Before I found out that I take in more sensory data than most people, I wasn’t able to explain how water affects me. My inner narrative didn’t include the observation that rain hurts my skin, because every time I flinched at it, people would say, “It won’t hurt you!” For someone with sensory sensitivity, who takes things literally, this is confusing and unhelpful to hear. It’s also inaccurate. What they really meant was that it won’t harm me. But because I took them literally, I never thought to label the feeling as pain.
