With the distinct lack of new content in World of Warcraft at the moment, I have had very little incentive to blog about it, so I'm afraid that today is another ME/CFS related post.
One of my old school friends has a child with autism, and in her quests to try to understand him better in order to improve his life quality, she reads a lot and visits many websites. Today she linked me to a video on YouTube which was made to help show people without autism what the world looks like to someone on the autistic spectrum suffering from sensory sensitivity.
The video stunned me.
As I may have mentioned before, ME/CFS sufferers can experience a wide range of symptoms and the selection that one person may get will often differ from the selection of symptoms that the next person has. There are common symptoms that almost all people with an ME diagnosis have in common, but the list of secondary symptoms is a seemingly inexhaustible list that fate appears to take a random selection from. I think of it as a kiddies sweetie pick and mix in hell!
The reason that the autism video meant so much to me was that I suffer from sensory overload as a secondary symptom of ME/CFS as do a few of my friends. This was the first time I'd seen someone try to convey in video format what we see, hear and feel on a normal day. It had never occurred to me to try to show it this way. There are many illnesses and conditions that produce similar effects, for example, it is frequently a symptom in PTSD cases. We try to explain to people what we mean, but it's difficult to show someone.
This video attempts to convey the difference between someone that does not suffer from a form of sensory overload and one that does. The first view is that of most people and the second with sensory overload. The brightness is a little overdone on the second clip from my experience, but it does get the point across. If you have ever wanted to understand a little more about autism or other conditions that have sensory overload as a symptom, have a little look. Maybe it will show you why I usually wear sunglasses even on cloudy days and often have earplugs in if I'm in the wheelchair!
Oh my goodness, that video! It's an amazing representation of sensory overload, especially the bit about all the sounds kind of merging together and making it difficult to tell them apart. That's something I experience on a massive level (I have M.E., not autism, though) and it's a really difficult thing to explain. I find it almost impossible to be part of a group conversation where more than one person talks at a time because it becomes so pressure-y (for want of a better word) and I feel like my brain is going to explode.
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