![]() Let’s look at it in terms of the sensory components. Once I learned about SPD I was finally able to make sense of that experience, as well as many others. Photo by Ivan Oboleninov via Pexels The Sensory Components of the Grocery Store Trip I spent most of the ride with my eyes closed, just breathing, waiting for the noise of the turn signal and traffic sounds to stop causing me physical pain. ![]() There was no way I could have driven us home, and as my partner drove, they respected my unspoken need for peace and quiet. I am incredibly grateful and fortunate for my partner’s understanding. I knew I needed to sit or lie down, close my eyes, and have as little noise, light, and smells around me as possible. Did I mention the store was crowded? I felt increasingly awkward and in-the-way as I stared at the shelves looking for what I needed.īy the time we’d found everything and checked out, my head felt heavy, my brain felt like it was wrapped in thick fog, my eyes didn’t want to focus (or would get snagged on one thing for no reason) and forming coherent thoughts – not to mention speech – was beyond me. This time, though, I couldn’t use that targeted approach, I had to look at every item on every shelf to find the items on my list. Usually I’m on a sort of autopilot, knowing exactly where in the store the things on my list are, and going directly to those places and nowhere else. The rearrangement of the aisles meant I needed to go up and down every single aisle and scour the shelves for what I needed. Well…it turned out the store had rearranged significantly since my last visit and it was extra busy that day. ![]() ![]() This was a store I’d been to many times before, so I knew where everything we needed was located and I had a list. In this specific instance, my partner and I needed to go food shopping and the only time we could go was on a Saturday afternoon. I’m not a weird, dysfunctional person – my brain simply works differently. I’m still working on being kinder to myself, it’s a process! But, once I learned there are other people out there who struggle with everyday things like going to stores or traveling has really helped me so, so much. And it made me feel like this weird, dysfunctional, incompetent adult to need a long nap after routine food shopping trips. All I knew was that going shopping – for clothes, food, household items, anything – was an exhausting, completely unenjoyable experience. But for a lot of reasons I didn’t look into it further or seek out a diagnosis. One of these instances happened several years ago while I was doing something utterly mundane – grocery shopping.Īt that point in my life, I’d heard a little bit about SPD, and thought it could explain my sensitivities to noise, lights, smells, and body contact/touch. While I can come up with many examples of sensory overwhelm throughout my life there are a few that stand out in my memory as particularly clear examples of having difficulty with processing multiple sensory inputs all at once. Sensory Overwhelm at the Grocery Store: My Experience I am writing simply from personal experience as a late-identified adult. I am not a medical or mental health professional, nor am I trained as a life coach ( as Danielle is) I encourage you to seek advice from a trained professional for all health/mental health concerns you may have, including SPD. I hope that by sharing my experience with you, you will feel less alone if this situation sounds familiar, learn something about what it’s like to live with SPD, or how to help a partner or friend manage SPD in daily life. It made so much more sense once I learned about SPD. Photo by Matheus Cenali via PexelsĪfter writing the Introduction to SPD article, I wanted to share an experience I had, one that was baffling at the time. In this post, we’d like to offer a specific instance of sensory overwhelm in everyday life and then give a few tips for how to manage SPD in similar situations. A person with SPD, though, may struggle with all the sensory input (lights, noises, smells, navigating people and objects) at once. In a nutshell, Sensory Processing Disorder is a type of neurodiversity in which a person’s brain has difficulty sorting and identifying input from the various sensory organs.įor example, a person who does not have SPD can go to a multisensory place like a mall, airport, or movie theater and not experience much or any discomfort from the bright lights, conglomeration of noises (or volume level), smells, or moving through a crowded space. Here at Neurodiverging, we recently shared an Introduction to Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD) post in which we looked at the basics of SPD. 1.5.1 Learn more about Sensory Processing with these Neurodiverging resources:īy Tesni Linden What does sensory processing disorder look like in adults?
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |