My last post talked about Highly Sensitive People (HSPs) and how their interaction in the world is deep and rich, but also more overwhelming and difficult.

In learning to function with HSP, my daughter and I both have been seeking out tools to help calm the world, and the girl.

I was sitting in the waiting room at my Lyme doctors office about 6 months ago when I noticed a brochure with big bold words like autism, sensory, and headaches (there were other words, but those are the ones that caught my attention).

One of the doctors in the office sees a lot of autistic children and I assumed the brochure was focused at his clients. Autistic and HSP tendencies can be very similar, so I picked up the brochure and learned about a Sensory Processing Syndrome called Irlen Syndrome.

There is a misconception we all see things the same way.

Key Symptoms or Irlen Syndrome include:

• Sensitivity to bright and fluorescent lighting
• Slow or inefficient reading
• Poor comprehension
• Poor attention and concentration
• Eye strain
• Fatigue
• Headaches and migraines
• Poor depth perception
• Print or environmental distortions

Of course my mind immediately went to my daughter who is HSP, but over time, I also started realizing my own challenges with lighting, headaches, eye strain, fatigue, reading difficulties could also be related to Irlen Syndrome.

I found an Irlen Diagnostician in Chico and made an appointment for my daughter. The first step is called a screening, where you are assessed to see if you have Irlen Syndrome. She went to this on her own and was told yes, she has severe Irlen Syndrome.

The second step includes more thorough testing to identify colored filters that help compensate for the brains inability to process certain colors.

During this testing, the diagnostician stated that Irlen Syndrome is hereditary and just by looking at the way my eyes and face responded to the various lighting during Jillian’s testing, she could tell I have the syndrome as well.

I had my testing yesterday and was blown away to talk a walk outside and see he world as it should be seen. With the filters on:

• objects were closer and more stable – for me, objects tend to shift forcing my eyes to constantly re-focus
• there is a depth between objects that I don’t see without the filters – it’s like putting on 3-D glasses and seeing dimension where there was none
• reading is more comfortable on my eyes – I have a lazy eye so reading from one word to the next requires a great deal of focused effort and causes strain (and headaches), that doesn’t happen with the filters on

When I read, words fade from clear to blurry, sometimes they float and I see rivers. Jillian gets washout and rivers and when she is overly fatigued, she sees ripples and seesaws.

We thought that was normal. I thought I had vision problems – which I do, but not to the extent I thought I did.

One little girl who was recently tested couldn’t read more than a few words. Her parents thought she just wasn’t trying. They learned through the testing process that words (and other objects all around her) fly away, leaving a blank page. It’s not that she can’t read or doesn’t try, it’s that she is looking at a white page with no words at all. With the Irlen filters (which are custom layered for each person) she could read just fine!

Both Jillian and I are in the process of getting lenses with filters to help with our perceptual processing disorders and I am excited to see how the world changes for both of us. Stay tuned for more info as we figure out what the world is supposed to look like!

For more information:

Video: Understanding Irlen Syndrome

What Is Irlen Syndrome

Irlen Self-Tests