Category: Sensory Processing Disorder

A person sitting with their knees bent and their arms around their legs with pillows in the background

Examples of Sensory Processing Disorder Symptoms From an Adult with SPD

Genevieve1 Comment

There are many resources online with examples of Sensory Processing Disorder, but what does it really feel like? As an adult who was diagnosed with SPD as a child, I finally have the language and perspective to be able to describe what Sensory Processing Disorder feels like to me. This article provides examples of Sensory Processing Disorder symptoms with accompanying descriptions of how I perceive things.

I am overresponsive to many stimuli, so this article doesn’t encompass every symptom or experience of SPD. A symptom checklist can be found at the end of this post.

Table of Contents

  1. What is Sensory Processing Disorder?
  2. Examples of Sensory Processing Disorder
    1. Visual Overstimulation
    2. Sound Sensitivity and Sensory Gating
    3. Tactile Over-Responsivity and Sensory Defensiveness
    4. Body Awareness
    5. Dyspraxia
  3. Allowing Myself Patience with SPD
  4. Resources

What is Sensory Processing Disorder?

Sensory Processing Disorder (or Sensory Integration Dysfunction) can be thought of as a “neurological traffic jam” that prevents information from the senses from being organized for use in an appropriate way. There are several subtypes and various forms the disorder can take, but the underlying issue lies in the nervous system’s ability to take in and deal with sensory stimuli.

Examples of Sensory Processing Disorder Symptoms

Visual Overstimulation

Red, blue, and yellow shapes overlapping with light shining through
Photo by Chris F on Pexels

I can’t seem to filter visual “noise” in the same way that other people do. It feels like an onslaught of lights and images that I have no natural defense against. I reach my limit quickly.

Examples

  • 30 minutes of fluorescent lights make me feel like I’ve been out on a bright, snowy slope for a day without sunglasses.
  • Chaotic movement, like that in busy stores and restaurants is hard for me to follow. It just becomes a sharp scene of color and light that disorients me.
  • Flashing lights are highly distracting. My brain can’t tune them out, so they constantly vie for my attention.
  • I prefer an uncluttered living space because it requires less visual work to navigate. Clutter feels suffocating, and the constant stimulation of so many items around me feels draining.
  • I don’t always wear my glasses because the blurry distance is calming. It removes some of the sharpness of my visual field and lets me lower my defenses a little.
  • Digital screens can cause nausea for me, especially if I have to do a lot of scrolling up and down.

Sound Sensitivity and Sensory Gating

For some people with SPD, repeated stimuli don’t get filtered out like they do in people without sensory symptoms. This function is called “sensory gating.” The electrical response your brain has to an initial stimulus typically becomes smaller with subsequent stimuli as your brain adjusts to it and decides it doesn’t need your full attention. With SPD, however, this process is not as efficient.

A 3D render of a gray/blue material spraying outward against a black background
Photo by Petar Petkovski on Unsplash

Say you encounter a barking dog. Everyone is startled by the first bark. We get a boost of adrenaline, our hearts start beating faster, and we start imperceptibly (or perceptibly) sweating. Some people can quickly return to normal even as the dog continues to bark, but for people with SPD, every bark can feel just as jarring as the first one.

Sensory gating is not limited to auditory stimuli, but here are some examples of how sensitivity to sounds and sensory gating deficits affect me.

Examples

  • Stiff plastic wrappers hurt my ears and make my eyes water. Opening a granola bar feels like someone is aggressively crumpling 3 wrappers directly next to each of my ears. I don’t understand the acoustics of this phenomenon, but it is mighty unpleasant.
  • Loud toilets are a sudden thunderous roar to me. I used to refuse to go to the bathroom if I knew the toilet was one of those automatic, rapid flush ones. The noise would throw me into a panic and I’d burst out of the stall with my heart pounding. Thankfully, I have since mastered toilets.
  • I like wearing headphones even without anything playing because they soften the sounds around me.
  • Much like the barking dog example, some noises don’t get adjusted in my brain and therefore sound deafening the entire time they’re happening. I have to psych myself up to trigger or use loud household items, like:
    • blender
    • garbage disposal – my family knows to warn me before turning it on.
    • closing the microwave
    • electric toothbrush – I switch off between electric and regular when I feel I can’t handle the noise and vibration of the electric one.
    • garage door
    • coffee grinder
    • vacuum
    • lawn mower – if I don’t take enough breaks, I end up leaving the mower in the middle of the yard and then crying and hyperventilating on the floor. It feels like running the lawn mower while in a metal box, sound flying all around me at intolerable volume.

I have a technique for pouring dry dog food into a stainless steel bowl with minimal noise, I like to close doors quietly, and I prefer not to wear shoes indoors because my own footsteps are too loud.

Tactile Over-Responsivity and Sensory Defensiveness

A right hand touching a pine tree
Photo by Petr Macháček on Unsplash

Sensory defensiveness means that a person has an aversive, out-of-proportion reaction to a stimulus that is not considered dangerous or harmful by others. It doesn’t have to be tactile, but as I’ve always been sensitive to touch (tactile over-responsivity), these are some of the most challenging examples of Sensory Processing Disorder in this regard for me.

Examples

  • Unexpected hugs (especially from behind). Touch sometimes startles me even when I know it’s coming, so being suddenly grabbed is scary. Agreed-upon hugs are usually good in my book, though.
  • The feeling of tearing paper towels without the perforation is one of the most viscerally horrible sensations I’ve ever felt, and I can’t even explain why. It makes me want to throw up and then crumple into a little ball on the floor.
  • Lotion. I have a love/hate relationship with it due to its revolting sliminess and soothing itch relief.
  • Splashing in pools is a surefire way to make sure I get out. This is partly visual, as I’m sensitive to movement near my face, and partly that I seem to feel every individual drop. I interpret it as danger and react in the way someone would if a spray of pebbles were kicked up near their face.
  • Clothes Shopping with Sensory Processing Disorder is difficult in part because I eliminate at least half of the available choices without even trying them. Lace, elastic, velvet, corduroy, wool, sequins, stiff fabric, and prominent seams are all out automatically. Certain textures and designs create constant aversive sensory input, like if your clothing were made of sandpaper.
  • Bunched-up and constrictive clothing. Everything has to be arranged perfectly, especially my shirt sleeves inside my coat sleeves. If not, it creates uneven contact with my skin and I am hopelessly distracted.

I’ve found that my experience of unpleasant tactile stimuli is terrible not only because the feeling itself is bad, but because it lingers.

The paper towels, for instance, leave something like an echo of the sensation. I keep feeling it as if it were still happening, with decreasing intensity over time. I tend to deal with this by frantically looking for something hard and smooth to touch to replace the tactile horrors of improperly torn paper towels.

Body Awareness with Sensory Processing Disorder

A moving, illuminated ferris wheel at night
Photo by Shahzin Shajid on Unsplash

Sensory Processing Disorder can make it difficult to discern where your body is in space, a sense called “proprioception.” Together with the vestibular sense, these systems help us balance, understand where our limbs are, and generally keep track of which way is up.

Examples

  • Vertigo and dizziness when I don’t sleep enough and when I’ve been in a car for a long time.
  • Rollercoasters? I’ve been on one. Absolutely never again.
  • Using touch controls on wireless earbuds. A challenge for me because I can’t touch the earbud without looking in a mirror. I don’t always know where my arms are in relation to my ears.
  • I’m highly prone to motion sickness.
  • Dental exam chairs. I feel genuinely confused about the angle at which I’m reclined. For years, I really thought that they were putting me slightly more than 90 degrees back and that I was actually tilted upsidedown. Knowing the earthshattering truth doesn’t change how it feels, but at least I know now that my body is lying to me.
  • Slightly fast elevators are exhilarating.
  • Motion sickness. Did I say that already? So much motion sickness.

Dyspraxia in Sensory Processing Disorder

A wooden chess board with assorted wooden chess pieces mid-game
Photo by Jani Kaasinen on Unsplash

Praxis is the process of planning and carrying out sequences of movements. This can be as simple as the automatic steps you take to get dressed, or it can be as complex as planning long-term goals. Impaired praxis is referred to as “dyspraxia.” Dyspraxia falls under the sensory-based motor disorder subtype of Sensory Processing Disorder.

Not everyone with Sensory Processing Disorder also has dyspraxia. I have symptoms of it that only tend to become a problem when I’m tired or overstimulated. It’s like something short-circuits in my brain and I suddenly can no longer comprehend how to do things.

Examples

  • “Simple” household tasks. I recently had two forks and two knives jumbled in one hand while setting the table, and all I had to do was divide them among two plates. For a solid 5 seconds, I could not figure out what I was supposed to do first. I had to walk myself through it step by step. I’m a little embarrassed to admit that, but it illustrates how dyspraxia can affect functioning at every level.
  • Making decisions. When I’m tired or overstimulated, my decision-making abilities tank. Just choosing what to eat at a loud restaurant can be difficult. When my brain is trying to cope with the sensory information that’s flooding in, there’s not much bandwidth left to handle decisions. It feels like I’m trying to juggle several raw eggs while comparing the 25+ menu items.
  • Copying movements. I learn concepts best through visual means, but translating actions I see someone doing, like in an exercise video, into coherent directions for my own body doesn’t come naturally to me.
  • Driving. I’ve improved immensely, but it took me a long time to get comfortable with it.
  • Getting on escalators. Planning the movement and timing it correctly is not an automatic task for me.

Allowing Myself Patience with SPD

A blue sign with yellow block letters reading "Be kind. Unwind."
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Over the years (and for multiple reasons), I’ve become an expert at hiding my emotions and powering through. I don’t want to inconvenience anyone and I don’t want to stand out. I can do anything that someone without SPD can do. But it takes a toll, and sometimes, it’s not worth it. Learning to listen to myself is still a work in progress, but it’s a valuable goal.

On the plus side, I don’t need to pay for horror movie tickets or haunted houses. I get my thrills by flushing toilets and riding elevators.

I hope that these examples of Sensory Processing Disorder are helpful. They are only my own experience, and they don’t encompass every SPD symptom. For more information specifically about Sensory Processing Disorder in adults, I suggest checking out the resources below.

Sensory Processing Disorder Symptoms Checklist (scroll down for the adult checklist)

Find SPD Treatment (be sure to check “works with adults” on the specialty menu)

Sensory Blogs I Follow:

http://comingtosenses.blogspot.com/

https://eatingoffplastic.com/

https://sensorycoach.org/blog/

An open laptop with the screen angled down and a bright swirl of colors being displayed against a dark background

How Sensory Processing Disorder Can Make Screens Unbearable

Genevieve10 Comments

Twice this week, I surpassed my daily limit of 5 consecutive hours of high-focus screen time. This limit is one imposed by Sensory Processing Disorder, and if I carry on without adjusting my environment and practices, there are unpleasant consequences. These include nausea, vertigo, and intense anxiety bordering on sudden panic.

Visual Stimuli and Sensory Processing Disorder

My job as an editor is done entirely on the computer, and it’s very detail-oriented work. I have to focus intently on the screen in order to catch typos and fix grammar and punctuation mistakes. I also have to do a lot of tab switching and scrolling up and down as I add words and change headers. Some sensory stimuli, like bright lights and visual movement, bother me more than they might bother someone who doesn’t have Sensory Processing Disorder. Taking breaks helps stave off the effects of digital screens, but when I spend too much uninterrupted or eventually, cumulative time looking at my laptop or phone without taking steps to reduce my level of stimulation, something gets mixed up in my brain. As a non-expert, I don’t know the precise details of what happens, but I do know that it feels TERRIBLE.

Nausea

When I’m tired and not paying attention to my sensory state, I start feeling some vague nausea around hour 4 of mostly continuous work. It spikes when I switch tabs or close windows- the little “whoosh” of a window disappearing into one corner is not something I notice at other times, but when I’m getting overstimulated, it makes my stomach turn. The light of my screen is physically painful to look at, so I turn it progressively lower as I go on.

Panic

Scrolling is the worst; short vs. long makes a big difference, but they’re both bad. A long scroll makes the nausea much more severe and gives me an indescribably strange pulling sensation in my sternum. It’s something like how I imagine having a long, wet string pulled slowly up and out of your chest would feel. It creates an intense feeling of horror and high anxiety distilled down into the 1.5 seconds it takes to scroll from the top of a page to the bottom. Short-term panic. Something about the movement on my screen is powerfully repelling. The longer I push on past my limit, the more the panic sensation bleeds into the time around the scrolling.

Sensory Strategies for Managing Overstimulation

For a little while, turning the brightness down low and wearing sunglasses helps, but eventually, even that doesn’t work. I take short breaks to press my feet into the floor and look at something stationary in the middle distance. I often close my eyes while scrolling, but this just prolongs the experience because I never scroll to exactly the right spot. If I’m typing anything, I look away from the screen. As the anxiety gets worse, I take deep breaths and pause to look elsewhere. My 5 to 10-minute breaks become time for me to lie on my back on the floor and squeeze my knees to my chest – trying to ground my frazzled nervous system.

A glowing blue laptop screen over a backlit black keyboard
Photo by Markus Petritz, @petritz on Unsplash

It became the worst it’s ever been this week when I carried on to about 7 hours of editing. The two hours leading up to the end were miserable. I was doing everything I could to make it through my remaining work, to the complete detriment of my body. I found myself involuntarily rocking back and forth after particularly awful scrolls, just trying to keep it together while my nervous system went haywire. I should have stopped, but I’m perfectionistic and had decided that it was my un-shirkable responsibility to finish all of it myself. When I did finally finish it, I barely held down vomit after booking it to the bathroom.

Problem-Solving Sensory Processing Disorder Triggers

I wonder if it has to do with the blue light (I plan on trying some blue-light-blocking glasses) or the frame rate of my screen. I haven’t been sleeping well lately, and I suspect that my sensitivity is heightened when I’m not well rested. Sensory Processing Disorder does weird things to my ability to handle multiple types of stimuli at once, and being tired just exacerbates it. In the same way that an escalator on its own is fine but an escalator after a busy day in an airport filled with noise and movement gives me vertigo, being tired makes handling the imperceptibly flickering light and movement of a laptop screen way harder.

There’s something different about this exact setup and workflow that makes things worse. I haven’t pinpointed what that is, but I suspect it has to do with the amount of scrolling. The platform on which I edit requires me to span entire pages numerous times within a very short timeframe.

In contrast, I often work on my blog for hours at a time, just as I worked on my computer for long periods of time on schoolwork or on other jobs I’ve held. Those activities have never had the kind of effect I’ve been experiencing recently, despite being quite similar.

Acceptance of SPD Symptoms

I spent many years not paying attention at all to the way my Sensory Processing Disorder impacts me. I knew I had it, but I told myself that I should be able to do all of the things that other people can do. So I minimized it in my mind. Despite having learned more about Sensory Processing Disorder and having gotten some treatment in the form of occupational therapy in the recent past, acceptance is something I still need to work on.

When simply looking at my laptop screen for too long has such debilitating results, SPD is something I should be considering more carefully. Pushing myself to the point of throwing up was extremely unwise and points to a general disregard for my own wellbeing. I didn’t want to inconvenience other people by being late with my work or shuffling it off onto someone else. And ultimately, I just did not want to admit defeat when it came to something as innocuous as looking at a screen.

I think I’ll try to reframe “admitting defeat” as “taking a really big hint from my body.” If it means living in a way that doesn’t leave me green with nausea and crying, that seems more like winning to me.

Mental Health is More Important Than Academic Success

Genevieve6 Comments

Growing up, I was always motivated by grades. I liked having that definitive mark to indicate whether I did well or not. Clearly, the beginnings of my perfectionistic tendencies go way back. Even in middle school, I remember carrying around a lot of anxiety about tests and grades. When I got to college, I was excited to be focusing more time on my interests – biology and anthropology – but the pressures of academia and my budding mental health issues wore me down.

Still, I was determined to do well. I had learned that I could earn good grades if I just put in enough work, even in subjects that didn’t come naturally to me. School was what I knew, and I felt tantalizingly close to the finish line. So, when I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder in the middle of my college career, I didn’t slow my progress down. Like many students, I simply forced myself to put my mental and physical health behind academic success.

At its worst, I went back and forth from my bed, desk, and class, taking naps when necessary but skipping meals and forgoing social interaction to conserve emotional energy. I thought about suicide a lot. I had several plans in mind, and I kept the worst of it from my therapist, fearing that she would force me to go to the hospital. The worst part of that potential event, in my mind, was missing class and falling behind. When I look at photos of myself from this time, I remember how forced it often felt to smile. Even on graduation day, I didn’t look happy; I just looked exhausted.

I hoped that if I could just make it to graduation and go home, I could rest and recover, and my mental health would improve. Instead, the sudden lack of structure combined with my admittedly fragile emotional state made things much worse. I tried – for months, I went diligently to therapy and attempted to pull myself out of my depression, but ultimately slipped back into suicidality. I was hospitalized for over a week, then released on condition that I do a partial hospitalization program for two more weeks.

I don’t know that all of that was caused by the stress of college. I am in my early twenties, when many mental illnesses make their presence known, so it’s possible that my symptoms would have been just as severe had I not gone to college at all. But I suspect that my perfectionism surrounding academics and the pressure I put on myself to succeed made an already risky situation worse.

When I can find compassion for myself these days, it makes me sad that I treated myself so poorly. Yes, I got a good GPA, but at what cost? To imagine anyone else doing what I did – valuing their academic success over their own life – is unbelievably sad. There is no grade that matters more than your wellbeing. I’m not exactly sure how my perspective was so narrow for so long. I knew that I could have taken a semester off – my mom suggested it, once – but I was vehemently opposed. I didn’t want to fall behind my peers. The thought of returning to campus without my friends made me anxious, and it left a vaguely shameful feeling in my chest. To take a semester off felt like a failure to me. That was my perfectionism speaking. There is absolutely nothing wrong or bad about taking a semester off. Or two. Or however many you need.

If I could go back, I would do things differently. I did love my majors – I would keep those. In fact, finding subjects that sparked my curiosity was a positive force on my mental health. Knowing that I had something to use in a career gave me a sliver of hope that was enough to let me imagine a future in which I wasn’t depressed. But two majors in four years is hard. I took a lot of credits each semester, and there was no way to avoid pairing difficult classes together. If I could go back, I would do it all more slowly. I’d take fewer credits per semester and accept that it would take me longer than four years. I’d also apply for accommodations. Beyond the assistance of longer exam times, it would have been nice to have my professors in the loop about my depression.

A lot of my perfectionism surrounding academics existed long before college, but there is something to be said for the culture that permeates my alma mater. There’s a sort of competitiveness among perfectionistic students for who can push themselves the hardest. If you say you’re stressed, people ask you how many credits you’re taking, as if your stress doesn’t count unless your course load is full. It’s not stated outright, but the general atmosphere is one of suffering-related humblebragging. If you’re stressed, it means you’re pushing yourself. If you’re not stressed, you might be slacking. Again – I love my university, and I’m proud to have gotten my degree there. People are motivated to achieve at Michigan, which is wonderful. That said, the limitless pressure to succeed can be dangerous.

Suicide is the second-leading cause of death for college-age people in the US, and its rate is increasing. Around 1,000 college students die by suicide each year. When young people are off at college, often away from home for the first time, they’re vulnerable to the prevailing ideas. Submerged in a competitive culture, it’s easy for students to believe that their future will be ruined by a bad grade. And I get it – students have plans beyond college that require top-notch GPAs. For a while, I thought that veterinary school would be my next step. Instead, my plans seemed to come to a screeching halt after college. Depression has altered my life enormously. If I could talk to sophomore me, I’d say, “I haven’t gone to grad school, but my life is not ruined.” Through the waves of depression, I catch glimpses of what really matters, and none of it is a letter grade or a GPA. I think I have a healthier perspective on life and academics now.

I sincerely believe that most of my depression is biochemical. That said, I’m pretty sure my college experience sped up the decline in my mental health significantly. Again – I don’t regret going to college, but I do think that if I had taken time to consider my innate traits, really thought about the stresses of being a highly introverted person at a university with more than 40,000 students, things might be different for me today. I did my best at the time, but I wish that I had honored those parts of myself; the quiet parts, the parts that need calm and routine, which were frazzled and burnt out after four years of high pressure. My sensory differences made the pace of life I’d chosen at university unsustainable, and by the time I graduated, I had an almost constant low level of vertigo, loud noises made me cry, and lots of movement in my visual field (like in a busy dining hall or a crowded hallway) made me disoriented.

I would encourage anyone who is pursuing a degree now or considering doing so to remember that it’s your education and your life. Everyone goes at their own pace, and what anyone else thinks about your pace doesn’t matter. Furthermore, what you think other people are thinking is likely more harsh than the reality. Taking care of yourself and your mental health is not always easy, and going against the grain takes courage. Think about the resources and environments that would support you and seek them out. Make friends who understand you, and above all, put your health first.

(There were parts of college that I really loved. The friends I made and the things I learned were priceless. Football games, waffles, fancy events at my dorm, exploring campus – there are tons of great things about college! I didn’t intend for this post to turn out so dark. It’s all about moderation.)

Watching rotund squirrels eat nonspecific trash was always fun, too.

light-and-dark-blue-in-close-up-of-glacial-ice

The Subtleties of Water: The Ketamine Chronicles (Part 27)

Genevieve4 Comments

I’m always looking up at the sky when the water closes over me. This time, it was cold, and an eggshell-thin layer of ice formed above me while I watched. Gentle waves followed one another, freezing over the previous layer and leaving a frosty texture on the surface. Darkness spread from the periphery of my vision until I strained to see through the last window of light, the only notable image being the shadow of a person standing above me on the ice.

I didn’t put a lot of effort into remembering this IV ketamine infusion. I know there were graceful, disembodied hands dancing amid blue and red lines, swirls, and dots. There was more water – ripples and waves, mostly. There was a pyramid with a circle above it, which turned into a blinding white light. I’m certain that there was a lot more, but it’s faded away from me by now.

Treatment-Resistant Depression

My mental health is declining. I’m not sure why. IV ketamine treatment doesn’t seem to be working as well for me, now. Every day, I have to rate my mood on a ten-point scale. It’s hard to capture how I feel in numbers. Potatoes are easier, but still not quite enough. Honestly, sometimes words themselves seem too limited. How can I describe how I feel?

This morning, I woke up at 4. I got dressed in the cold – same clothes as yesterday – and went to the kitchen for some food. I walked the dog when the sun came up, but we came home quickly because of the sharp, cold air. My eyes feel heavy. Not the lids – the actual eyeballs; they sit heavy in their sockets, like wet marbles or enormous caviar. I wonder, if I tip my head forward, will they fall out? When my depression is worsening, I often notice this feeling in my face. Everything is heavy and hard to move, and I’m sure my expression is grim. I think the clinical term is RDF – resting depression face. At least my pandemic mask covers most of it.

Maybe the person above me on the ice in my ketamine dream is me. I’m on thin ice. Skating across a just-frozen lake in my wool socks at 4am. Someone else is waiting beneath the surface, straining to see through the darkness. Is she also me?

__________

Why Do I See Water in My Ketamine Treatments?

My recent IV ketamine infusions have all featured water, and I’m often drowning in it. It’s not scary – it’s peaceful. It’s soothing. I’ve never stayed up by the surface before; always finding myself sinking into the dark, quiet depths. But this time, I was floating – pressed against the underside of the ice, trying to see through it to the person on the other side. I was curious about this person, but the darkness closed in before I could begin to unravel what was happening, and then I found myself in a different scene, which I do not remember.

I’m fascinated by this recurring theme of water, especially because in my regular life, I’m not a big fan of it.

An Early Trauma

I have sensory processing disorder, and as a young child, I flat-out refused to swim. I was overwhelmed to the point of tears by the splashing, the echoes in the pool, the temperature change from air to water, and most of all, the fear of people touching me. I eventually came around to the idea, but never enough to take lessons. So, having never properly learned how to swim, I nearly drowned at a friend’s birthday party when I was 8.

I remember being uncomfortable going into the deep end, but my friend was insistent. I lost my grip on the side of the pool and began to sink. When people say that drowning is not a dramatic event – there’s no splashing or screaming – they’re right. My head tilted back instinctively as I went under, and I could see my hand, extended above me, slip under as well while the rest of my limbs flailed uselessly underwater. A panicked hopelessness overtook me as I choked on chlorinated pool water. Then, my friend’s hand broke the surface, reached down, and grabbed my wrist.

I have never felt relaxed on or in water, and it’s not just the near-drowning that explains it. The same sensitivities that kept me from participating in swimming lessons have persisted into my adulthood. I dislike the unsteadiness of water, the unpredictability of how it will splash, the feeling of water on my face.

And yet, when I’m reclined in my doctor’s office, ketamine moving into my bloodstream, visions of water are soothing. I can feel the cool, constant pressure of being underwater without the anxiety or the sensory overload. I can feel myself standing on the deck of a boat, watching the foamy water beneath me leap forward and recede, and I feel peaceful. I’ve seen whirlpools, rivers, melting glaciers, and the unbelievable enormity of oceans. It’s a strange experience to suddenly realize what water might be like for other people, as those feelings are foreign to me in my waking life.

Open ocean near the surface with light filtering down from above.
Photo by Cristian Palmer on Unsplash

I feel as though, unhampered by the symptoms of my sensory processing disorder, I can connect to a larger, evolutionary interest in water that I am unable to find under normal circumstances. Humans have been fascinated with water for millennia. In fact, some evolutionary anthropologists believe that nearness to water supported the development of large brains – that we are, in part, the heritage of small, coastal communities of early humans whose lives revolved around the movement of water and the food within it. To this day, many island and coastal cultures retain great reverence for the ocean. When we gaze out upon a watery horizon, it is difficult to not be awed by the vastness before us. In my eye, to find our place in relation to bodies of water is akin to our struggle to find our place in the vastness of space. Questions of identity and survival are found in the depths, and I believe we carry the answers within ourselves.

Lessons from IV Ketamine Treatment for Depression

My depression is a constant in my life. It is all-encompassing, lonely, and feels like drowning. I’m not one to find meaning in every dream, but the images of water that I experience during IV ketamine treatments have begun to feel profound. What does it mean? Certainly not that I should give in, wave a white flag and let the water crush me. Nor should I wait breathlessly under the ice, squinting as if to look through a frosted pane of glass, uncertain if I’m even above or below. Rather, I believe my visions of water are windows into the nature of the human experience. Perhaps they’re snapshots of how I feel – how depression feels to me. My mind is an ocean, and at times, it’s oppressive. I sink within myself, finding it easier to let the water cradle me as I descend than to keep swimming. At other times, I find comfort in accepting the changing nature of my illness. Like a river flowing downhill, impermanence is unstoppable, and the emotions of being a human move inexorably back and forth. When we crest the top of a wave and begin to fall down the other side, we wait for the next one, just as we take each arriving day. And when you are drowning, reach up. A helping hand may be just about to break the surface.

If you’d like to read more about my experience with ketamine for depression, start from the beginning of The Ketamine Chronicles or visit the archives. Click here for mobile-optimized archives of The Ketamine Chronicles.

Sensory Ramblings About Building a Fire

GenevieveLeave a comment

One day it’s 70 degrees, and the next there’s freezing rain and heavy snow. February in Colorado is a strange creature. After a day of low light and cold fingers, I clomped down the stairs to the back door, Stella in tow. She stood on the stairs to the deck and watched me as I chose logs from the woodpile underneath her. That’s by far my least favorite part of building a fire; I always inspect each piece carefully for spiders before I put it in the crook of my elbow. It’s probably too cold for them to be at the top of the pile, but as seeing black widow spiders was not unheard of in the house where I grew up, it’s my preference to be a choosy wood-carrier.

Building a fire is a skill that I learned as a child. We heated our house with a wood stove, and my formative winters were spent helping my parents keep the fire burning and the cold at bay. Now, when the snow is falling and I have nowhere to be, my first inclination is to get a fire going and then park myself in front of it with a book and a blanket. On this day, I brought two armfuls of wood upstairs and then searched the recycling for some newspaper or junk mail to burn. Then I grabbed some matches and plopped down in front of the fireplace.

From an occupational standpoint, building a fire is a fairly complex task, and it offers a lot of sensory input. You have to be able to tell which logs are dry, which ones have dangerous spiders on them, and then carry them safely to the fireplace without tripping over the dog. I know what kinds of materials are good for getting the blaze going, and which kinds are good for maintaining it. Arranging all of those materials in a way that lets enough oxygen in is a skill that takes practice, and you need to be able to look at your materials and imagine the best arrangement. This is a praxis-heavy task. Fortunately for my coziness goals, I’ve had plenty of practice. Building a fire is also a task that requires a lot of sensory discrimination; you have to use your eyes and ears to determine when and where it’s safe to put your hands near the flames. Even lighting a match is tricky if you can’t tell how much pressure to use. I remember being horrified as a kid, watching my dad place new logs in the fireplace, convinced he would catch on fire as he stuck his hand over the flames. Now, I know that he simply had a good sense of the heat and sparks.

I love sitting in front of a fire in winter. It feels cozy and warm, and it gives me the sense that there’s nowhere else I need to be. There’s the sound, the flickering light, the heat, and all the other parts of being inside by the fire, like hot chocolate and pajamas. Sitting in front of a fire evokes a feeling of security in me, even if I’m already safely indoors. Many people believe that the discovery of fire and how to control it marked an acceleration in human evolution because it offered a new abundance of calories and nutrients from more easily digestible, cooked foods. It may also have served to bring communities together, strengthening bonds and changing the dynamics of an already social genus. Perhaps my brain recognizes this ancient connection and knows that family is nearby and predators will stay away. At the very least, there’s gentle crackling and a nice, orange glow that puts me at ease. Plus, my domesticated canine, who also evolved around fires, likes to rip up the paper and small kindling while I’m getting it started, and that’s always fun to watch. She’s such a good helper.

Stella fire

Anxiety and Doing New Things

Genevieve2 Comments

In an attempt to fill my time with things that will keep me from slipping back into severe depression, I’ve started doing New Things. One is volunteering and the other is taking a neighbor/friend up on her offer to teach me how to ride horses.

I really want to quit and crawl back into my hermit cave. I am way outside of my comfort zone, which, for me, always leads to near-constant worrying and ruminating. I can’t help but laugh because when my new therapist asked if anxiety was also a problem for me in addition to depression, I said “hmm, no, not really.” She later disagreed, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that yes, yes it definitely is. Now that my depression is easing, I think that anxiety is coming to the surface. (Additionally, when I tell people about this anxiety realization, they look at me like “you…didn’t know that?” So, that’s cool. Everyone knows about this but me.)

When I’m really depressed, I’m so numb and slowed down that I don’t even worry about saying “yes” to new things; the answer is automatically “no”. But when the depression lifts, my natural tendency to overthink everything and fall face-first into crippling indecision has room to become obvious. Because I feel capable of doing more than I did while depressed, I feel like I should say “yes” to new opportunities, even if I’m on the fence.

Rather than deciding to just get out there and demolish the boundaries of my comfort zone, I get…stuck. Really stuck. I want to do new things in general, but when an opportunity comes along, my worry and fear keep me from making a confident decision. It’s tough for me to decipher whether I don’t want to do something because I’m feeling overwhelming New Thing-anxiety or because I won’t like it. And, since I know that this is a problem for me, if I think there’s a chance I might like it eventually, I tend to make myself push through and do it no matter what. Of course, I do that while also continuing to worry about whether or not that’s the right thing to do.

An additional layer of this terrible cake is that I do not like quitting, even if I really want to bail. And even if this hypothetical New Thing has very natural exits where I can decide it’s not for me and stop, it still feeeeels like quitting. This makes me even more indecisive because not only do I need to know if my anxiety is coming from a dislike of the Thing or not, but I also need to know if I can be committed to the entire Thing. No quitting. Approaching opportunities like this is not fun, and I do not recommend it. 0/10.

I imagine the goal is to take each new opportunity and be able to decide, quickly and simply, whether I want to do it or not. I just don’t know how to do that without taking all of the stuff above into account and getting hopelessly tangled up. I guess step one is to remind myself that I can say “no”, changing my mind is ok, and that in many cases, it’s not that big of a deal.

Much easier said than done.

 

The Sensory Meditation of Flow

GenevieveLeave a comment

When you’re reading a good book, playing a familiar song on your instrument, doing a word search or a jigsaw puzzle, or any number of absorbing activities, you might be experiencing flow.

A while back, my occupational therapist explained the concept like this:Flow

If the difficulty of whatever you’re doing is too high and you haven’t spent very long doing it (aka: have a low level of skill), you’re likely to be above the “flow” line and feeling stressed.

If the difficulty is low and you just started, you’re probably pretty close to flow from the start. The longer you do it, though, the more skilled you get and the more bored you become.

This is probably pretty intuitive to most people. To stay close to flow, you need to adjust the difficulty level to match your skill. Otherwise, you get either overwhelmed or bored. Everyone has unique sensory needs, so your nervous system might react differently to inputs that create a perfect state of flow for another person. For instance, my ability to follow a cardio dance video is atrocious, but someone with awesome praxis skills might think it’s exactly right for them.

Currently, my favorite leisure activity is embroidery.

embroidery-of-wooden-fence-and-red-poppies

I started out with those pre-packaged kits that have the image inked onto the fabric, like a paint-by-numbers but for stitches. That was great because I didn’t know what I was doing, but as I learned and got more comfortable with it, those kits became a little boring. Now, I make it up as I go, so it takes some focus and creativity but it’s also repetitive and relaxing.

If, like me, you have trouble with sensory discrimination and often don’t know what you’re feeling or what qualities of something you do or don’t like, finding an activity at the right difficulty to produce flow might be tricky. Trial and error is always a good way to approach this. Give the “trial” enough time that you’re able to decide whether you like it or not, and why. When you do find something that gets you to a state of flow, don’t forget to up the difficulty on occasion. The challenge is what makes it interesting!