rather severe sensory processing disorder. i'm sensory avoidant to be specific, which is the lesser common type of SPD (the other is sensory seeking). my parents recently told me i had this and have had this my entire life.

just a little background on my issues: almost all of my senses except smell are affected by my SPD. light and sound are the two biggest triggers of a meltdown (which are not fun) and the two things most affected by my SPD are eating and sleeping.

just a side note: i have several other medical conditions that impact me as well (some of them likely a result of my SPD, like my cyclic vomiting syndrome) but i'll try not to talk about them here.

so, eating and nutrition have always been extremely difficult for me. i'm a horrendously picky eater, almost all blonde foods minus a few red ones. any foods that aren't on that list cause me physical pain, albeit psychosomatic (except during CVS flareups, then it's physical). i've been underweight and off the growth chart my entire life, but it wasn't until i started eighth this year thst i noticed my body was noticeably different than everyone elses. i'm not going to include a photo just to protect my privacy, but i'm 5'1" and 66 pounds. to give you an idea of just how skeletal i am compared to everyone else, the average girl my age is 5'3" and 101 pounds according to google. my mom's bf jokingly refers to me as a Müsselmanner (nazi concentration camp slang term to describe an emaciated and near-death prisoner), which i'm not the hugest fan of lol. but that's just how i am.

interesting fact: i chew with the roof of my mouth. if i absolutely have to, it's on the left side of my mouth, which is odd because although i'm ambidexterous (mwahahaha), my 'dominant' hand is my right, and right handed people chew on the right side of their mouths.

sleeping is another huge issue for me, although this didn't reappear until this past summer actually. without melatonin at night, i only get about 3-4 hours of sleep. i have violent nightmares (plus schizophrenia, which my seeing shadow people for as long as i can remember and them talking to themselves and me and laughing at me i ALSO thought was normal) alongside the insomnia to make matters worse. but melatonin and celebrex(?) help with those.

as a baby, i had the exact same issues i do now, except i screamed 24/7. i was inconsolable. my mom says that it was like i couldn't stand to be alive. very few pictures taken of me from the ages of newborn-3 were of me smiling (or just not pissy, screaming, or generally unhappy).

this is already very long, but i'll try to keep the explanation of my two biggest triggers brief. essentially, without noise-cancelling/regular headphones and sunglasses, everything is 100x brighter and 100x louder than they actually are. a shitton of other stuff is weird and not right, like how i hold things with my fingertips and not my entire hand, but i won't go into extensive detail.

tl;dr: i recently found out i have rather severe and actually mildly debilitating sensory processing disorder.