Before Matthew was diagnosed, I had absolutely no idea what sensory sensitivities were. None. Zero. The concept had never even crossed my mind.
So when I started reading about autism after his diagnosis, and I came across the words “sensory processing,” I’ll be honest — I glazed over a bit. It sounded very clinical. Very textbook. Very not-my-life.
But then I started joining the dots.
The supermarket meltdowns. The way Matthew would arch his back in the trolley as if someone was hurting him. The screaming that went on and on, long past the point where I’d completely lost the ability to think straight. The reason we barely left the house for what felt like years.
That was sensory sensitivity. I just didn’t know it yet.
And then there was Blake.
Blake has always had very particular feelings about clothing. From when he was tiny, getting him dressed was a battle I never quite understood. He’d pull at things, refuse to wear certain tops, kick off about what seemed — to me — like perfectly normal, perfectly fine clothes. And he would say to me, over and over again: it hurts, it hurts.
And I would say — and I cringe typing this now — “Blake, you’re using the wrong language. It doesn’t hurt. It’s just a little uncomfortable.”
I genuinely believed I was correcting him. Helping him find the right words.
But the more I’ve come to understand sensory sensitivities, the more I’ve had to sit with a really uncomfortable truth. There is every chance that some of the clothing I was trying to force him into actually did hurt him. Not metaphorically. Not dramatically. Actually hurt.
That broke my heart when I finally realised it. It still does, if I’m honest.
So let me try to explain sensory sensitivity in a way that actually makes sense — the way I wish someone had explained it to me back then, when I was standing in a school uniform shop holding up a perfectly standard grey shirt, completely baffled as to why my child was looking at it like I was asking him to wear barbed wire.
The Volume Knob
Imagine every single one of your senses has a volume knob. Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste — all of them. For most people, those knobs sit somewhere in the middle. Manageable. Comfortable. Normal.
For a lot of autistic people, those knobs are broken.
For some, the volume is cranked all the way up. Lights that seem perfectly fine to you might feel genuinely painful to them. A busy shopping centre that just feels a bit noisy to most people can feel absolutely overwhelming — like standing next to a speaker at a concert, except there’s no way to step away. A clothing tag that you’d forget about within thirty seconds can feel like sandpaper against their skin, every single second of every single day.
Blake only wears clothing that is extremely soft, lightweight, and seamless where possible. What looks like a preference from the outside is genuinely so much more than that. It’s his nervous system telling him what it can and cannot cope with. And now that I understand that, I listen.
For others, sensory sensitivity works the opposite way. Their volume is turned right down, so they actually need more input to feel regulated. They might touch everything. Seek out movement. Need stronger sensations just to feel like themselves.
And here’s the really important bit — it’s not one or the other. A lot of autistic people experience both. Oversensitive in some areas, under-sensitive in others.
Every single experience is unique.
Why It Actually Matters
This isn’t just about being a bit fussy about food, or not liking loud noises. I need you to really hear this part.
When sensory input overwhelms the nervous system, it doesn’t feel like mild discomfort. It feels like a threat. The brain genuinely can’t tell the difference. And when your brain thinks it’s under threat, it goes into fight or flight mode — which is exactly what a meltdown is. It’s not naughtiness. It’s not a tantrum. It’s a nervous system that has completely hit its limit and has absolutely no idea how to cope.
Blake has a particularly sensitive sense of smell. A girl sprayed perfume near him once at high school, and he had to be sent home because he felt so unwell. And I’ll be completely honest with you — my first reaction, when the school called me, was to think he was at it. Pulling a fast one to get an afternoon off. Because that’s what you think, isn’t it? Before you really understand. Before you’ve done the reading and had the conversations and sat with the discomfort of realising how wrong you’ve been.
He wasn’t at it. He genuinely was unwell. Certain smells hit his nervous system in a way that makes him physically sick, and there is absolutely nothing dramatic or exaggerated about that. It’s just how he’s wired.
That supermarket I mentioned earlier? The lights are usually bright and flickering. The background music is constant. The smells from the bakery and the cleaning products and the fish counter all hit at once. The sounds of other people’s trolleys, other people’s conversations, tannoy announcements — all of it, all at the same time. For most of us, we filter a lot of that out without even thinking about it. For a child with sensory sensitivities, none of it gets filtered. It all comes in at full volume, all at once.
Is it any wonder they struggle?
Seeing It Through Their Eyes
Once I actually understood this — really understood it — everything changed. Not overnight, and not magically. But my perspective shifted completely.
I stopped seeing Matthew’s meltdowns as something I needed to prevent through better parenting. I started seeing them as information. His body was telling me something was wrong, even when he didn’t have the words to say it.
And I stopped dismissing Blake when he told me something hurt. Because here’s the thing — he was never using the wrong language. He was telling me exactly what was happening. I just wasn’t ready to hear it yet.
That shift matters. Because when you understand why something is happening, you can actually start to help. You can look at an environment and think: okay, what’s the sensory load here? What can I reduce? What can I prepare him for? Can I bring headphones? Can we go at a quieter time? Can I warn him in advance about what to expect?
It’s not about fixing your child. It really isn’t. It’s about meeting them where they are. Creating spaces that feel safe rather than overwhelming. Giving them the tools and the preparation to navigate a world that wasn’t really designed with their nervous system in mind.
What You Can Do
Small changes genuinely make a huge difference. Removing clothing labels. Choosing softer, seamless fabrics. Dimming lights at home in the evenings. Using noise-cancelling headphones in busy places. Being mindful of strong smells — whether that’s a heavily fragranced cleaning product or someone’s perfume. Giving advance warning before transitions. Letting them decompress in a quiet space after a busy day without questioning why they need it.
None of these things are about being precious or overprotective. They’re about understanding that your child’s experience of the world is genuinely different from yours — and that’s okay. It just means they need a slightly different kind of support.
And more than anything, it means believing them when they tell you something is too much. Even if you can’t feel it yourself. Even if it seems like nothing. Even if your first instinct — like mine, more times than I’d like to admit — is to think they’re exaggerating.
They’re not.
To them, it is very much something.
Because their experiences are valid.
Always have been.
