Autism Through the Lens of My Sensory Pyjamas

A reflective stitch in time

I’m currently hand-stitching seven holes in my 8-year-old pyjamas.
I’ve worn them literally until the a**e fell out of them, or in this case, the side seams of the legs. It has reached the pivotal point of bringing them to the clothes recycling bank or fixing them. My autistic self cannot bring myself to facilitate their disposal. The self-sustainability of neurodivergence within my sensory sensitivity and sensory seeking in old pyjamas. Now, this can be a common theme across the neurodivergent spectrum that brings strength and challenges, which I will dive into via my erratic thoughts.

One of the most significant challenges is finding clothes that feel comfortable and fit well. Alternative sensory processing and self-regulating tactile needs can make tolerating certain fabrics or clothing tags challenging. I have had this since childhood, and the label I was defined by, namely ‘difficult’, couldn’t be cut off as easily as the labels I have to remove from clothing to this day.

I don’t wear bras. I train my chest pectorals in the hope of keeping my mammary tissue from going south. But that will get me to a stage of wishful thinking, and I will have to buy better support vests and training crop tops than I use currently. Don’t start me on footwear or underwear! As a kid, flip-flops and T-bar strap shoes drove me into meltdowns, as did some of the extremely rubbery, slip-tight pumps they made you illogically change into in school.

I spend most of my time in trainers, Converse, and occasionally in Doc Martens, but I struggle with some rigidity in the latter. I don’t do heels (possibly dyspraxia coordination and balance-related). Still, I did spend a small fortune on designer shoes before in consumerist unconscious excess gendered bandaid phases of life where I filled voids recovering from my job in the limited self-contained time slots I had available to make up for not having a life while trying to make a living.

I never wore any of them.

There were seldom any fancy pants here, except when competing as a bodybuilder, which caused much going against the industry norms since the cut of such attire left little to the imagination.

I found a way.

My way.

The more simplicity there is, the more my nervous system resets, and the more sanctuary it creates. So, as I sit here immersed in the calm renewal of my increasingly vintage pyjamas, I am reminded of the strength of character within my autistic self and the environmental sustainability that the preservation of things that I value brings to my regulation. The fabric texture soothes my sensory system when I put them on after a bath — fulfilling a tactile need.

Grace and content.

The equivalent of a child’s comfort blanket in so far as society will insist on removing such a sanctuary from them as they age, as it’s deemed childish or a marker of a developmental deficit.

Many will know how I feel about that now, at 48.

Go to hell.

I’m in heaven.

Grá Mór