I'm an adult living with Aspergers and mother to a daughter also on the spectrum. It's only in the past month or so I've come to realise that what makes our lives so difficult is SPD. I've unwittingly created the sort of stressful home life I escaped as a teen - my father and brother have Aspergers and clashed constantly.
My eldest, who is the afflicted child, is 10 and home schooled as we moved towns and her new school was not providing for her. As you can imagine, moving homes and towns was immensely stressful for all of us. To make matters worse, we've had two more children in the last two years and I now have a two year old and a 9 month old.
My issues have been present since childhood and are around noise, smell and textural/touch oversensitivity. I used to chew my clothes and plastic farm animals, still chew my fingers and nails and could never wear wool. My issues with food seem to have changed and instead of being fussy and texture-sensitive and getting upset about food mixing, I've moved towards sensory-seeking and loving the foods I used to hate, eating all kinds of smelly, tasty and crunchy things.
The other issues persist, though. I get incredibly over-touched and my hearing especially gets overwhelmed very, very quickly, especially if other triggers like smell and touch are involved. I can hear high pitched whines from the CRT television that no one else can hear. The sound of the babies' crying makes me shut down completely and I end up taking myself away from the rest of the family and it takes me hours of alone time to recover, and often my sleep suffers. When I'm shut down, I can't even respond effectively to resolve the things that are causing the problem. To stop the babies from crying I hold and breastfeed them, but then I end up overtouched and in pain. I babywear, but I can't accomplish a back carry because I lack the coordination and motor skills. So nothing gets done, all day, and this feeds my overwhelm and stress and despair.
To recap:
- I am oversensitive to noise, touch and smell
- I have two small breastfed (and tongue tied) babies
- I have an older child who is ASD and SPD who I have no support for who yells at the other two
- Babies mean noise and smell and touch that I can't escape! Did I emphasise that enough?
All the support I've seen around SPD revolves around eliminating the source of the problem or minimising it. I really don't see how we can do this because:
- We're poor and can't afford childcare
- I am stuck at home with the children 24/7 with no escape
- I can't afford OT or other forms of therapy that could help
I want to help my daughter but I'm afraid that I can't even help myself. I'm not the sort of person and mother and wife I want to be. I've come close to ending my life a few times because of this.
Are we screwed? Is there a way out for people who are wretched from SPD and in stressful, triggering situations where other people depend on them?
I need help, real help and practical advice. For example, my daughter wouldn't wear socks and we clashed endlessly about it because it meant that her sneakers stunk. I finally worked out that if she just turned them inside out the seams would stop rubbing her and she would wear them every time. If I only had simple fixes like this for all our problems...things that have helped other people...our lives could be so much better.
Please, if you have any hints or tips for issues like these, anything quick, easy, free - share them with me. You could save my life.
