OMG....I don't even know where to start... I'm 44 and my life is a living hell. I never knew it til yesterday, but SPD has ruined my life. I always knew I had extreme sensory issues, but I always attributed my severe anxiety to the abuse I suffered as a child. As an adult I suspected autism but it never really seemed to exactly describe my issues. I stumbled across SPD yesterday and everything just fell into place!!! I've been crying off an on ever since, partly out of joy that maybe I can finally FIX me!, but mostly out of grief that so much of my life has been lost to this disorder!

I was recently homeless and now I'm literally living in a shed on my mother's property, have never been able to hold a steady job, zero friends for the last 8 years, my family thinks I'm a horrible bitch because I'm so GD irritable all the time, and I'm just about to the point of suicide because I can't take it anymore! And how am I supposed to call a suicide hotline when I can't even bring myself to use the phone!!!!!???!!

But I understand now that I have SO MANY sensory triggers (my god, just THINKING about sand on my skin makes my skin crawl and I want to scream!), and I have spent my whole life blowing up at people (because these triggers just enrage me), and I thought I must be a horrible person! I have just been running, running, running, trying to escape and avoid everything, to the point of walling myself off from the world, so much so that I thought I was agoraphobic!!

I found a 10-point scale somewhere that rated people's reactions to stimulus (this site? Don't remember), and no joke, I'm an 11.

WHY IS THIS DISORDER NOT BETTER RESEARCHED AND KNOWN?!?

I have so much more to say but I'm so damn freaked out right now and still trying to process everything (ha!)!!

I can so relate. It's so depressing when people try to analyze you and compare you to themselves when you tell others about what you feel. I was diagnosed with SPD this year. I've been irritable for years and have brought family members to tears. It was in 2013 I hit my breaking point and said I had enough and I wanted answers NOW.

There were days where I felt imprisoned in my own body due to sensitivity issues. I've lost so much sleep over a near 10 year period that it's not funny. That started my search for answers. I finally came across the SPD foundation web page. Things that happened to me as a child led up like a perfect timeline into my adulthood. Some doctors wouldn't give me the time of day about SPD. They stuck to their guns on peripheral neuropathy. It was until I got my disability back due to the determination doctors thinking Alodynia (spelling??) A neurologist told me that all symptoms lead him to a Sensory Processing Disorder diagnosis. Now with thousands of dollars of student loan debt I am now trying to get them discharged.

Good luck to you. Don't ever feel alone in this battle. There are so many more people out there like us that are suffering, thinking what's wrong with them. We're just made special but maybe wound a little too tight. lol I cope with humor. Laughing about it has helped more than anything.