A sensory issue will cause you to cover your ears and tear out of the kitchen to the opposite side of the house if your mom turns on the blender.

A sensory issue is being less afraid of an actual tornado than the “tornado bell,” the warning sound a weather radio makes when a tornado is approaching – so afraid of the bell in fact that you won’t enter the room that the radio’s in for days despite being told that the radio is off, that it won’t ever turn on again.

A sensory issue will lead you to be both fearful of and fascinated by the vacuum so that, even when it’s off, you’ll open the closet where it’s stored and stare at it for long periods of time, whispering, “Vacuum.”

A sensory issue can both inflict great pain and create potty accidents by causing you to try to “hold it” for an entire school day because of a fear of the loud automatic school toilets, toilets which violently and repeatedly flush without warning.

A sensory issue might make you want to feel things with your lips instead of your fingers, causing concern amongst unfamiliar caregivers that you’re about to eat something inedible like a piece of chalk, when all you were doing was rubbing it back and forth on your lips.

A sensory issue can spot your dad’s bad morning breath from across the room.

A sensory issue can demand massive vestibular input, leading you to point your face to the ceiling when bouncing on your red bouncy ball.

A sensory issue can do the exact opposite, filling you with terror whenever anyone, especially a doctor, forces you to lie on your back.

A sensory issue can drive you to drive yourself at a full run into furniture or people so that you feel that impact.

A sensory issue can make you gag and physically convulse when a food with a certain texture is in your mouth.

A sensory issue will make you want to hold your Nintendo DS literally two inches from your face even though your vision is perfect.

A sensory issue can do all this and more.