Sensory Day

Today was one of those intensely sensory days.  We went to an open house at a college to which my son was accepted.  It started out with something they called a "campus fair."  It was incredibly loud.  On top of the relentless sound of the voices bouncing off the ceilings and walls of the gym, where the event was held, there was the blaring music, which was set at a volume designed to drown out the sound of six hundred people talking simultaneously.  

My son, the Aspie, found it somewhat annoying, but I was clearly much more disturbed by the auditory assault.  I wished, so much, that I had ear plugs.  The sound was making me feel physically ill.  I wondered how often my son, as a younger person, had felt just this way when he said, simply, "it's too loud."  

Happily, the rest of the open house was much more moderated, and while there was a great deal of information, a tour, talking, and everything else one would expect at such an event, no further auditory assaults occurred.  The morning's event receded to the back of my mind; the day's events wound down.  We proceeded on our long drive home.

After getting home, catching our breath, and feeding the dogs, we went out for dinner.  There was a long wait, but we were finally seated - at a small table, intended for two, but an extra seat was stashed at the end, in the bar area of the restaurant.  To say it was noisy, would be an understatement of massive proportions.  

Again, I found myself in a space with incredibly, painfully loud music, many loud voices, and acoustics that seemed designed to accentuate the noise.  My headache grew by the minute.  I couldn't hear my husband, my son, or even the waiter, because of all the noise.  I felt very close to a meltdown.  Again, my son didn't like it, but was not nearly as distressed as I was.  I could feel how easy it would be, if someone were to demand anything of me, to respond in an angry or hostile way. The relationship between sensory overload and "acting out" behavior was so clear to me.  On top of that, I was hungry, which made things so much worse.  

I can't imagine what it must be like, for children, in school cafeterias, for instance, where it is loud and chaotic.  The children are hungry.  They are overloaded with sensory input, often to the point where it is painful. People, sometimes teachers, sometimes aides who barely know the children, are telling them what to do and where to go; the demands may be appropriate, and they may be unreasonable.  And these children know they have to come back to these situations the next day, and the day after; day after day, week after week.  No wonder so many children start engaging in what is then labeled "school refusal."  If I had to face what I did yesterday, every day, I would refuse, too.  And it would not be defiance, or oppositional behavior; it would be self-survival.