Recently, I went to the MDPH (French disability support and benefits office) in a region where a cyberattack had wiped out all their electronic files. The waiting room was crowded and loud. Instinctively, I put my sunglasses back on. My caseworker looked surprised, but my mother burst out laughing—she immediately understood what was happening. It was compensation. I needed to be able to hear my number being called and then hear the person at the desk. Noise-canceling headphones weren’t an option. So instead, I used my sunglasses to reduce—not the sound itself—but the overall sensory load my brain was processing.
📋 TL;DR : In short
- Reducing one sense = easing all the others.
- My “tools”: sunglasses, headphones, earplugs.
- Not an eccentricity — a survival strategy.
Beyond the noise, the room was full of people wearing overwhelmingly strong perfume. I actually find overpowering perfume just as unpleasant as any other intrusive smell (sweat, urine in the subway). And on top of that, the room was far too bright. So the sunglasses became the only sensory “volume control” I could use.
What made my mother smile is that she already knows the topic well — after hearing me talk about autism for hours. She immediately understood the logic behind it, a logic an allistic person might completely miss. Yet many autistic people use the exact same strategies: pulling up a hood, closing their eyes, dimming lights. I use all of these too when things start to escalate. They don’t block the sound — but they reduce the overall chaos when stimming alone is no longer enough.
Sensory compensation strategies are often put in place automatically. I didn’t consciously think about the effect of noise-cancelling headphones the first time I tried them, I just immediately understood their protective function. They were actually the first thing I bought when I moved to Paris, overwhelmed by the chaos of the metro I knew I’d have to take daily. Today, my headphones and sunglasses are my favourite armor to navigate a world that wasn’t built for my neurology.
My compensation tools
Noise-cancelling headphones
When I first got a smartphone, I began wearing earbuds on school bus rides. That’s where I created the playlists I still loop today. They served a dual role: protection and sensory regulation — blocking overload and replacing it with predictable, familiar sound.
When I arrived in Paris, I bought my first on-ear headphones (pads resting on the ears). I loved the pressure sensation, and the volume helped drown out external sounds, but it was still imperfect.
In 2017, I finally bought my first over-ear, active noise-cancelling headset. The passive isolation alone was already a relief, but the active cancellation became life-saving. In moments of overload, I don’t even need music — just wearing the headset is enough. The rest of the time, music + ANC almost completely cancels out the surrounding noise.
When I’m alone, I always wear my headphones — music at full volume — to block the surrounding noise as much as possible, even if it means slightly damaging my hearing in the process (I tested it with a calibrated app using my AirPods: the aggressive 100 dB blasting in my ears didn’t seem to do much damage, thankfully). When I’m with other people, I switch to earplugs — Loop Experience — which work quite well to reduce overall volume while still allowing me to hear nearby voices.
Sunglasses
Wherever I can and since I was very young, I wear sunglasses. It’s the only sensory aspect that hasn’t changed over time: I’ve always been extremely sensitive to sunlight and metallic reflections (cars especially). Well — almost. Because sometimes I’m so under-responsive that I suddenly want to sunbathe the moment I step outside.
Guess what? That’s usually the very first sign that a manic episode has begun.
Most of the time, I’m always wearing my sunglasses and won’t hesitate to turn around if I forget them. I lost them once and had to improvise: walking with my head down. I tend to do that anyway, but this time I had to constantly squint to cope. Every pedestrian crossing — reflecting light aggressively — triggered a sharp reaction. The only solution was to buy a new pair as soon as possible.
When I took my driving test, before being diagnosed, I explained that I was overly sensitive. The examiner was “tolerant” and asked me to remove them for a few minutes just long enough to check whether I was doing my visual checks. Those first minutes — on a very sunny day — felt endless. Today, with a medical certificate, I would have been exempt. The disability office (MDPH) now recognizes this need.
Smell: the sense from hell
It’s the only sense for which I have no workaround that doesn’t look strange (setting aside the visual of a guy with sunglasses, noise-cancelling headphones, looking at the ground and moving like a T-Rex). No one has invented a smell-filtering device that wouldn’t look bizarre — and even if it existed, I couldn’t wear it anyway, because I’m even more touch-sensitive than smell-sensitive.
I have three strategies when I’m overwhelmed: leave the room, hold my breath (semi-effective, unless you count “passing out” as success — cursed body), or breathe with my mouth open. The last one is what I use most often. It unsettles some people who hate the idea of “tasting the smell” — including a friend of mine.
Regulating touch
This one has changed over time — somewhat. I’ve been sensitive to light touch from a very young age and still am. The idea of someone lightly brushing my knee is enough to make me freeze. The French cheek-kiss greeting? Unpleasant. Hugs? Impossible for years. With time — and because a few friends insisted — something shifted. One day, in an altered state of awareness, my perception of hugs changed. I still can’t hug most people, but three friends have crossed that sensory boundary.
How? By hugging me tightly rather than softly. That paradox is extremely common among autistic people: gentle touch feels intrusive or painful, while firm pressure feels calming — something Temple Grandin has talked about extensively. Throughout my teenage years, I preferred tightly fitted clothing. Today, I prefer loose clothes — yet a T-shirt collar that sits too high will make it impossible for me to focus until I take it off.
To minimise the discomfort caused by this hypersensitivity, the only solution I’ve found is to dress differently and adapt myself to it. And I stay on alert for the slightest touch from someone in the subway, which is often a major source of overload.
Compensation by sense
📋 TL;DR : In short
- Auditory → earbuds / on-ear headphones / over-ear ANC headphones / earplugs → a kind of personal timeline of escalation
- Visual → sunglasses / walking with head down / squinting
- Olfactory →
- leave the room
- hold my breath
- breathe through my mouth
- Tactile → tight clothes / then loose clothes / avoid cheek-kissing / only firm hugs with a select few
Use of other protective tools
That’s where the other forms of protection come in: a packed metro? Headphones on, sunglasses on. In the end, it’s the global sensory load that becomes the problem for many autistic people. It may not make sense to an allistic brain, but this is exactly what leads many autistic people to overload — and eventually to an autistic shutdown or meltdown if the load isn’t contained in time.
The purpose of this article is to explain that by reducing one sensory channel, you relieve the whole system. You adjust the internal dial. You rebalance the load — and prevent overload. In my case, this is my most disabling challenge because it’s constant. It starts the second I leave my home — or even indoors, when I’m already overloaded and the sound of my fridge or the electrical hum from outlets makes it impossible to lower the sensory pressure.
It’s not that I confuse my senses — it’s that they interact with one another, and I juggle them to regulate the overall load. That load only truly stops when I’m in a quiet environment or asleep. It’s not just a collection of little gadgets, it’s a sensory survival strategy. Each tool doesn’t work in isolation; it helps rebalance an entire system.
Originally published in French on: 21 Sep 2025 — translated to English on: 18 Nov 2025.