Clothing Issues

When I was little, I preferred to wear shirts with long sleeves all the time due to becoming emotionally sensitive about my bare arms showing. I also wore these even during hot summer days. In fact during my trip to Florida when I was five years old, I not only wore long sleeves but also a zip up sweatshirt when it was 80 degrees out, likely for comfort. 

As I got older I continued wearing long sleeved shirts even when it was super hot outside that caused my skin to get red. Eventually, on one exceptionally hot summer day when I was 10 years old, my brother Brody finally convinced me to wear short sleeves when I got so red from the heat that I would end up dying from heatstroke which actually worked out in the long run and helped me adapt to other clothing.

Even when I got the whole short sleeves situation resolved, I still didn’t like wearing them whenever I wore foot wear that required socks. When in gym class during my middle school and early high school years, I still continued wearing long-sleeves despite the gradually warming season making it harder to endure. 

Eventually this also changed as well when I started my job doing manual labor at the cranberry bog when I was required to wear work boots because of the hard-working environment. At first I tried wearing a sweatshirt which also didn’t work once it started getting really hot out and thus I now started leaving my bare arms exposed which I gradually became comfortable with overtime then transferred this over to gym class and it’s stuck with me ever since. 

Not only that, I refused to wear shirts with buttons or kind of decal on them that I could feel through the shirt that would bother my skin. I was to the point that my mom would rub lotion on my neck where the fabric touched my skin just because the threads would irritate me. 

I would appreciate if anyone knows someone with autism if they would tell me if they ever had clothing issues before and if they were able to ever overcome it. 

Please share, this could someone with a disability. 

This was me on a hot July day in 2008. Everyone else short pants and short sleeves on.