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Tuesday, March 9, 2010

"Have you lost your senses?"

This is a common question asked of someone.
"Have you lost your sense of:
wonder?
humor?
balance?
joy?
control?"

I think I lost my sense of control when my third child came along! But that is for a different discussion! But are these really senses?

How about "Have you lost your sense of:
smell?
touch?
sight?
hearing?
taste?
space?"

My family has been staring down the barrel of sensory issues for a little while now. How a brain cannot recognize the different senses to be able to process them is hard for me to understand. I mean, I can understand how a brain can malfunction, but it is hard for me to "comprehend" (a better word) how that must feel. What is even harder for me, is to comprehend how it must be for a child to never know what it feels like to have the full capacity of all of the senses working together to fully understand life around them. The frustration of moving through days and weeks, being afraid to try new things due to a fear that the new thing will "hurt" somehow.

What if you actually did lose one of your senses? I have been thinking a lot about this lately too.

What if you lost you smell and taste? I think this would be the least of my worries. I actually did lose most of my smell after our house fire. The pungent smell of burned rubber and wiring fried my nose and for a long time, I could barely smell anything. Yes, it was strange, but it didn't effect how I lived my life.

What if you lost you sense of touch? Losing my sense of touch would be the hardest for me. I love to touch the smooth skin of my babies, to feel their hair, their faces. To feel the softness of our dog. To feel tree bark, fabric, the smoothness of piano keys. Your touch can allow your brain to "see" because you can feel different textures.

What if you lost your sense to hear? To be honest, on any given day I wouldn't mind not hearing children scream at each other! But on most days, I love to hear my babies talking, laughing, singing and being silly. Music can stir up all of my emotions and make me happy or sad or whatever I need to be. Losing my hearing would be detrimental to my mental health.

What is you lost you sense of sight? To have had sight, and then lose it, I think would be a blessing. Because to never have seen at all would be hard. But to know that every beautiful thing has already been seen by your eyes, you would be able to recall these pictures when you touch a face or hear a voice. The biggest downside to losing your sight would be the dependency on others to get you where you need to be because you wouldn't be able to drive.

As I start to fire the bullet of Sensory Processing Disorder out of the gun, I am going to try my hardest to remember that my senses are gifts that all work together to get me through the hardest days. I would hate to lose anyone of them and am fortunate that they all work because I am going to need all of my senses including the wonder, humor, balance, joy and control to make sure the bullet hits the right mark.




Moms' 30-Minute Blog Challenge

2 comments:

SPD said...

This is such a fantastic, personal descriptions of Sensory Processing Disorder- thank you for sharing. If you haven't yet, get in touch with the Sensory Processing Disorder Foundation. They would love to hear from you!

Kim & Dave said...

Each one is valuable-& I can hardly imagine life without any of them, that's for sure!