He says that I'm hypersensitive. To some extent, this is true: hypersensitivity is one of the defining characteristics of being on the autism spectrum. Some have argued that it is actually the cause of all other ASD symptoms and behaviours....and the people who have posited this are themselves on the spectrum (google "autism expert sensory funnel"), which lends more validity than the average hare-brained ideas.

But there's also this: my average pain/stress/discomfort levels are already typically much, much higher than your average person. On any random day, if you scratch through the veneer, there's a boiling mess of hurt underneath it that I'd rather pretend isn't there. I don't have a lot of wiggle room. So yeah, "small" things will hurt me much, much more than your average person who isn't already frighteningly close to their max pain threshold.