensory stimulus because one is hyposensitive to it.

As we also know, there are more senses than just the commonly known five (sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell); there’s: Click to continue reading

Let’s Talk About: Emotions – #Grief

There’s a series on Twitter about how (we) autistics feel negative emotions right now, prompted by one of Neurodivergent Rebel’s Twitter #AskingAutistics polls. (Which I highly recommend, by the way.) And since there are things going on in my life right now that make this a fairly relevant topic for me, I decided to write a post on it. Or more specifically, write a current post on grief. I’ll probably write about others later, but this is the one relevant right now.

I’ve mentioned alexithymia – the inability to recognize/categorize one’s own emotions, and sometimes to have physical reactions to emotions instead of “feeling” them – before, both when speaking of imagination, and about psychosomatic issues. And there’s also the issue that autistics tend to emote in ways that are not recognized/understood by the neurotypical audience. All of this means that quite often, the neurotypical audience has no idea what we feel, or how deeply/intensely.

One thing I do know about grief, from previous experience, is that I process it very differently from most of my family. (I’m not sure about my dad – we haven’t really discussed that.) Of course, no one processes emotions in exactly identical fashion, whether from the neurotypical or the neurodiverse population… but my way is rather different from most others that I’ve heard of.

Read on for more about my processing and the questions to talk about

Nerves Like Exposed Live Wires

Have you ever felt like your nerves were exposed wires – live ones? Jittery, exposed to air, live wires? That might at any time make your muscles do strange things, like seize up? That feel as though there’s static electricity – or any kind of electricity, really, but static electricity gives the idea I’m going for in terms of strength – going along them?

I have. In fact, the reason this post is going up now is that’s how I’ve been feeling almost since I woke up this morning. Even after taking my Vitamin B complex (vitamin B is good for your neural network).

The first time I can remember feeling this way was in the fall/winter of 2012/3, when I was doing an internship with ILRC-NL (now Empower). One of my placements was at a hotel, and the first time I tried to work at the reception desk (as opposed to the “operator room”), there was a vacuum cleaner being used off to my left. My left upper arm immediately started feeling that way – as though the nerves were exposed to air and had electricity stronger than the normal neural communication shooting through it. Sensory Overload Warning!

It seems (for me) to happen when I’m stretched thin, or when I’m stressed and anticipating something that may not be terribly pleasant, or if there’s major unpleasant sensory input (like the vacuum cleaner mentioned above). (Today I suspect it falls under the “stretched thin” category – see my last post.) It’s usually strongest in my upper arms – and if it’s on one side only, usually that’s the left side, or the side that the sensory input that is unpleasant is situated. Both sides, or more than just my upper arm, and it’s most likely to be one of the first two situations.

So I was wondering. Does anyone else get this sensation? Is it something that happens occasionally, frequently, or all the time? Does anyone have suggestions for dealing with it other than “wait it out”? (Or “take a nap and see if that calms it down enough”?)

Would love to hear from others!

Thanks,
🙂 tagâûght

#ASNL: #AskAboutAutism 2: Everybody Grows Up

First of all, I apologize to Tess and Will – I meant to get this up Tuesday, but didn’t manage to.

So, Monday evening, the ASNL (in the person of Tess Hemeon) organized the second Ask About Autism Livestream evening. (The first was last year – see my post ASNL: Ask About Autism #1.) This time, rather than some professionals and an autistic, there were two of us, both autistics – Will and myself. The theme this year that the ASNL has been concentrating on for Canadian Autism Awareness/Acceptance Month is “Everybody Grows Up”, and that was what the first part of the livestream was about. The second part looks at sensory issues, stims, and executive function, on a very basic level (we did this in half an hour, so it had to be basic 😉 ).

(We’re hoping to do this more frequently, and Tess and I were even discussing the possibility of short daytime livestream discussions as everyone was closing up.)

To see the video, read on! 🙂

CBC Interview: Diagnosis

So, last week I got an email from Tess Hemeon (the Public Relations/Communications person for the ASNL) asking if I was willing to be interviewed about being diagnosed as autistic as an adult. I said sure – I’m looking for new routes to go to help expand my advocacy. So Monday afternoon, I had an informal (aka not recorded) phone interview with an intern working at CBC Newfoundland and Labrador (here in St. John’s). One of the things I mentioned was that I wouldn’t mind doing a formal interview about the matter.

So, she contacted me Tuesday and asked if I was available to come in this morning for a recorded interview. My reaction was: “Yes!” ( 😉 )

Got up early this morning, and drove out to the CBC building for the taped interview.

The interview was with Krissy Holmes of the St. John’s Morning Show (which airs from 5:30 to 9:00 am, Newfoundland Time, on CBC Radio One), and it went really well. Read on for details!

Music: Pressie, NSO Masterworks 4, and Concert Tips

It’s a semi-long post today. 🙂 Time to talk about music! I’ve got a heartwarming story of a present, a review of the Newfoundland Symphony Orchestra Masterworks 4 2016/17, and some handy tips for dealing with concerts for autistics and those around autistics.

Our story begins with the NSO Masterworks 4, though. Click for the story!