It’s always scary when my sensory issues become unpredictable. They make the issues that I deal with much more difficult, because I don't always know how to deal with them.

My Sensory Stress

I can be okay with one thing one day and then at any time in the early hours of the morning, be woken up with panic in my stomach about that very thing that I seemed to be okay with the day before. I also can't get back to sleep until I've either written the issue down, or found a resolve on the issue and that makes sleeping difficult.

Although I have now come to equate how my sensory issues work, I've only come to understand it in the last few months. It is the unpredictable nature of my perceptions and how they work that brings about the most stress.

My Unpredictable Perceptions

Because the nature of my perceptions are so unpredictable and I never know how I’m going to feel or cope at any given time, life is enormously difficult for me, not to mention scary, particularly when that feeling comes and I know I have no choice but to deal with it.

Ilana Estelle is a mental health and wellbeing advocate who combines educational insight with her personal experience of living with physical, mental, and emotional disabilities. She holds diplomas in Counselling, Diet and Nutrition, Nutritional Therapy, Psychotherapy and Counselling, and Stress Management. Through her writing, Ilana supports others in navigating their emotional, mental, and physical health challenges. In addition to writing for The CP Diary, her work has appeared in healthy lifestyle magazines. Ilana is also the author of three books: Cerebral Palsy: A Story – Finding the Calm After the Storm, Spirituality, Healing and Me, and Survival: The Covid Years – Time for Change.

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4 comments on “Unpredictable Sensory Issues”

  1. Chronic Insomnia keeps my mind occupied by a succession of thoughts and images that I can't seem to shake when I'm trying to fall asleep. So I completely understand how sleep problems are affecting you.

    How you consistently break away from the symptoms of Cerebral Palsy to do what you do is miraculous.

    1. Awww thanks Tim. I'm not quite sure. I've always thought about things, always had thoughts in my mind. As a child my thoughts saved me from having to deal with all the negativity surrounding my Cerebral Palsy, the not knowing and not being able to talk about it.

      I think it's lovely when we can resonate with one another on what we deal with. I know for me it certainly makes the going easier, knowing others understand what we go through and for us to understand what others go through.

      What you deal with Tim must be enormously difficult Tim. From what I know about people who have insomnia is that they don't sleep. What you deal with must be more difficult than what I have to deal with, because you want to sleep, but can't.

      I go to sleep absolutely fine, but then wake up with thoughts that make me panic, but have to deal with them before I can go back to sleep, or I can't sleep.

  2. I have a hard time with my girls learning to deal with my limitations. When your kids were little did you have difficulty with them understanding?

    1. Thanks Bonnie. I can understand you and I can understand your girls.

      This is a tough call, but in all fairness to your girls and I believe everyone is in this position too, it's not easy understanding someone else's physical problem, unless we go through something like that ourselves.

      That said even with a lack of understanding, we can show empathy, compassion and tolerance towards those who do have a disability to deal with. Even if we don't understand fully, having these attributes will go a long way.

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