Bear with Me

 Wild Women Authors is pleased to feature Bear With Me, Book 1 in the Strawberry Shifters series out of the Black Rose line with the Wild Rose Press. This is the first release for Marilyn Barr and Alison Luther, lead female protagonist of Bear With Me.

 Welcome, Alison. Tell us a bit about yourself.  Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about sensory processing disorder, which I will abbreviate SPD.  My experiences are my own but as with every disorder, knowing one person’s experiences is just knowing one person’s outward effects of the disorder.  If you take a human being’s seven senses and the three manifestations of SPD (under-responsive, over-responsive, and seeking), you get thirty-five different categories of symptoms without taking severity into account.

When were you diagnosed with SPD? Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, sensory processing disorder wasn’t as well known as today.  I am extremely sensitive to food textures, so I limit my diet.  Even though I eat food from all the food groups, not eating mushy or wet foods made me a picky eater.  My formal diagnosis was Eating Disorder-Not Otherwise Specified until my son was diagnosed with autism.  The psychiatrist said sensory processing disorder was one of the components to his diagnosis, so I sought an autism diagnosis of my own.  The only area of the autism test where I wasn’t in the typical range was sensory processing. 

How does it affect your meals? Oh boy, that’s where it is the most obvious.  Some food textures scratch my tongue and gums, while others induce panic when they coat my mouth.  For example, I eat fried potatoes but not mashed potatoes.  I eat apples but not applesauce.  I also hate surprises, so I sort my food based on texture before eating.  In a salad, crunchy carrots go in one pile, wet lettuce goes into another, hard croutons in a third, but busting food like olives and beans go in their own pile.  Here’s an excerpt from “Bear with Me” when I had to tell my best friend, Rosie I had SPD:

. . . Rosie trails off as she observes my sorting of my plate contents. She raises the edge of her dark brows and frowns at me. Oh no, I forgot she had never seen me eat. I feel I owe her an explanation especially since we are growing so close. I take a centering breath, blink heavily, and put my fork down. “I have a condition. I have sensory processing disorder,” I blurt out.

“I have never heard of that. What does it mean exactly?” Rosie asks.

Feeling encouraged by the compassionate look on her face, I continue. “It means some of my senses are heightened and some are dampened. Which senses fall into which categories is different for each person with the disorder. It's genetic, so Henrik’s musical ear is an extension of my heightened hearing. I can hear fluorescent lights buzzing, footsteps approach me before anyone else does and everyone’s conversations around me.

“Therefore, I avoid crowds including your restaurant when it’s open. I need to separate my food by texture too. Crunchy foods can scratch the inside of my mouth if I don’t chew it aggressively. I feel soft foods squish on my teeth. Flavors and scents are also more intense for me as well. I’m really great at guessing at what is in dishes because each ingredient stands out so much, even just by smell.”

“Well, at least there’s a name for your weirdness.”

That was a great example of Showing as opposed to Telling. Does SPD have an effect your sleep cycle? When I was a kid, I would try to sleep but my brain would forget that my limbs were attached.  My senses do not check for proprioceptive input unless I am actively moving them. I would feel compelled to verify my legs were still attached or shake them awake, even though I didn’t have the pins and needles sensation.  Having night terrors didn’t help either.  I feel terrible for my sister, Betty, who shared my room growing up.  She’s probably so grouchy now as revenge for a childhood of no sleep, thanks to me.

I had numerous sleep studies and took medicine which turned me into a zombie before putting together my sensory diet.  Now, I use my love of gardening to tire my muscles during the day and compression socks at night.  The constant input from the compression socks reminds my body of its place in space so I can sleep. Betty blabbed about my sleep studies and the mayhem I caused as a child in her book, Strawberry Shifters Book 3: Go Scorch Yourself coming in 2021.

Did it make growing up difficult? It wasn’t just my sensory issues that made me strange in the eyes of my peers.  I come from a magical family and have only “come out of the broom closet” in recent months.  Being a green witch was as isolating as having sensory accommodations.  Here’s one example of the perils of being a childhood green witch, told by my little sister Betty, from Strawberry Shifters Book 2: Round of Applause which will be released in the Yuletide Season of 2020:

“I have always looked out for Ally,” Betty says, “because she has been strange since we were kids. She was often teased about her odd eating habits and stuff, but never stood up for herself. I can remember clearly when we were taking this nature class at camp and I had to come to her rescue…again.

“We were supposed to collect nuts, seeds, and pinecones in paper bags to bring to the nature center for planting in their greenhouse. Everything Ally touched sprouted, so she was near tears at not being able to collect anything. I switched bags with her at the last minute and claimed I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be collecting.

“The boys laughed at me and I had to beat up Micha the ringleader. I always thought Micha carried a torch for Alison because he loved to pick on her. So, I learned to love beating the **** out of him.” 

How about dating?  Did it interfere with your dating life? Oh yes, I am lucky to be pretty enough for a first date.  However, his opinion would change from “she’s pretty” to “she’s pretty strange” sometime during our outing.  Between my eating habits and calming stims, my behavior scared away most of the male population.  I was so fortunate to have the perfect man for me drop into my life in college…literally.  Grant fell off a ladder in the university greenhouse and crushed my astragalus plants.  I developed a crush on him, and we have been together ever since.  I knew he was the one when he found my sensory differences fascinating and wanted to hear about the way I perceive the world.  Here’s just how I feel about him from Bear With Me:

   “This is what I love most about Grant. When my senses or my temper go riotous, he provides security, grounding, and structure. His chosen boundaries for my life are smaller than I would like, but it is better than floating in the wind. If only we could find a balance between white knight protector and absentee husband…”

What were the keys to you seeing your disorder as a superpower? The first tip is to find the tools to create a balanced sensory diet. As the sun rises, I tire my muscles in my garden before my family wakes up.  It is important that I am at my best to help them start their day.  Next, my second tip, I have a network of accommodations in place to stay balanced throughout the day.  Whether it is asking Rosie not to turn on the overhead lighting in her restaurant until I am finished teaching our children or taking breaks to walk barefoot outside, I keep myself from over or under stimulation before it becomes a problem.

Finally, my third tip I learned from Rosie’s boys.  I have a lot to offer society because I perceive the world differently.  While my differences make some tasks more difficult, others are easier.  Buzzing coolers and lights are a nuisance but I can hear the flutter of Sluagh wings before they can attack.  Once I learned about them, their extermination became my life’s work.  How did I learn about the Sluagh?  That’s a long story.  Find out about my foray against the Strawberry Fae in Bear with Me.

What is some advice you would give others to support someone they know with SPD? I don’t like being the center of attention and would rather take care of others than accept help, so it takes guts for me to ask for an accommodation.  I know my new neighbors care for me because they remember my accommodation requests.  When Rosie’s son Matteo dims the restaurant lights or Rosie puts the pizza sauce on the side, I know they are looking out for me.  If they have a question on my sensitivities, they ask and allow me to determine what I can and cannot handle.

They take their cues from me on what helps and what I can do on my own.  I only wish my husband would learn the same lesson.  Just because I have sensitivities doesn’t mean I need to be kept in a bubble.  With a sensory diet and a few accommodations, I can function in society.  My husband, Grant, means well and wants to keep me happily regulated, but his protection is smothering.  Like anyone else, I would like my voice heard and my tolerance levels judged by me not a protector.  What will it take to show him that I am not a delicate flower to be kept in a greenhouse but a weed who flourishes no matter how inhospitable the world can be?

Thanks for spending time with us, Alison. We wish you and Grant and your son a long, happy and healthy life.