Sensory Seeking or Sensory Avoidant

Are you sensory seeking or sensory avoidant?

I believe we all exist on a spectrum, and, our place on this spectrum is relative. I’m considered the sensory avoidant one in my family, however, I seem to be having a far more intense sensory experience than everyone else. A shower is an event. The water spray, the constant scrubbing, the cold air that creeps around the curtain like the killer in Psycho. For the fellows I live with, a shower is no big deal; a blip on the sensory map of their day. So they must seek their own, higher stakes sensory adventures.

Enjoy my totally non professional quiz. Choose True or False.

1. Do you need alone time to decompress and recharge?
2. Do you religiously wear sensory softening accessories like sunglasses and noise suppressing ear muffs?
3. When you’re sitting, you do not bounce your knee, or move constantly.
4. Do you hate when air blows on you?
5. Can a loud noise totally throw you off?
6. As a child, you were never in trouble for messing with things.
7. Does it sound difficult to go to several places in one day?
8. Sometimes showering is physically overwhelming.
9. Do you feel fine in complete quiet with no music or other background noise?
10. No one would ever accuse you of being the class clown.

If you answered mostly True, you could be sensory avoidant. Mostly False, then you might be seeking, and if you’re a mix, you should talk to your doctor about the real possibility that you’re neurotypical.

Sensory Seeker seeks sensory avoidant

In a tale as old as time, the sensory seeker and the sensory avoider fall in love. They marry, create a baby seeker, and bother the avoidant until, one day, they get a dog.

Hello, I’m the sensory avoidant one. I might be less avoidant if all sound didn’t arrive through tinny microphones aimed directly my eardrum. The more worn down I get from the stimulation and cognitive load of figuring out what the heck you said, the more sensory avoidant I become. There’s also the fact that seekers can be quite loud. They like to vocalize in a variety of ways, and enjoy tapping things. Still, the sensory seeker makes a great teammate for me. When we’re with people, he can pick up my social slack. When I’m maxed out he can do the things that my nervous system can’t take. It’s no big deal for him to pick up something from the store, or empty the slimy sink strainer, things that feel impossible to me sometimes.

But there are some problems. The sensory seeker loves to play with the sensory avoidant, because their reactions are so fun. It became apparent that the baby was a seeker when he gave up naps by 18 months and I had to figure out how to teach him not run at my legs. The answer, I found, was to wrestle, pillow fight, take him to park every day, and praise him when not running at my legs.

One day, I discovered a breed of dog that I’m not allergic to. I wanted a dog, but, I was afraid to introduce more sensory stimulation into my life. Dogs bark, jump, lick and need to play and be walked daily. I worried about the weight of simply being looked at from across the room. One day, I found a schnauzer who needed a home, and sent my sensory seeker to go get her.

It happens that a schnauzer is a working dog that was bred to be more independent, to make their own calls when the farmer was away. They have an independent streak that makes their people love them the way some people love their dachshunds, though schnauzer people tend to not collect so many. The dog decided that my husband was her job, and she stays with him all waking hours, follows him from room to room, and walks him daily. She is a constant, attentive, interactive audience, which relieved me of the job.

When we’re all 4 on the big bed, where we often gather, (because that’s where I hideout) the dog is a magnet for those sensory impulses that used to be directed at me. She enjoys the attention, and her reactions are much cuter than mine. The dog enables me to be more relaxed, not less, as I feared.

She does bark, but only to alert. The people I live with no longer scare the crap out of me when they come home. The dog always makes a show when they return, or runs in to greet me first when they arrive together. It validates me that even the dog gets her fill. By the end of the day, she is done with pets, and lays close to me. She’s learned that she can get a break there, and I enjoy the gentle pressure of her warm little body against my legs.

I’ve changed my newsletter name to Sensory Housekeeping. It feels more aligned with the nature and the focus of my writing.

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