Living with Autism Series Part 2

For autistic people, the sensory experience is incredibly heightened. While neurotypical people have the ability to walk into a crowded, bright, loud space and gradually ignore the sensory input that isn’t important to them, autistic people do not. Our brains can’t “tune out” the things we don’t want to hear (or feel or see or taste or smell), so all of these competing stimuli continue to bombard our senses until we reach what is called sensory overload. This is the point where we become overwhelmed by these competing stimuli, and if we can’t rapidly escape the situation, it usually leads to meltdowns (a topic I’ll cover in another post).

But here’s the thing about sensory overload: because it’s not something that most neurotypicals have a conception of and because these situations are not ones in which they feel overwhelmed, they’re often lacking in sympathy for someone who is. And, in many situations, an autistic person’s struggle with sensory overload is dismissed as being “too sensitive.” We’re often told we just need to get over it. As if it’s a simple mind trick and a change of perspective will cure us.

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This was the sort of advice I was raised on. I grew up being told constantly that I was too much. My every action was highly scrutinized and critiqued. I was expected to have total control over myself all the time, and when I failed, I wasn’t met with compassion or comfort. I was met with shame and ridicule. I wasn’t allowed to be anything other than what was perceived as normal.

For years, I pushed myself way past my breaking point to try to force myself to be “normal.” This behavior was directly influenced by the people around me telling me outright that I was just being “too sensitive” and needed to get over it.

Everyone I encountered, from family to teachers to friends, reinforced this idea that it was just me. It was a failing, something I needed to overcome. Even my first couple of therapists heavily pushed me toward DBT/CBT and exposure therapy (which I will cover in another post), which both focus on desensitizing you to triggers, again, heavily reinforcing the idea that it was me that was wrong, and I needed to change myself to better fit how everyone else was and what everyone else could handle.

And then, when I failed to become desensitized to the things that caused me anxiety (when my anxiety continued to get worse) my therapists would grow impatient with me, even frustrated, and accuse me of not taking their advice seriously or not trying.

In reality, I was trying so hard I pushed myself to further meltdowns, which made it even harder to function in everyday situations because I no longer had the minuscule levels of tolerance I had previously fallen back on to get through those situations (or at least keep my breakdowns small enough to fake functionality on a day-to-day basis). I spent everything on exposure to unnecessary stressors at the behest of my therapists.

The truth is, an autistic person will never become desensitized to overstimulating situations, no matter how many times they are exposed. What may look like adaptation to an outside observer is actually dissociation. This is a trauma response in which you detach yourself from the present moment and retreat inside your head to get away from what’s overwhelming you.

I spent most of my childhood and teenage years disassociating because I had no other means of escape. On the outside, I was quiet and “well-behaved,” if not sullen. This made me the picture-perfect child to teachers because I wasn’t disruptive. But on the inside, I was so profoundly reclused within my own head that I often wasn’t actually processing what was happening around me. The extreme levels of stress that I experienced throughout that period have left me with chronic pain and fatigue that now keep me from doing many of the things I want to do, and I struggle with embedded trauma responses that have me reacting to nonthreatening situations as though my life is in danger.

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I’ve devoted the majority of my adult life trying to undo the damage that being called “too sensitive” did to me. I’ve spent years learning that I don’t need to force myself through situations where I’m uncomfortable and that it’s okay not to like the same things everyone else likes. I mourn the child that I was and the person that I could be today if who I was had simply been accepted.

The next time you feel compelled to control another person’s behavior (especially a child’s), to tell them they need to act more normal, or to force them to do something they are visibly upset by, I want you to pause. Ask yourself why you feel so compelled to change their behavior. Are they hurting themselves or someone else? Does this behavior actually need to be corrected? Or are you just trying to change it because it’s not normal? Because it embarrasses you? Or because it’s inconvenient for you?

Maybe you should scrutinize your own behaviors as critically as you do the other person’s.