Growing up with Sensory Integration Dysfunction

by Ulfred
(Salt Lake City)

I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was younger and continued with that diagnosis for almost 20 years before I was in a car accident at 24 and walked into the hospital with a fractured femur. when they started checking out other things they discovered several older fractures and scar tissue from what we thought were just minor incidents growing up, things like jumping off a swing and hearing a pop only to find out I had a torn ligament or tendon.

When we realized that I wasnt feeling pain properly they began to test other things and found out that I am hypersensitive to cold and touch (i hate being touched but love touching and in the cold im like an epileptic chihuahua at around 65 degrees or so) and i am under sensitive to heat and pain. throughout the following year we have discovered that this is affecting all of my senses in different ways and that they seem to fluctuate seemingly at random sometimes being hypersensitive to sound or touch and at others having someone poke me with a pencil or something and not feeling it.

there are a lot of things im beginning to learn that i have always taken for granted because they arent the way i perceived them to be. certain sounds that most people dont notice like clocks ticking at night my fiance never notices but i hear and cant stand. there are days that are better than others and there are also days that wearing a silk shirt feels like sandpaper. I am learning alot every day and am beginning to understand just how different I am and why people get so freaked out at my reactions to injuries.