I don’t quite get why people put fashion over comfort. I understand it makes them happy, but it still seems illogical.

I suppose it comes down to how much ‘comfort’ affects people. I know if I wear something uncomfortable (such as my secondary school uniform), I’ll be more stressed out the whole day, because my senses will be taking in even more information than necessary.

If you imagine I have a small cup, and every annoying, painful, or uncomfortable piece of sensory input adds a few drops to that cup. Therefore, the cup will overflow more often and more quickly the more uncomfortable sensory input I experience. So by wearing uncomfortable clothes, I lower my tolerance for other discomforts, and am more likely to experience a shutdown or a meltdown (IE when the cup overflows).

Therefore, it makes no logical sense for me to wear uncomfortable clothes when I am about to go somewhere with a lot of sensory input (such as school or work).

I used to assume everyone else experienced this as well, and was very confused as to why people would say things like ‘beauty takes pain’, or would choose to wear woollen clothes (extremely itchy!).

I was (and still am) confused about all the different fashion rules (what top to wear with what trousers, what to wear each season, what things are ‘out of season’). There are already so many unwritten rules to socialising, so the idea of having to learn another set of rules when I was still getting my head around the basics of socialising was overwhelming. So far, I know that brown goes with green, and that’s about it.

The idea of spending energy and time researching all of these rules, and then sacrificing more energy every day to wear uncomfortable clothes… it was unthinkable and disturbing. I now know that others don’t experience the same levels of pain from ‘fashionable’ clothes, and are unlikely to have a meltdown from them. So I think I get why others would be willing to sacrifice a tiny bit of discomfort to be fashionable.

But I know that I’ll never do that, because it is still illogical for me to do, in my situation.

I choose clothes by walking along a clothing rack and running my fingers over tops and trousers, and picking out anything comfortable to look at it. Ideally, I would wear short and long sleeved tops from the same shop in different colours (Tu, Sainsbury’s own brand is exceptionally comfortable) and comfortable trousers and jeans. But my mum has got me to have some variety, because she knows what kind of textures I like and picks stuff she knows I will be comfortable in.