waterstar0610
Member
Hi everyone, i wanted to share this. Ive heard many theorys that people with autism could use to explain our mental energy levels, and ability to cope with sensory input and social situations. Including spoon theory, and battery theory but neither really sat well with me. I felt that these were not specific to those on tje autism spectrum and that aspies and auties deserved our own theory so i made one up to suit me and maybe others on the autism spectrum as well. Here is how it works. I chose tokens because i felt that spending tokens as mental energy currency the samee way you would spend a token at the arcade or the fair/carnival made more sense to me than spoons or batteries.
So here is what ive come up with so far.
Imagine that you wake up each day with a sepcific number of tokens. One day you may wake up with 5, the next you may wake up with 50. There is really no way to predict how many you will wake up with, but if your well rested and have eaten healthy, you are more likely to wake up with a higher number of tokens, but again its not certain. Everytime you experience a certain amount of sensory input throughout the day it costs tokens. Getting out of bed may cost between 3-8 tokens, eating food costs tokens, and being social costs tokens (more in larger crowds, or with unfamiliar people.), so does getting dressed, doing school work, or travelling or even going back and forth to a job. Listening to music or reading or watching a movie, or hearing an audiobook, yoga or other enjoyable things still costs tokens (albeit less than doing stressful things).The point is that every single thing you do that subjects you to any even minorly significant amount of sensory input, costs tokens. Talking, listening, or even seeing bright lights costs.
If you run out of tokens, your done. You cant handle or take any more that day. Everything is too much. You may have a meltdown(lose your temper and explode) or shutdown (cry and implode) or you may just cease to do anything the rest of the day, your world view will often become very negative and you wont want to do anything or see anyone. Your day is over. When i dont do something, like join in watching a movie, or study, or jump at the chance to meet someone new, its often because i simply dont have the sensory tokens for it that day. Things can range in cost, from 0 st (sensory tokens) to 100 st(sensory tokens) , while i have never woken up with more than 100 for a day things have never costed me more than 80. Its important to keep this in mind when ever i go to do anything. Eating healthy, getting well rested, and keeping stress down are all ways to help me wake up with more st in the morning and having a large range of sensory items that i can use at any time helps me conserve my tokens so im less likely to run out.
There is no token store, and you cannot go and buy more. However there is the T.T.L.S.S( tomorrows token loan shark service) which allows you to borrow tokens from tomorrows number if you need to, but this is very dangerous because first you dont know how many you are waking up with tomorrow, so you dont know how many you will wake up with if you borrow, and second the T.T.L.S.S expects 25% interest paid in full tomorrow on what youve borrowed. So it really is a gamble and should only be done in absolute dire straights.
Because i never know how many tokens i will have in a given day its very imporant that i count them each morning and plan my day accordingly.
But planning each day individually and thinking and processing each day costs more tokens, which is why having a regular routine helps alot.
Thanks for reading!!
So here is what ive come up with so far.
Imagine that you wake up each day with a sepcific number of tokens. One day you may wake up with 5, the next you may wake up with 50. There is really no way to predict how many you will wake up with, but if your well rested and have eaten healthy, you are more likely to wake up with a higher number of tokens, but again its not certain. Everytime you experience a certain amount of sensory input throughout the day it costs tokens. Getting out of bed may cost between 3-8 tokens, eating food costs tokens, and being social costs tokens (more in larger crowds, or with unfamiliar people.), so does getting dressed, doing school work, or travelling or even going back and forth to a job. Listening to music or reading or watching a movie, or hearing an audiobook, yoga or other enjoyable things still costs tokens (albeit less than doing stressful things).The point is that every single thing you do that subjects you to any even minorly significant amount of sensory input, costs tokens. Talking, listening, or even seeing bright lights costs.
If you run out of tokens, your done. You cant handle or take any more that day. Everything is too much. You may have a meltdown(lose your temper and explode) or shutdown (cry and implode) or you may just cease to do anything the rest of the day, your world view will often become very negative and you wont want to do anything or see anyone. Your day is over. When i dont do something, like join in watching a movie, or study, or jump at the chance to meet someone new, its often because i simply dont have the sensory tokens for it that day. Things can range in cost, from 0 st (sensory tokens) to 100 st(sensory tokens) , while i have never woken up with more than 100 for a day things have never costed me more than 80. Its important to keep this in mind when ever i go to do anything. Eating healthy, getting well rested, and keeping stress down are all ways to help me wake up with more st in the morning and having a large range of sensory items that i can use at any time helps me conserve my tokens so im less likely to run out.
There is no token store, and you cannot go and buy more. However there is the T.T.L.S.S( tomorrows token loan shark service) which allows you to borrow tokens from tomorrows number if you need to, but this is very dangerous because first you dont know how many you are waking up with tomorrow, so you dont know how many you will wake up with if you borrow, and second the T.T.L.S.S expects 25% interest paid in full tomorrow on what youve borrowed. So it really is a gamble and should only be done in absolute dire straights.
Because i never know how many tokens i will have in a given day its very imporant that i count them each morning and plan my day accordingly.
But planning each day individually and thinking and processing each day costs more tokens, which is why having a regular routine helps alot.
Thanks for reading!!
