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I feel like I just woke up. Part of me got incredibly activated this Monday and I’ve been experiencing a lot of overstimulation.
Some months ago my partner suggested I might be autistic. I remember thinking I might be in 2nd grade when my teacher suggested my mom might get me checked (she refused), but the simplification of symptoms made me not identify. I crave & seek touch, my obsessiveness is patterned so the repetition usually iterates differently & isn’t obvious, precoscious language along with bouts of nonverbal “shyness”. I didn’t feel shy, just overwhelmed, confused, until there was enough ostracizing and friend disconnecting. Then it was nervousness, not knowing what I was doing wrong. I only felt ‘shy’ [nervous about what I might do wrong] starting around 11. Theres also that idea that of course everybody else has similar experiences, either its so fundamental nobody needs to talk about it or they just talk about it differently. I didn’t realize I had kinesthetic synesthesia until I was 20 because I thought it was normal. There’s still so much I get surprised by.
My mom encouraged me in exploring and being myself, so even though I had social difficulties with strangers & peers, I’ve embraced many aspects of my quirkiness and don’t really care if people judge or stare or don’t understand. I’ve also found I can be less overwhelmed if I process my own emotions early: almost always have some coping mechanisms active (empathic bubble-filter, breath, intentional movement, stroking): start leaving 30+ min before ‘saturation’ that precedes outburst or overwhelm: and feel relatively secure understanding the dynamic of the particular social circle.
But learning about autism gives me language to explain, to note the ways it seems different to others than me. I’ve been feeling so happy.
Looking more deeply into experiences from the perspective of others on the spectrum (I’ve really enjoyed reading on this forum), much connects. Especially the idea that we just don’t fall into the middle; I’ve always loved contrast and felt drawn towards extremes, intensity & calm, particular detail & fundamental concepts... I feel as though I’ve been recognizing all these underlying reasons that I *have* to engage more "intensely" in the world than other people in order to function, to have focus-anchors.
The past few weeks I’ve been shifting from my usual thinking in amorphous 3D color-shape ideas to thinking in this complex, timescale-layered 3D web-map processing. Kind of like zooming out, and the colored shapes become nodes. But also zooming in at the same time, and there are more nodes within the shape. There can be big empty spaces of unknown between. It started with self-massage, subconsciously finding muscle-emotion tension maps, and following these incredible, weird strokes of smooth, deep sparkle release. Full fascial lines with intricate motions to the extent that the long stroke gets obscured, lost. I was just letting my subconscious take control, and back-tracing along mentally, finding the webs.
Once I found them though, I started thinking that way about everything, in a glacier-flood, so I didn’t notice at first. And then it was fun, an exploratory game, like birds in sopor being uncaged. Awakening is full of awe, smelling the new places, moving, but they still have to figure out how to use their wings, and the process of trying feels good.
Background: I experienced a very traumatic incident around 5. The sudden & prolonged experience of intense pain-overwhelm ultimately resulted in freezing & numbing to endure. During the experience a lot of persistent mind-protective mechanisms were established in me. I became aware a few years ago and have been slowly (chaotically) stumbling my way through.
Monday with my somatic therapist, we flowed to this emotional release in my neck. Like the glacier was melting.
And then a flurry of flight. Everything was so much. I’ve always heard distant sounds and couldn’t help but tracking multiple conversations as well as music, but when I was in my kinky neurodiverse support group and everyone was talking after, all the words and meanings and associations and loudness: I had to go into another room with my hands over my ears, rocking. I haven’t done that since kindergarten. And even with earplugs the past couple days, it’s so much, and others emotions, I keep crying. It’s weird when they bury things and it’s like you feel them more than they do. I’ve never been able to bury things very long, they’ll just explode.
I strongly feel that reaching this particular stage of integration set free some blocked off functioning. In particular, my mom tells stories about how difficult it was to get me to sleep, how little I slept for my age. In the months after the abuse, I started sleeping a more ‘normal’ amount, usually needing 8-9 hours to this day. The past two nights I’ve woken with massive energy after about 5 hours. I theorize the neural activity allows for quicker dream-processing and brain cleansing.
I'd love to hear what aspects of any of this you relate to.
Also looking for ways to cope. Have you experienced periods of less overstim, more? Particularly in context of the same kinds of environments, but marked processing differences. Are there ways you manage the phases?
If you want to selectively be able to keep processing certain things and not other perceptions, how do you simplify?
I’d like to be able to map-process only the things I choose, so the other (environmental stuff mostly) can return to just being intense, instead of activating whole swaths of experience & association. In particular, hearing more than one person talking is overwhelming. And I want to keep feeling this alive. It's beautiful, free
Some months ago my partner suggested I might be autistic. I remember thinking I might be in 2nd grade when my teacher suggested my mom might get me checked (she refused), but the simplification of symptoms made me not identify. I crave & seek touch, my obsessiveness is patterned so the repetition usually iterates differently & isn’t obvious, precoscious language along with bouts of nonverbal “shyness”. I didn’t feel shy, just overwhelmed, confused, until there was enough ostracizing and friend disconnecting. Then it was nervousness, not knowing what I was doing wrong. I only felt ‘shy’ [nervous about what I might do wrong] starting around 11. Theres also that idea that of course everybody else has similar experiences, either its so fundamental nobody needs to talk about it or they just talk about it differently. I didn’t realize I had kinesthetic synesthesia until I was 20 because I thought it was normal. There’s still so much I get surprised by.
My mom encouraged me in exploring and being myself, so even though I had social difficulties with strangers & peers, I’ve embraced many aspects of my quirkiness and don’t really care if people judge or stare or don’t understand. I’ve also found I can be less overwhelmed if I process my own emotions early: almost always have some coping mechanisms active (empathic bubble-filter, breath, intentional movement, stroking): start leaving 30+ min before ‘saturation’ that precedes outburst or overwhelm: and feel relatively secure understanding the dynamic of the particular social circle.
But learning about autism gives me language to explain, to note the ways it seems different to others than me. I’ve been feeling so happy.
Looking more deeply into experiences from the perspective of others on the spectrum (I’ve really enjoyed reading on this forum), much connects. Especially the idea that we just don’t fall into the middle; I’ve always loved contrast and felt drawn towards extremes, intensity & calm, particular detail & fundamental concepts... I feel as though I’ve been recognizing all these underlying reasons that I *have* to engage more "intensely" in the world than other people in order to function, to have focus-anchors.
The past few weeks I’ve been shifting from my usual thinking in amorphous 3D color-shape ideas to thinking in this complex, timescale-layered 3D web-map processing. Kind of like zooming out, and the colored shapes become nodes. But also zooming in at the same time, and there are more nodes within the shape. There can be big empty spaces of unknown between. It started with self-massage, subconsciously finding muscle-emotion tension maps, and following these incredible, weird strokes of smooth, deep sparkle release. Full fascial lines with intricate motions to the extent that the long stroke gets obscured, lost. I was just letting my subconscious take control, and back-tracing along mentally, finding the webs.
Once I found them though, I started thinking that way about everything, in a glacier-flood, so I didn’t notice at first. And then it was fun, an exploratory game, like birds in sopor being uncaged. Awakening is full of awe, smelling the new places, moving, but they still have to figure out how to use their wings, and the process of trying feels good.
Background: I experienced a very traumatic incident around 5. The sudden & prolonged experience of intense pain-overwhelm ultimately resulted in freezing & numbing to endure. During the experience a lot of persistent mind-protective mechanisms were established in me. I became aware a few years ago and have been slowly (chaotically) stumbling my way through.
Monday with my somatic therapist, we flowed to this emotional release in my neck. Like the glacier was melting.
And then a flurry of flight. Everything was so much. I’ve always heard distant sounds and couldn’t help but tracking multiple conversations as well as music, but when I was in my kinky neurodiverse support group and everyone was talking after, all the words and meanings and associations and loudness: I had to go into another room with my hands over my ears, rocking. I haven’t done that since kindergarten. And even with earplugs the past couple days, it’s so much, and others emotions, I keep crying. It’s weird when they bury things and it’s like you feel them more than they do. I’ve never been able to bury things very long, they’ll just explode.
I strongly feel that reaching this particular stage of integration set free some blocked off functioning. In particular, my mom tells stories about how difficult it was to get me to sleep, how little I slept for my age. In the months after the abuse, I started sleeping a more ‘normal’ amount, usually needing 8-9 hours to this day. The past two nights I’ve woken with massive energy after about 5 hours. I theorize the neural activity allows for quicker dream-processing and brain cleansing.
I'd love to hear what aspects of any of this you relate to.
Also looking for ways to cope. Have you experienced periods of less overstim, more? Particularly in context of the same kinds of environments, but marked processing differences. Are there ways you manage the phases?
If you want to selectively be able to keep processing certain things and not other perceptions, how do you simplify?
I’d like to be able to map-process only the things I choose, so the other (environmental stuff mostly) can return to just being intense, instead of activating whole swaths of experience & association. In particular, hearing more than one person talking is overwhelming. And I want to keep feeling this alive. It's beautiful, free
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