A thousand rose bushes

Sensory Sensitivity

He squirmed awaywhen I pulled him close for a cuddle, even as a baby. He had his own ways of being close. He ran his little fingers through my long hair over and over.  His hands were like delicate combs, adding a silky shine to my hair.   

Something unexpected and bewildering was becoming more apparent as he grew.  His senses seemed in constant overdrive.  Soothing words brought no solace to his cries when we brushed his hair.  Smiles and encouragement didn't produce a decrease in frantic panic at the park to a two-year-old Ben slightly jostled by another child.  He shrieked at the feel of cotton on his skin and ate food based on texture as much as taste, which didn't leave many options.  Before he could even talk, his body gave the first signals for us to search for answers beyond his behaviour, such as his tears of frustration when people talked to him; he seemed unable to filter out the sound of the TV or traffic as background.  He also seemed unable to filter in our reassurances.
I found myself scanning every new environment for possible Ben hazards; crazy making to search for hairline fractures on the horizon.  I began avoiding stores with fans on the ceiling because of their intolerable noise to Ben.  No air-conditioning in the car unless I wasprepared for screaming about the "wind and smell" of  the feather-light breeze.  Clothing, food, sounds, light; each brought an intensity never before on my radar. 

I didn't see any other children getting as upset when the loudspeaker at THE GAP came on announcing a "sale on women'souterwear, for a limited time only." The sentence wasn't finished before it was drowned out by his peels of raw primal screaming. I didn't know it was possible to scream like that without being stabbed.

 Apparently no one in our life had any helpful answers either.  

 "Relax, be glad he's willful," my friends would say. " A lot of kids don't like getting their hair wet."  Was thrashing about, running away and howling in panic really an excessive response to the suggestion of a bath?  We wondered. 

"What if you gave him a toy to distract him?" 
"Ignore it."

The list of advice was endless... except there was little acknowledgment that he reacted at times as if his environment was...painful; apparently even the tiny hairs that fell on his neck during a haircut hurt his skin.  How do you explain that making him wear the cute little jeans that Auntie bought him for his birthday somehow felt cruel.  

"He'll grow out of it, wait and see," was the all-knowing answer of the public health nurse visiting our parent participation preschool.

 "My son used to do the same things, it will pass," was the bemused and placating response of older mothers and grandmothers. 
"You just need to be more firm with him," was the most common comment.

I thought they must be right.  

I also knew they must be wrong.


Ben's sensory sensitivities have slowly but significantly decreased over the past few years, and his abilities to tolerate discomfort have improved.
He no longer says that putting on a wool sweater is like being thrust into a thousand rose bushes, maybe just a hundred.