Senses and Sensibility

 

 

Several months ago, a friend of mine that I’ve known since I was about 15, asked me in a text if I might be on the autism spectrum. The question was based on something I’d said in one of my blogs, but came so out of left field that it was a true WTF moment, and kind of gave me mental whiplash.

While I believe what I said is that I often don’t pick up on social cues, which, while it can be part of an indication of autism, is also an identifying characteristic of several other “disabilities,” including attention deficit, with which I was diagnosed as an adult. An autism diagnosis requires at least three identifying characteristics, and where you are on the spectrum is dependent on how many characteristics you exhibit, and the severity of those characteristics.

So to the question, a resounding no; I am not remotely autistic.

I also tend toward lower muscle tone, but that doesn’t mean I have Cerebral Palsy. I do not. Having been a 34-week preemie, it’s generally the norm to have slightly lower tone, which expresses itself in hyper-extension of fingers, knees and elbows. The hyperextension has decreased with age, but not because I’m cured. Rather, arthritis has a say in what my joints do now.

I suppose, as a therapist, I’m keenly tuned in to my sensory sensitivities.

My two strongest senses are taste and smell.

I often think I was born with too many taste buds -- but not necessarly too much taste. I have been told several times in biology classes that I can’t taste bitter because I don’t have the receptors. 

Oh, but I can. Either my bitter receptors are in the wrong place or I’ve developed a keen ability to combine a couple of other receptor types to interpret bitter. In either case, a bitter pill is just as hard for me to swallow. I can't, however, tell the difference in taste of a vanilla milkshake and a chocolate one.

I remember when I was little, being expected to try a variety of foods. I could never understand this because I could tell by smell if I wasn’t going to like something. But taste was far more intense. I used to think to myself – and may have actually said it a few times – that some things had too much taste in them, so I didn’t like them.

Cooked broccoli was one of those things. Of course, we didn’t have broccoli much, if ever, since my dad didn’t like it. Ours was a household where corn, green beans, peas and carrots were what anyone was talking about when vegetables were mentioned, and there was also salad. Special occasions, like Christmas and Thanksgiving, had asparagus. My mother and one brother ate spinach. Baked beans, and beets also made an appearance from time to time. I would eat salad or celery, and corn. I even liked radishes, and would eat one on its own. But anything else had too much taste.

While I liked spaghetti sauce, trying to pick out all of the tiny, diced pieces of onions and peppers my mother insisted on putting in before the sauce got cold was an Olympic event. To this day bell peppers of any color cause me actual digestive pain, and I detest the fact that raw onions will not leave. I hate waking up the day after consuming something with raw onions with the taste of onions in my mouth. No amount of scrubbing my tongue until I gag will rid me of that awful, left-over taste. Talk about something with too much taste!

Oddly, though, cooked onions, while I generally don’t care for them, don’t present the problem their raw counterpart does. And inexplicably, I actually like French Onion soup, and onion dip with my potato chips. Of course, this is something that came with maturity. I couldn’t have eaten those things as a child. (I didn't even like pizza until I was 10.)

Even broccoli, which I now like, is something I can only eat in small doses – like a half a cup maximum – if it’s cooked. More if they're raw.

All of the vegetables I don’t like are because they have too strong a taste to me – except baked beans, which are simply too disgusting in that brown slime they’re served in – and beets, which taste like dirt, no matter what you do to them. I was never one to eat mud pies as a child.

What could have mitigated my picky eating habits as a child is the fact that raw vegetables are much more palatable to me. Raw broccoli and cauliflower, even raw peas if they’re fresh, are preferable to the overpowering taste they have once cooked.

My mother came from the school of belief that you couldn’t simply eat vegetables raw. They must, unless they were salad, be cooked. Otherwise, they would give one a stomach ache.

I have eaten an entire raw potato without ill effects, and no other raw vegetable has ever come back to haunt me except peppers and onions.

I do have ones I prefer to eat cooked: zucchini, eggplant, spaghetti squash, acorn squash and butternut squash. Anything else is fair game either way, although I do prefer cauliflower raw.

Carrots are the one exception. I don’t care for them raw unless they’re shredded in a salad so as to have no taste, and can only eat them cooked if they’re in a stew or mixed in mashed potatoes to disguise their bitter flavor. Or as carrot cake. Why can’t all vegetables be cake?

When it comes down to it, I actually do eat a fair variety of vegetables; I just can’t handle them if they’re spiked with onions and peppers, as people so often do to them.

For the things that I can’t eat, it does no good to say, “Eat it anyway!” As I try to swallow something I don’t like, my throat closes as if I’m about to take poison, and the thing won’t go down. It takes huge quantities of liquid to entice it down my throat, and that’s no guarantee that I won’t gag or that the offending item will stay in my stomach.

Fish is another thing that often comes with too much taste. I’ve often said, only half in jest, that I believe fish should be served square and breaded, as God intended. And it needs a fair amount of either ketchup or cocktail sauce – and never, ever tartar sauce. Fish sticks are the French fries of the fish world.

As a child, I didn’t like shell fish, which is good because they’re often at the pricy end of the food chain. I would eat crab cakes, provided there weren’t pieces of shell lurking in them (and I've had that experience, even in pricey restaurants). At some point after puberty, I developed a taste for shrimp, lobster and scallops.  I’ve always liked clams and oysters, provided they’re completely cooked. None of that slime on the half shell, thanks. 

I suppose I could never get on with the rich and famous because I can't stand caviar. That tastes like a dead fish that's been rotting on the shore for several days smells. I do not like raw fish. Period. End of story.

My preferences in fish tend toward flounder, cod (only in the UK, breaded, from a chippy), haddock, tilapia and tuna fish from a can, packed in water, not oil. And those fish had best not have a single bone in them. If I get the slightest piece of bone in my mouth, I’m done. I would gag on any other attempt at that same fish from my plate. I don’t consider it a good presentation to have head, tail or skin on a fish you expect me to actually eat. Fish with bones, head, tail and skin belong in an aquarium, not on a plate. As you can see, I’m more comfortable at a fish and chips shop than a fine dining restaurant if fish is on the menu. And I absolutely can't swallow any form of salmon. I think I may truly be allergic to it.

I’m much less picky about meat. I like chicken and turkey. Duck is okay, but it’s greasy. I like pork, including ham, beef as long as it doesn’t have a lot of marbling to have to pick through, and Bambi steaks are okay, although I don’t care for ground venison. I used to be able to eat veal, but I was once served undercooked veal, and haven’t been able to wipe that taste from memory, so all subsequent attempts have tasted like that undercooked baby.

One meat I can’t eat is lamb, and presumably mutton. Aside from the thing tasting the way it smells in the barnyard, it’s very hard to breathe after I eat a piece of lamb, as if the meat sucked all of the air from my lungs.

Of course, I don’t eat organ meats. I know what those organs do inside the body, and I wouldn’t want to put things that perform those functions in my mouth. Besides, they have too much taste, which hurts my taste buds.

Nonfood smells frequently bother me, so it’s not just picky eating. Usually, the offending smells are not those that occur in nature, but those invented in a lab.

While I detest the smell of lavender in soaps, perfumes or air fresheners, I’ve never noticed that lavender in the field is offensive. Essential oil, air freshener, etc., are just horrible. 

I also don’t like the smell of most detergents. Just walking down the laundry detergent aisle at the store sets me coughing and sneezing. My laundry detergent is unscented or the “Sensitive skin” variety. To have something washed in regular detergent near my face is simply asking for problems. For my own protection, I have started bringing my own pillowcase with me whenever I’m staying overnight anywhere, just in case I need it.

If I’m buying floor cleaner, I’ll get the lemon scent. “Fresh Scent,” “Spring Scent” or “Citrus” that isn’t specifically lemon, are too risky for my nose.

It goes without saying that I don’t use plug-in air scents. I’ve tried a few, and none are breathable. I also don’t like headaches they cause.

So those who have always accused me of being a picky eater now know, it’s not just food; it’s tastes and smells. I’d be happy to find a vegetable with no taste, just a crisp crunch. Oh, yeah -- celery.