Tag: sensory processing

Autistic traits: When self-care gets pathologised

Post author By Emma
Post date 18/05/2022
3 Comments on Autistic traits: When self-care gets pathologised

In order to receive a clinical diagnosis of autism, a person must meet certain criteria. Aside from the damaging and negative language that describes our way of experiencing and responding to the world as deficits, these criteria don’t really tell us anything about “being” autistic. They are interpretations through the medical and neurotypical gaze of what autism looks like if you aren’t actually autistic yourself. (Not dissimilar to claiming the scientific “proof” that a coconut is in fact a mammal because it has brown hair and produces milk – it certainly meets some of the criteria for being a mammal!)

A clinician with absolutely no understanding of what it is like to be autistic could take these criteria and use them as a checklist against which to compare a person. We know Autistic people protect themselves by masking or camouflaging their autism (sometimes automatically and without choosing to), and we know that certain groups of people are less likely to receive a diagnosis of autism and are more likely to receive differential diagnoses that overshadow their autism. The road to correct diagnosis is a rocky one. But this blog is not about that. These are areas that desperately need further research and exploration, but I will stick to my theme of autistic traits indicating self-care rather than being the deficits so often described.

What do we mean by self-care?

A dictionary definition of self-care describes: “The practice of taking an active role in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.”

In popular culture, self-care has become synonymous with bubble baths and herbal tea, but self-care can actually be an act of political warfare, or simply the stuff we need to do everyday to be at our best. Proactively regulating ourselves through increasing and decreasing sensory input can be part of our self-care.

For instance, we might wear noise-cancelling headphones in a shop, so we can reduce the sensory input from the speakers blaring out loud music and the background noise of extractor fans and chattering customers. This may make us better able to socially interact with the shop staff and complete our transaction less painfully.

What if we don’t have those noise-cancelling headphones to hand?

We might make a repetitive noise, repeat words out loud, or hum a note that blocks out all that background hubbub. This could have a number of effects, including:

a) our noise blocks out some of the background noise

b) it creates some predictability and therefore, feelings of safety in an otherwise stressful situation

c) it may provide regulating sensory input through the pleasant sensation of making the noise with our mouth

How might this look to an observer?

Observers might think various things about us making a repetitive noise – anything from a lack of understanding, “why if they don’t like noise are they making such a racket?!” to the more pathologising observation that the person is showing stereotyped and repetitive use of speech or hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input. Both opinions offer up explanations from an “outsiders” point of view rather than understanding autism from the inside.

How many other traits of autism are in fact Autistic people practising self-care?

I have worked in the field of health and social care for 30 years and have met Autistic people who have severe learning disabilities and physical disabilities, Autistic people who are articulate in using speech, signing, actions and gestures, and other forms of communication. I have had Autistic colleagues and friends. All of whom meet those criteria for diagnosis set out in the DSM-5. Each Autistic person is unique, just as everyone else is unique – that is why we refer to the human race as neurodiverse – all minds are different.

My professional and personal experience tells me that Autistic people instinctively and intuitively do what we need “in protecting one’s own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.” And my goodness, it is stressful living as an Autistic person in the world. No wonder we have to find ways to protect our wellbeing.

What else could be going on?

I would love to hear your comments, reflections and thoughts. Here are a few of my own examples of how those “deficits” described in the diagnostic criteria may in fact be coping strategies and self-care activities used to help me exist in a world that is so frequently not set up for people like me:

My social challenges often come from being overwhelmed due to having too much sensory information to process. When I am better regulated and therefore not in a survival state of fight, flight or freeze I am more able to access what is referred to in polyvagal theory as my social engagement system. The things I need to do to be regulated may look different to those things non-autistic people do. This isn’t due to a deficit, but simply down to my experience of the world being different to theirs – seeing as my experiences are different, no wonder my responses look different too!
I use my body to self-regulate – how wonderful is that! When I have no equipment to hand I can still move my arms, bounce up and down, or make a favourite noise repeatedly. (referred to in DSM-5 as stereotyped use of movement)
My so-called special interests are not special in terms of topic – it is not my fault that other people seem to select from a somewhat restricted choice of interests. The abnormal intensity and focus following these interests (as described in the DSM-5) brings me a sense of calm, a sense of achievement in a world that frequently puts me down, and an opportunity to recharge. All great examples of self-care. In fact, some research by Porges described in one of his books about polyvagal theory and feeling safe, quotes: “a reduction in heart rate variability was a robust indicator of sustained attention and mental effort”
My sensory responses are only hypo- or hyper-responsive, or abnormal, if you are comparing them to your own experiences and assuming yours are “normal”. In our neurodiverse human race where each of us has a wonderfully unique mind, how can we define normality anyway? When you understand that my sensory experiences are different to the majority of peoples, you may begin to understand that my responses are different too. Different, yes; AND proportional to my experience. A proportional response cannot surely also be a deficit?
My work as one of the directors of Autism Wellbeing CIC included co-authoring Sensory Trauma: Autism, sensory difference and the daily experience of fear where we generate a novel “Sensory Trauma” framework in which to (re)consider the lived experience of Autistic people. We explore the concept of affordances and how the same environment affords each of us a different sensory experience

Conclusion:

It is difficult to define autism. In my opinion, the DSM-5 criteria offers a highly restricted view of autism that is fixated on how autism is perceived by non-autistic people. It does not focus on the many strengths that autistic people have, including how we frequently incorporate self-care into our daily lives. I would like to reframe some of those deficits as instinctive ways Autistic people practice self-care.

But I do not believe that simply swapping a list of deficits in the diagnostic manual for a list of strengths, will improve things – the list of strengths is simply the other side of the same coin. But by flipping that coin over, we begin to consider autism from other angles – and that is important. I believe that autism research needs to move from an almost total focus on research topics concerning the biology, causes and treatment of autism, to topics that seek to understand the experience of “being” autistic. The times in my life that have been most positive for me, have come about through people accepting me, valuing me and seeking to better understand how it is to “be” me. Being able to quote diagnostic criteria or hypothesise over genetic factors that could have contributed to my autism have done nothing to improve things for me. I speak in more depth about autism research in another blog.

So, how can we reframe autistic deficits as self-care? Education and awareness raising are a good starting place and there are many fantastic individuals and organisations doing just that.

I made a personal change in how I use language. I stopped using the words hyper- and hypo- in relation to my sensory experiences after we wrote our Sensory Trauma position paper. Instead, I focus on the experience of “being” autistic. I choose to use phrases like “my tactile sense is heightened” or “my interoception, or awareness of body sensations like hunger and pain tend to be muted”. These expressions are finding their way into more mainstream usage with our National Autism Team here in Wales now referring to heightened and muted sensory experiences in their latest information. This is positive because it better helps people understand the experience of being Autistic. Autism is not a set of symptoms to be ticked off against a list.

For me, being autistic is about how my whole being – my body, sensory systems, brain, everything about me – interacts with the world. It is about the relationship I have with the world. A relationship that is affected by how I perceive the world through my different sensory, cognitive and social experiences. A relationship that is also affected by how the world perceives me. I cannot do much about being me, about being Autistic – and nor do I want to. But I can do something about how autism and Autistic people are perceived… we all can….

So lets do it!

Comments most definitely welcomed.

https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_autism_blogs/

Tags actually autistic, Autism, being human, masking, self-care, sensory processing, stimming

sensory trauma

Why Autistic people may experience intense emotions….

Post author By Emma
Post date 13/05/2022
No Comments on Why Autistic people may experience intense emotions….

Tags 5 minute read, actually autistic, coping well, emotions, senses, sensory processing, sensory trauma

5 minute read

Taking things literally – there’s more to it than meets the eye!

Post author By Emma
Post date 24/01/2022
2 Comments on Taking things literally – there’s more to it than meets the eye!

‘Taking things literally’ is a trait or stereotype commonly associated with autism. The diagnostic manuals used by clinicians don’t include specific details on this – but many of the organisations that professionals and families consider to be an authority on autism detail it in their information:

“Autistic people can take things literally, and may not understand open-ended questions.” National Autistic Society UK

“Children and adults with autism have difficulty with verbal and non-verbal communication. For example, they may not understand or appropriately use: …expressions not meant to be taken literally” Autism Speaks USA

I’ve written this blog to share a little of how I experience the world and to offer an alternative perspective the reader may like to consider. It is all too easy for people to accept the “what’s” of autism. Endless organisations tell us the symptoms of autism, or what autism looks like to other people. I like to share the “why’s” and the “how’s”. Tell it from the inside. I have no more authority to speak for all Autistic people than the popular experts do, but I invite you to push aside what you have been told about autism for the next few minutes, and step into my mind….

Metaphors, idioms, and what happens inside my mind:

I can spot a figure of speech immediately. I have learned many of them off by heart. I automatically know that:

“Raining cats and dogs” means raining heavily
“Between a rock and a hard place” means having to decide between two equally difficult things
“They’re a walking encyclopaedia” means someone knows a lot of facts (but I start to giggle to myself at the imagery of a big book with arms and legs, walking down the road!)
Whereas someone who says they could “Eat a horse” horrifies me, even though I understand that they are more likely to eat a pile of toast than enact the picture I have in my mind of their face covered in blood, whilst discarded equine bones pile up underneath their dining table!

My mind works visually. When I am presented with information, I see an image of it inside my mind. Unsurprisingly, I can imagine objects more easily than abstract ideas. Ideas may have no boundaries or physical shape that my mind can hold on to. I want to know what a thing looks like and how it works.

Processing and understanding new information:

When I am presented with new information, my mind creates a visual image to help me process and understand it. I match that image to other things I know, which helps me understand the information in more depth.

Here is an example that you may recognise from a blog I wrote about masking. In it I describe how I frequently mask my need for clarity. The reason I mask my need for clarity is because I have consistently and repeatedly received negative feedback for asking the “wrong” questions.

I was sat in the board room in a very serious meeting and the person talking used the phrase “the elephant in the room”. Now, I absolutely knew this was not to be taken literally. An alarm went off in my brain that said “idiom/metaphor/figure of speech alert”. So I used my quick thinking brain to whiz through everything I knew about elephants to try and work out the meaning. Elephants are big – are they talking about something that is big? Elephants have big ears and a trunk – no it can’t be to do with that and stop it Emma, do not go off on a mental tangent about the different types of elephant and their respective physiology. Elephants never forget – aha, maybe it’s to do with memory or remembering something. What else do I know about elephants?….And then the question came: “Do you have any thoughts on that Emma?” And I realised that I hadn’t got a clue what was going on, or what the question was, and I couldn’t even grasp at an answer out of thin air. The conversation had moved on and I was lost in the world of Proboscidea. I was probably the only person in the room with the taxonomic knowledge to name the order that elephants, mammoths and mastodons sit in – and I was probably the only person in the room feeling stupid, anxious and lost! And all because I didn’t want to make myself look stupid for not understanding something. I challenge you to spend a day in your workplace or school considering how complex language is if your default setting is to take things literally.
https://undercoverautism.org/2020/05/31/masking/

As you can see, I understood this was an idiom – I certainly did not experience that lack of understanding so often assumed in information about autism.

But did I truly take the expression literally? I certainly stated in my earlier blog that my “default setting is to takes thing literally”. I assumed I did because that’s what autistic people supposedly do. These days, I am less certain that “taking things literally” is an accurate description of what is happening for me.

Had I sought clarity by asking for more information about the elephant, I would in all likelihood, have reinforced this idea of literal mindedness. My visual mind was desperately trying to match my elephant image with other elephant info stored in my brain. I wanted more information and it seemed natural to drill down deeper into the world of elephants to find what I needed.

Affordances:

Autism Wellbeing refers to affordances within our paper Sensory Trauma: Autism, sensory differences and the daily experience of fear. This useful infographic gives an example of some sensory experiences a slamming door may afford to two people in the same room. In its simplest form, each of us may perceive or pick up different affordances from the same environment, event or interaction.

So what is going on for me?

I described to my colleague Rorie, how difficult I find interpreting and understanding new ideas, particularly when they contain unfamiliar figures of speech . I need clear information up front – and enough of it to enable me to move forwards in the conversation, or the piece of reading.

The visual image created in my mind when confronted by the “elephant in the room” idiom, demanded my full attention. It was as all-encompassing and as distracting as someone expecting me to continue a conversation or read and understand a written article, but with a gong being beaten loudly next to my head!

I could not simply shift the image to one side and continue. I expressed that it was a “visual thing” and not a “taking things literally thing”.

Rorie and I reflected on affordances, and on the possibility that, when it comes to idioms, I preferentially pick up the visual affordance offered by the idiom rather than the semantic affordance. This feels right to me. My difficulties often arise from sensory processing differences rather than a lack of understanding.

As Rorie said to me, “That is a whole different way of thinking and talking about a dimension of autistic experience typically couched in terms of autistic people having ‘impaired understanding’, ‘taking things literally’ or being ‘oppositional'”

Conclusion:

There are many widely accepted mainstream ideas associated with autism that may be better understood from a sensory processing perspective rather than an “impaired understanding” perspective. I shall explore some of these ideas in future blogs.

Tags actually autistic, Autism, masking, sensory processing

5 minute read Autism camouflaging masking social communication wellbeing

Snapshot: a typical day in the professional life of one Autistic woman…

Post author By Emma
Post date 13/01/2022
2 Comments on Snapshot: a typical day in the professional life of one Autistic woman…

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to a change in how we carry out our work for all of us – and for many of us that has meant working from home and reduced social contact.

My typical working week has gone from face-to-face meetings, visits, and home or office based work, to almost exclusively working from home with those face-to-face meetings replaced with video calls and most visits postponed. I wrote about zoom fatigue and the analogies it has with Autistic communication, last year.

Yesterday was different. Yesterday I stepped out into the “real” world and was required to drive to the nearest city and check out a potential location that may be suitable for delivering a service…..

And oh my goodness – did I really used to do this every day??!!!!!

The journey was great, I have always loved my time alone in the car listening to the radio or energising myself with a loud and uplifting tune. It gives me uninterrupted space to prepare my thoughts before appointments, and process them afterwards. In fact, this “thinking time” is something I miss in my working life.

Prior to leaving home I added the name and phone number of the person I was meeting to the notes app on the home screen of my phone. When I have lots to process, I can find it difficult to navigate my phone because I can’t find the right app or read numbers and letters easily. I was familiar with the area of the city I was visiting but used an online map to view the front of the building – this helps me hold an image in my mind of what I am looking for. Needing to look for something when I don’t know what it looks like is a non-starter for me. Potential business clients can help me (and lots of other people) by sending a photo of their building as part of any joining instructions – and if they send one of the person I’m meeting too, then I will be seriously impressed!

It was a frosty morning and I de-iced the car in plenty of time and dug out my warm wool coat from the back of my wardrobe. It has been some time since I wore it and it’s heavy weight and smart appearance was just what I needed to make me feel embodied, confident and business-like. Plus it has a pine cone in one pocket and a squidgy toy in the other, that I can hold and squish and feel without anyone noticing!

I was in the zone, so I got in the car and headed off.

I pulled up to the ticket machine at the multi-storey carpark entrance and wound down my window. I was offered a choice of pressing a button to talk to someone or pressing a big, flashing button with no instructions. I decided that the flashing button would be for the ticket, having reasoned that one doesn’t usually need to hold a conversation with another person in order to use a carpark. Correct! Pressing the button resulted in a ticket shooting out towards me and the barrier lifting up. I smiled to myself and noticed that already my racing mind was consciously thinking through everything – working out what was going on and why; and how I should respond. Those intuitive, “everybody knows how to do that…” activities that many people take for granted, often require considerable processing by myself and other Autistic people, and can result in me appearing slow, confused, stressed, overwhelmed or anxious.

Once parked up I needed to cross the road to the building I was visiting. The 4 lanes of traffic, including a bus lane, were in stark contrast to the country lane I live on, and I had not experienced such a volume, speed and noise of traffic in a long while. I stood at the kerbside, looking right then left, then right again but dared not cross. My brain could not process the speed of the vehicles; and the overwhelming noise meant my eyes couldn’t see properly and I could get no sense of how near or how fast the cars were by using my sense of vision or hearing. I gave my brain and body a few moments to settle and I instructed my feet how to move. Imagine a party game where you are instructing a blindfolded person around an obstacle course; “lift your left leg up a bit, no not that much, move it forward 30 cm, careful now” etc etc – that’s the level of instruction I need to give my body when coordinating movement in certain situations. I cautiously crossed the road once I was ready.

The building I had seen on google maps was right in front of me and I was pleased that I had looked up a photograph before leaving home. I even noticed the restaurant to one side and the shop to the other were exactly as pictured and I felt reassured by this tiny piece of familiarity and predictability. The doorway to the building had 3 panels of buttons for calling the various companies inside. Some had labels and some didn’t. There was a sign saying “Press doorbell for reception” and I looked all over the door from top to bottom but saw no bell and no switch that could be the bell. My eyes went back to the panels on the wall, and I tried to find one that had the name I was looking for amongst the moving mass of letters, numbers and sticky patches where labels had fallen off. I wondered if the sign requesting “Press doorbell…” was referring to one of these buttons on the wall? Perhaps what I think of as a doorbell – a single button on, or right next to a front door – means something different in an office environment? Maybe I could use the internet to search for “what is meant by office doorbell” or “how to find a doorbell amongst a load of buttons” – perhaps if I searched it up online and clicked “images”, I would get to see some examples of what this type of doorbell could look like that I could match to what was in front of me? But I decided against it. I needed to get my brain back on track so that I could attend my meeting.

I pulled out my phone and went to the note taking app on the front screen and called the phone number I had recorded there. No answer. I searched for the main company phone number, thinking that if the receptionist was going to meet me at 10.30am as planned, they would probably be at their reception desk and answer the phone….they didn’t.

I looked back at the panels of buttons and tried to work out the correct protocol for choosing which one to press. After much logical thought and a fair amount of trying to work out the potential impact of me pressing the “wrong” button, I decided to go for the panel that had numbers and one slightly larger button with a picture of a bell on it. I pressed it and waited. A voice came from the tiny speaker and I introduced myself, apologised for probably pressing the wrong button and enquired whether I could be directed to the company I was due to meet with.

All I could hear from the tiny speaker was a mumble of human noises against the backdrop of equally intense roaring traffic, seagulls, slamming doors, people shouting and talking, wind, car horns, bus engines revving, tyre noise against the road, brakes squealing, my breath, my heartbeat in my ears, the creak of windows being opened, the jangle of the door being opened on the shop next door, the delivery men unloading their van, the radio from the same van…..I picked out a few words from the mumble of human noise coming out of the speaker: “other door”, “Chinese”, “right”. I said thank you and walked away. I felt sad.

I considered going home and recalled how on one occasion I drove 150 miles to a meeting and had a similar experience, I left without even entering the building. I reflected on how difficult it is for me navigating a world that my brain processes as overwhelming. I ensured I regulated my senses because I recognised the overwhelm was spilling over from my senses and into my thoughts that were spiralling downwards into “why is it you are so rubbish”. I find it more effective to regulate my senses than challenge my thoughts at times like these. The issue is primarily one of sensory overload rather than anxiety. The anxiety stems from the sensory overload. I was grateful for my loss of smell and taste – the legacy of Covid-19 infection, as the diesel fumes, cigarette smoke and litter smells could have easily tipped me over into meltdown.

I put my hands in pockets and used my sensory items. I stepped back from the doorway and instructed my brain to pull away from tunnelling down into the finer detail and I got myself to look at the bigger picture. I searched for anything that could give me a clue. I walked down the side road, reminding myself that movement is regulating and good at times like this. I swung my arms a bit and made sure my fists weren’t clenched. I did not find the door. I went back to the main street and walked the other way and lo and behold there was a doorway with a sign on it for the company I was visiting.

At this point I stopped. I reminded myself that the people I was meeting did not need to be told about the online map showing the “wrong” door under the business entry for their company. They did not need to be told that I had tried phoning the receptionist just like the joining instructions detailed, but no-one answered. They certainly didn’t need to know about the traffic or the ticket machine buttons or any of the other ****ing buttons! They’d have no interest in my experience of crossing the road. If they asked me how my journey was – they would not be requesting any of this information – they wouldn’t actually be interested in my journey!

Now was the time to regulate myself and rehearse my “eye contact protocol”. Face coverings make this trickier as I tended to look at people’s mouths prior to masks becoming the norm. On video calls I make awesome eye contact because when you look at your laptop camera light it appears you are making eye contact with the person. You don’t even have to look at their face at all or even have it on your screen if you don’t want to!

So I gained entry into the lobby and BAM! the intensity of the lighting gave my brain too much information to process once again. Thankfully my already (fairly) regulated sensory processing system was able to cope and I prepared myself for meeting my host by repeating my mantra of “look directly at the person and say hello, then scan the environment whilst commenting on how nice it is, then make brief eye contact each time the person pauses”. I walked up the stairs, took a big breath through my nose not my mouth – mouth breathing in a mask feels extremely unpleasant, and in I went.

I am sharing this because it is my reality, and I recognised yesterday how far I have come in terms of understanding myself and managing all this. The world has got no easier, but I have become more able to meet my own needs. I no longer wonder why I am so rubbish at life – I’m brilliant at life – it’s just most people don’t have to go through the level of stuff I have to go through to get to a meeting, let alone to cope with the social, communication, sensory and other demands once inside.

This is a snapshot of me on a good day. To get a true picture of a good day I should add in the social anxiety about how I’ll come across in interactions and the anticipatory anxiety about what is going to happen. Plus the additional sensory input from perfume, aftershave and cleaning product smells; food that I need to eat or decline without causing offence; stairs and chairs to navigate without falling over; handshakes or physical contact; and remembering that I probably won’t recognise the signals in my body that tell me I need to drink or use the toilet until the last moment. I will be consciously repeating the protocols for dealing with small talk and making eye contact.

And if this is a good day – consider a bad day! Illness or stress make all the above far more challenging. No safety to regulate myself or seek clarity makes things worse. Masking autism for sustained periods is harmful, but is sadly necessary for me, in order to take part in the world as a professional person.

What will help?

There are some practical examples in this blog. Photos and clear information and joining instructions. Physical environments that are designed to be more accessible from a sensory processing perspective. Improved understanding of what it is like to be autistic –contact me via our website if you’d like to find out about bespoke training for your organisation or for yourself.

What helps me most is having a proactive approach to sensory regulation. I also use mindfulness – not as an exercise or technique that I plan into my day, but as a way of dealing with situations. I have learned to pause and notice and accept how I experience the world before reacting.

This short film is one of Aesop’s fables and I frequently reflect on what it means to me and how I treat myself in my thoughts and behaviour – perhaps you may take some positive meaning from it too? I recognised the need to follow the moral of the tale on my way home from the meeting yesterday – I was proud of myself for handling the run up to the meeting I described in this blog, plus everything that went on once inside – and I considered I could ‘quickly pop into the shops’ on my way home. Of course the additional demands this placed on my sensory processing system overloaded me instantly and I walked away considering I had done done enough brilliant stuff for one day and should give myself a break to recover and recuperate, and not push myself harder.

Tags actually autistic, Autism, masking, sensory processing

5 minute read Autism Coronavirus interoception Uncategorized

An Autistic experience of the impact of Covid-19 infection on sensory processing

Post author By Emma
Post date 16/12/2021
2 Comments on An Autistic experience of the impact of Covid-19 infection on sensory processing

Background:

I contracted Covid-19 for the first time in April 2020. This required a hospital visit which led to my interest in developing resources to support other Autistic people and their families as part of my professional work as a director of Autism Wellbeing CIC.

I received my two doses of the Covid vaccine during the summer of 2021 and was unfortunate to become infected with Covid-19 for a second time in October 2021. My symptoms of early illness did not present in the expected way.

My most recent Covid-19 infection initially resulted in the common symptom of complete loss of my sense of taste and smell. I have regained about 5% of my olfactory and gustatory processing ability six weeks on from infection.

My professional career has been within social care – developing and delivering services to people who are labelled as having complex needs. My own experience of Covid-19 enabled me to reflect upon some of the potential impacts this could have on other Autistic people, and in particular those who use non-verbal communication or are considered to have “challenging behaviour”.

Interoception – knowing I am ill:

Prior to both infections with Covid-19 I noticed a complete change in my demeanour. I did not feel ill. I did not feel hot or cold – although a thermometer indicated I had a fever. I experienced the sudden onset of severe depression-like symptoms. Fortunately, I am aware of how my interoceptive processing experiences manifest. Interoception is the sense we use to process internal body signals such as pain, hunger, or needing the toilet – and to notice our emotions and the changes they are creating in our bodies (racing heart could mean excitement or anger for instance).

The severity of the depression-like symptoms frequently overshadows my attempts to seek medical help for my physical illness. When I seek medical intervention at these times, my physical illness is typically overlooked, and my mental health is scrutinised – despite me articulately and accurately informing medics that I believe I am coming down with a physical illness. This overshadowing of my physical illness due to putting greater emphasis on the risk management or identification of my depression-like symptoms may prolong my illness as my physical health problems are not treated. It invalidates my experiences and may even create barriers to me seeking support or communicating with medics.

When I consider people I have supported professionally, that are labelled as having “challenging behaviour”, I recognise occasions where perhaps they too may have experienced a sudden change in mood due to a physical illness. Within my work I have observed people exhibiting behaviours such as shouting; biting themselves or others; or running away. These behaviours were considered to be caused by the person trying to communicate that something was wrong and as practitioners we would consider whether this could be something external such as too much noise or the person not wanting an activity to end, for example; or something internal such as toothache or illness.

At times, “challenging behaviour” was interpreted by some practitioners as having an element of intent or wilfulness on the part of the Autistic person. It was sometimes considered that the person didn’t know how to communicate “properly” using speech or sign language or had poor social skills – and therefore chose to demonstrate their pain/distress/urge to leave, by “acting out” and using their behaviour in a planned or possibly even manipulative way to communicate with others.

Where no cause or trigger was obvious to the (usually non-autistic) observer, it was common for the observer to conclude that the person was over-reacting or hyper-responding in some way, and subsequently needed to learn more appropriate coping strategies. My own symptoms of sudden severe depression could look like emotional instability to an observer, and they may well consider me unable to cope with being ill. They may misconstrue that my mood symptoms are a response to my physical illness and not the way that illness manifests for me.

Sensory Processing:

Thank you to my colleague Kate for the drawings http://www.autismwellbeing.org.uk

Sensory processing is the process by which the nervous system receives, organises, and understands sensory information. All of us experience the world through our senses and our brains process this information.

Autistic people frequently process sensory information differently to non-autistic people. Our sense receptors (eyes, ears, taste buds and so on) may work perfectly well but there may be differences in the way our brain processes the sensory information. This may include struggling to process too much sensory information or filter out unnecessary information; experiencing heightened, muted, or distorted sensory signals; delays in processing; or perception in one or more senses shutting down, resulting in an incomplete picture of what is happening within the body.

Each of us has a unique sensory profile. But sensory processing does not happen in isolation. Our sensory experiences change and can appear inconsistent to others who do not recognise the dynamic and context specific nature of sensory processing.

Our senses play an essential role in keeping us safe. For example, if food smells rancid, we know not to eat it, and if we feel unstable on a structure, we climb down from it. Sensory information tells us how to act in and adapt to the environment. Sensory processing also plays a role in regulation, activating us to evade a threat or calming us so that we feel safe.

Positive and negative aspects of my loss of taste and smell:

My overall amount of sensory processing was dramatically reduced. This had a calming and regulating effect upon me and reduced distress in some situations. e.g. the lack of diesel fumes and burger van smells made visits to my local town more bearable.
Food never tasted “off”. This reduced the anxiety I typically experience when food tastes different to usual. I used the best before date to identify whether something was safe to eat.
Food tasted of nothing – so texture became more intense. I realised that I could never eat broccoli without the “reward” of the taste of it to compensate for the texture!
I have practiced mindfulness for decades and found that eating mindfully was the best way to cope with my sudden loss of taste. I would put the food on my tongue and notice it without judgment. At first, the only food I could identify in my mouth was mango, due to the distinctive fizz. I am now aware of spices, bitterness, and the saltiness of marmite.
I recognised how I rely on my sense of smell when cooking. It lets me know when to check if the toast needs turning over under the grill and if food is getting close to being cooked. Without the ability to smell my food cooking, I had to focus on following safe cooking procedures and use a timer or else risk burning food.
Smell keeps you safe – I no longer felt disgust at cleaning up pet poo, even if I accidentally got some on me! I didn’t automatically recoil from mess or take extra care using bleach or filling the car with petrol as there was no aroma from it and it could have been water as far as I was concerned.
I can no longer smell the weather and therefore cannot easily identify whether I should wear a jumper or coat. My sense of smell is more effective than my awareness of temperature when processing the environment.
I use my sense of smell to recognise people. Their sudden lack of aroma made them as difficult to recognise as a radical new haircut or significant weight change would. This created a sense of unease within me.
I am concerned that I may smell bad, or my home may smell bad.
I am aware that I would not smell burning so have become extra vigilant about checking things are switched off at night. I recognise that this vigilance could become anxiety, perseveration, and obsession, so I have adopted a sensible routine to manage my safety concerns without escalating them.

Conclusions:

My sensory experiences following Covid-19 infection have reminded me how our senses work together and not individually.

The role of our senses in keeping us safe is significant. Risk taking may not always be due to recklessness, impulsivity, or lack of understanding of risks – it could occur due to sensory differences.

Autistic people may experience the world in a disorganised or chaotic way because our senses work so differently. My typical need for routine and structure reflects this. Since Covid-19 infection, I am aware that I am relying even more than usual on timers, reminders, and routines in order to compensate for my loss of certain senses. To an observer, Covid-19 may appear to have made me “more” Autistic. It hasn’t; but my “normal for me” world has changed, and I am needing to find security, certainty, and predictability in this new world of minimal smell and taste.

If I was supporting an Autistic person who was not able to articulate their experiences, and they had recently tested positive for Covid-19, I would consider how their sensory processing may have been affected. It would not surprise me if some Autistic people needed to increasingly rely on their other senses to make sense of the world if their sense of smell and taste reduced. They may touch things more to identify them using their tactile sense. They may stim more in order to get extra vestibular and proprioceptive input. I’d expect to see more tasting and smelling of items and people; and possibly increased frustration at not being able to recognise them by these methods.

I would also expect to see an increase in repetitive questioning by some Autistic people. I too have a felt a need to check and recheck information in order to seek out familiarity and predictability. I have found satisfaction in the predictable to-and-fro of scripted or familiar conversations and exchanges. Those reliable quotes from films and songs that stay the same each time you hear them! Similarly, I would not be surprised to see people stuck in a loop of thinking, or stimming, or behaving in a particular way – these tendencies are often exacerbated by change and unpredictability and can provide predictability and a self-soothing function.

Moving forwards, I have prepared myself for a potential return of my sense of taste and smell. I am aware that just like the effects of the various lockdowns ending; a sudden increase of sensory information may be too much for my brain to process and result in survival responses of fight, flight or freeze. I plan to stick with my mindful approach to noticing what my senses are picking up, with no judgment and a curiosity that will hopefully enable me to reflect and share my insights.

I encourage practitioners to consider sensory processing experiences when supporting Autistic people whose behaviour suddenly changes from what is usual for them, and perhaps check whether Covid-19 infection and symptoms related to loss of smell and taste may be the cause.

Tags 5 minute read, actually autistic, anosmia, Autism, Coronavirus, Covid-19, omicron, sensory processing

Uncategorized

A Brief Christmas Message…

Post author By Emma
Post date 29/11/2020
No Comments on A Brief Christmas Message…

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2802739203305969&id=1509838305929405&sfnsn=scwshmo

Tags actually autistic, Autism, Christmas, joy, sensory processing

Autism interoception wellbeing

Saying “ouch!” in all the wrong places …

Post author By Emma
Post date 24/10/2020
3 Comments on Saying “ouch!” in all the wrong places …

Ouch!

I do feel things you know! I may have hiked several miles along the Welsh coast path – and back again – to see if I could “walk off” my dislocated knee. I may have been “incredibly strong and brave” during labour and breathed through my contractions without a cry passing my lips. And I even spent a week away at a children’s camp aged 11, with a broken arm that everyone thought was “nothing to worry about” because whilst I told them I was injured, no one took me seriously because I just wasn’t saying ouch in the right places. I was still hurting though.

Conversely, I can also stress about sensations on my skin that doctors can find no evidence for; and feel so unwell before a thunderstorm I want to curl up in a ball and hide away. More than once I have visited the doctor with physical symptoms only to be told there is nothing wrong with me.

Just because I don’t “feel” pain in a conventional way, doesn’t mean I am braver, weaker, stronger, or more sensitive than other people. When I am unwell or injured my symptoms may not even be experienced as pain – frequently my mood and emotions let me know that something physical is going on. However, when I am distressed or emotional, these feelings may be experienced as physical pain – or more commonly as sensory processing disturbances. Changes to my vision or vestibular processing for instance.

I can’t explain how this works but I accept it in exactly the way I accept my other sensory processing differences. Synaesthesia is widely documented and believed as a variation on human experience. I experience some music and colours in this way myself. I put my unusual experiences of pain, illness and emotions down to a similar phenomena.

I have learned to trust my own experience of my body rather than that of medics and interpret my symptoms accordingly. Unfortunately I am rarely believed. I therefore have a dilemma: do I continue to say ouch in the wrong places – and be viewed as a hypochondriac and dismissed as having nothing wrong. Or do I tell the truth and describe my symptoms honestly and inform the doctor of what the symptoms are most likely indicating – leaving myself open to being viewed as delusional. This is a very likely outcome of me sharing my symptoms truthfully with doctors, because I have a psychiatric history. Or do I lie and try to use the words and terms they’d understand – for example, I could pretend that I was feeling the pain of my injury far more severely than I was. This isn’t an option for me – I can’t justify lying in this situation.

Or do I avoid seeking treatment for any physical or mental health issues I may be having? Do I join the many other autistic people who have poor health outcomes, just because my atypical experiences are not believed – despite me clearly being lucid, articulate and reasonable. Goodness knows how people who are less confident and articulate cope!

Caring for someone else who says ouch in the wrong places…

For a long time I assumed I was either totally unfeeling – or totally oversensitive. I also believed a lot of lies I had told myself or believed from others. Sometimes I assumed I was somehow stronger and better than other people who appeared so weak and lacking in emotional strength to me – those people who got sentimental about things, or lost their tempers, or got flustered in a crisis. At other times I felt weak and pathetic, and the worse human being on the planet because I couldn’t cope with the little things that didn’t bother other people, or I’d know something was wrong with me, but no one would believe me. Perhaps I was mentally ill; perhaps so damaged I was beyond repair? A fraud; an alien; evil. I had a perfectly logical reasoning for each of these potential explanations based on comparing myself to others and believing the lies I told myself or others told me. Of course, none of these were true.

Then I had a child. And there was suddenly another human who was perfect, untainted by the world, definitely not an alien or evil – but very much like me. Once I had spent a very long time coming to the conclusion that I hadn’t damaged him in some way, we sought clinical input on his differences – those differences that were very similar to my differences. And we learned amongst other things that he is autistic.

It didn’t take long to realise that I am autistic too.

Our son has better health outcomes because we understand that not everybody experiences things in the same way. All of us process sensory information in individual ways. Whilst there is a typical range of sensory experiences, most people have experienced unusual sensory processing at some point and can relate to the experiences that many autistic people have everyday. Most of us will relate to how our hearing becomes acutely sensitive when we are scared and even the quietest noise can startle us with how loud it sounds; or the feeling of “sea legs” when we have come ashore after being on a boat and our brain is telling our limbs that everything is still moving.

Autistic people may experience these extreme types of sensory processing experience as our “normal”. We may process the world in a muted way where sounds, lights and smells barely register with us – or we may experience sounds, lights and smells as intense or even painful sensations. Most of us experience a mixture of these variations – and they may fluctuate depending on what else is going on; our environment, mood and general wellbeing etc.

Knowing how we feel physically and emotionally is determined by our sensory processing system. The sense that really plays a part in knowing when to say “ouch” is interoception. Our interoceptive processing system enables us to recognise body signals like being hungry, tired, needing the toilet, pain and emotions. Just like the other senses it can work within a fairly typical range – or it can be muted or intense – and remember this can vary for each of us on a day to day basis too. Have you have ever not noticed you need the loo until the last moment because you have been so engrossed in what you are doing you haven’t recognised the signal in your body? Or known something was up but you couldn’t work out what? Or realised you were tired or hungry. That’s interoception.

Learning about interoception has taught me an important life lesson. Compassion. And also self-compassion. I am no better or stronger than anyone else just because I don’t feel pain from injuries unless they are very serious. Nor am I a pathetic loser because the sensation created in my body by needing to wait for something is so intense it makes me feel edgy, uncomfortable and completely unable to shift my focus onto anything else. I may not feel love for other people as a sensation, but I absolutely love them with all my (very logical!) heart.

And just because other people may not take my experiences seriously doesn’t mean I should disregard those experiences.

All human beings have basic needs – warmth, safety, food, love and so on. When we look after other people we need to meet these needs, regardless of whether the person we are caring for is aware of the need. A baby cries so we check out whether they need feeding, changing or a cuddle. If our child doesn’t notice they need a drink, we still give them one – to do otherwise would be neglectful. Our child may not notice they have bruised themselves falling over – but we still check them out for injuries and treat them with care. A child that may not be feeling an emotion we might call “love” or who may not turn to us for comfort when they are upset, still needs to be shown love and comfort – even if this is on their terms rather than our own. Perhaps this isn’t through cuddles and praise, maybe it’s through listening to them talk about their favourite interest or letting them press their feet into your tummy while they play on their own with a toy – different sensory processing systems require different responses.

Having a child made me appreciate the disservice I was doing myself by viewing my experience of interoception with a judgmental attitude. It’s not surprising – emotions are what makes humans most human. If I asked you to describe a robot, it would probably look human and have all the various sense organs that humans have and do very humanlike things, but lack emotions. My unusual auditory experiences for example, are much more accepted than my unusual interoceptive experiences. Ultrasensitive hearing, the ability to smell someone in the next room, or instantly spot a typing error on a printed page are unlikely to result in judgmental labels such as ‘evil’ or ’emotionally unstable’. A lack of typical emotions seems to equate to an almost robot-like lack of being human. And in my experience it is easier for people to treat others badly if they don’t view them as human.

I need to treat myself with the same compassion that I treat other people. Extend my willingness to meet other people’s needs in unconventional ways with meeting my own needs in unconventional ways when I need to.

Soothing my own “ouches”

Once I had accepted that I wasn’t in fact evil, damaged, an alien or any of the other explanations I gave for my undiagnosed autism, I set about understanding how I actually process the world. It’s been a tough journey, but thankfully is getting easier.

Resilience is often discussed within mental health. Fortunately we can learn to become more resilient and this is all the easier when we explore this from an autistic rather than neurotypical point of view. A person whose experience of sensory processing is one of Sensory Trauma and constant invalidation from clinicians is severely disadvantaged. But many autistic people are fantastically resilient by the sheer fact they are functioning in a world that is biased towards the majority of people who are not autistic. We also tend to be able to self soothe by using our bodies and senses to regulate ourselves – this may be through our intense interests, our repetitive movements, or our ability to follow routines. Sadly these strategies that promote autistic resilience can be seen as part of the medical model disorder of autism. Fortunately autistic voices are getting stronger and society is recognising the social model of disability and the unique strengths that autistic people possess.

But it still hurts!

At this moment I have little faith in the medical system. I continue to say ouch in the wrong places because that is how my sensory processing system works. It is not broken so cannot be fixed. I have always been like this and always will be. I refuse to lie and pretend and say ouch in the “right” places.

The world needs to change. I am unable to receive the treatment I require for physical or mental health issues because I cannot articulate them in the accepted language of clinicians. I prefer to avoid seeking help because of past experiences of being mislabelled and badly treated. Although my autism has now been correctly diagnosed, it was overshadowed for many years and those past labels will always be there.

It is unlikely that in my lifetime I will be able to say ouch when I hurt, and describe my physical and emotional experiences in my own genuine way and be listened to and accepted. What a shame – and how shockingly bad that is for a society that sees itself as modern and inclusive.

There are no easy answers – I keep chipping away at the system when I have the energy – and keep showing myself compassion and self-care. If this blog resonates with your own experience or you wish to share it to spread the message further, then please go ahead and share.

Interoception is the sense most recently added to the five senses I was taught about at school, plus the two others added more recently. Learning more about this eighth sense could make a big difference to many people’s lives. Understanding that we each have different levels and ways of feeling things is as significant as realising we each hear and see things differently. We need interoception to be considered alongside all the other senses – and without judgment.

Tags Autism, interoception, resilience, sensory processing, sensory trauma

sensory trauma

The Sensory Pain of Shopping

Post author By Emma
Post date 14/10/2020
2 Comments on The Sensory Pain of Shopping

My attempt at upgrading my mobile phone online failed…yet again.

There was nothing left but to mentally and physically prepare myself and head off to town. Shops are a sensory nightmare for me. The lights, the rows of stuff that flash by at eye level like a strobe light as I walk down the aisles. The noise and smell and the echoey acoustics. Everything about large stores is distressing and overwhelms me, so I avoid them or go in with a small list and a pair of noise cancelling headphones.

A difference this time was the need for face coverings. I am tactile defensive. Light touch feels excruciatingly uncomfortable. The area around our mouths is particularly sensitive and I’m well aware of what I need to do to be able to wear a mask or face covering:

Soft material
A smell that is familiar and calming
Nothing touching my lips if possible
Relax and breathe through my nose and remember to keep nose breathing rather than panting with anxiety – the hot breath sensation feels suffocating
In fact a tight snood type face covering feels better than the light touch of a mask

visit Autism Wellbeing’s Facebook page for more tips

I’ve got used to how people look wearing masks now but still find it disturbing at times. So, I prepared myself for the experience and in I went and headed for the mobile phone department. I knew what I wanted and just needed to get things sorted out and leave. My husband, in the meantime would grab the groceries.

I was regulated as I entered the store and things were ok. I began my conversation with the staff member but found I had no idea if and when he was talking to me. I was avoiding eye contact and my usual ploy of looking at a person’s mouth was ineffective as it was covered up. As a child, doctors thought I had a hearing impairment and assumed I lip read. I suppose I do to an extent but not because I can’t hear – I hear too much so can’t work out what I should be focusing on. Seeing a person’s mouth move indicates to me where the noise is coming from.

I apologised and asked the man to repeat himself yet again – and then explained that I was having difficulty understanding him. He was great and said he’d take his mask off. I went to take mine off too but he sharply told me not to! At this point I realised I was becoming overwhelmed. I start misunderstanding simple things when I feel overloaded and can appear “not with it” to anyone observing me. The man began talking louder and slower and I thanked him for taking his mask off and explained that I wasn’t deaf, just struggling to understand.

So there I was, attempting a simple task that I had rehearsed in my head from start to finish. Yet I was beginning to panic. My breath felt hot and I wanted to pull my mask away from my mouth. The lights felt brighter and the man’s voice had got louder and slower and I needed to retune my ear to understand his sudden change of tone and volume. Give me a monotone voice any day! Excitable people whose pitch goes up and down and who wave their hands about enthusiastically are so difficult to understand – it’s like they keep swapping languages mid conversation!

We got to the end of the transaction and I set off to find my husband.

Now, I know my husband well. He has fortunately kept the same look for most of the 27 years I’ve been with him. But could I find him today? No! I couldn’t remember what he was wearing and everybody had a mask on. He looked totally different. Not, “oh there he is, my familiar husband – but wearing a mask” – but like he had completely and utterly shape shifted into an unfamiliar person. So I sent him a text. I was still functioning enough to be able to think of what to do. But I was getting hotter. My body takes a while to process temperature changes. It is another reason why I dislike shopping. I can go in and out of shops in regular time, but my brain processes the temperature fluctuation between indoors and outdoors slightly slower than regular time. I have this horrible, uncomfortable time lag with the temperature change catching up with me yet not matching what my eyes and brain are telling me is going on in my surroundings.

Not only was my face feeling horrible. My breath was hot and irritating me and of course I was panicking and breathing harder which made it even worse. My whole body started feeling uncomfortable and I had to fight the urge to rip my mask off and then rip off all of my clothes and scratch myself until I could erase the dreadful sensation off of my skin.

Relief. I found my husband. I was probably a bit jittery and edgy and I asked him what was on the list and could I go and get it. This is our usual ploy on the rare occasions we go shopping together. Give me something specific to do. But one item at a time; while he does the bulk of the shopping.

It nearly worked. My husband asked me to choose something for pudding and pointed me in the direction of the chilled cabinet. The reason it nearly worked is… whilst he gave me a specific task…he also gave my overloaded brain a choice. I needed to choose a pudding from a cabinet full of puddings.

“What shall I choose?” I asked him

“You know what we all like” he said

(and in my head I thought about how I had just asked him a proper question and he had not answered it. Why oh why couldn’t he be like me and take things literally and answer my question so I knew what to do. If I ask any more I will look like I am hassling him – I’m an intelligent woman, surely I can decide on what we have for dessert)

So I stood and looked…

And looked…

And I felt the tears welling up because all I could see in front of me were coloured boxes that were physically moving around and not keeping still long enough for me to choose one.

And my brain was thinking “Emma, just look at you. You can’t even make a simple choice” and my breath was getting hotter; my clothes were feeling itchier; the noise was echoing and swirling around my head. I screwed up my eyes to reduce the glare and I opted for something I could rely on…

I engaged my good, solid, logical side.

Let’s think about puddings. If I can think of one then maybe I can imagine it in my head, like a picture. And if I have a picture in my head then I can hopefully match it to one of these boxes that are dancing about, tormenting me on the shelf.

Easy!

So, what pudding shall I choose?

I cannot grab at something in my imagination. I have to logically and consciously work it out; so I began my mental checklist…

Don’t just opt for what you had last time we had a pudding. (I am super proud of that one – it took me decades not to just eat the same thing every mealtime. There is a safe familiarity about knowing what you are going to eat anyway, but if I was ever put on the spot and asked to choose something to eat, opting for the thing I ate last was a quick way of responding. And unless the person had been there at that mealtime, I could get away with it and appear decisive and confident!)
What do we all like?
Not chocolate…one of us can’t eat it
Not rice pudding…the texture – eugh!
Nothing with gelatine … we are all veggie
……

“Bing Bong”

“This is a customer service announcement…”

At that point I physically jumped. I could see my husband approaching but the noise of the announcement sent my heart thumping and my ears ringing and I completely lost my train of thought. And my hot breath and the sensation of the mask intensified. I wanted to rip off everything that was touching my skin…and then rip my skin off too!

But I know that supermarkets are difficult for me. I could feel the usual sensory overload increasing and I knew the inevitable consequence of trying to battle through this, would be to completely overwhelm myself to the point that I either shutdown completely in order to protect myself from further overwhelm – or become so overwhelmed I was unable to control my responses.

So I said to my husband that I needed to go outside and could he finish without me. I then looked straight ahead and plotted my route out of the store. I had a kind of tunnel vision going on and I fixed my gaze on a distant point and like a guided missile I aimed for it. Had I been able to physically see the people I undoubtedly brushed past quite rudely on my way out, I would have apologised. But in that moment, I knew I had to get out and regulate myself. I had enough processing power to plot a route and follow it – but none left for adapting to anything that got in my way once I had executed my escape plan!

As I stepped outside I ripped off my mask and walked away from the store. The experience was nothing new. It is my normal. It is intense, painful and distressing. But expected. I was proud that I had recognised it and not battled on – you cannot win a sensory war by willpower. I also knew how to regulate myself.

I found myself an upright post to lean against and press with my whole body. I noticed where my body touched the post and where my feet touched the ground and I pressed and pressed and tensed all my muscles and then relaxed them until I was confident that I was in my body again.

I looked up at the sky and relaxed until a seagull flew into view and I let myself notice it and watch it, enjoying the unpredictability and respite from having to control something.

I breathed the cool air through my nose and noticed how it felt and I breathed in and out slowly.

I got my phone out and played on an app that I find soothing and I spoke to myself in my mind with gentleness. Not berating myself for not coping. Nor did I let myself focus on any negative thoughts about the store, or the staff and customers.

Actually, I had coped well. These things happen. I needed to enter the store and I had planned it in advance. I got myself out before I was overwhelmed and I regulated myself. I had not needed to wear a face covering for such a length of time before and I shan’t do it again. I’ll avoid shopping or take breaks.

I carried on with my day. I also recognised the vulnerability to further overload that happens when I have to endure sensory pain. I took things easy and didn’t put myself in situations that had the potential for further sensory overwhelm.

Over the next few days I reset myself by allowing my body, brain and senses to seek out and repeat the sensations that would soothe me.

But my fragility has lasted. I had to endure further stresses. Not noise and lights this time but emotional. Again, I planned my response. I followed my plan. I used self-care strategies proactively and treated myself with compassion.

This time my already fragile body responded by feeling severe pain in my ears – most of my senses are now functioning at a ‘normal for me’ level, but not my auditory processing. My hearing is so sensitive everything hurts. It is a week since the experience in the store and I am functioning well enough, to everyone looking in at me. I am fairly happy. I have coped with my ups and downs just as well as anyone would. I am productive and focused, and I haven’t treated myself or anyone else with anything less than respect and dignity.

But the physical pain is almost unbearable. I have cried a few times in desperation as I cannot escape it. Most of my senses are fairly well regulated but my sense of hearing will not settle. Every noise pierces my ears and hurts me. The noise of cutlery on crockery is so bad I cannot eat with my family. It feels like everyone is shouting at me. The most tormenting noise comes from within me though. Despite my expensive noise cancelling headphones and almost round the clock self-care and self-regulation strategies, I cannot find peace.

I can drown the noise out with very loud, rhythmic music but I cannot escape the noise of my heart beating and my blood rushing through my body when the external noise subsides.

This internal noise has accompanied my life. It is not always there but I can find it when I want it and in fact, it gave me some comfort as a child, as well as frightening me at times. On occasions it is so loud it physically hurts. Now is one of those times.

I remember as a little girl, we sometimes needed to get the doctor out as I would sit crying and rocking and banging my head against something to make the noise and pain stop. I can remember him coming in the night to sedate me. I would gladly welcome him now!

Each noise, whether internal or external is like a sharp stab of pain in my head. I understand why as a child I would bang my head and rock. In fact, I woke this morning with a fine matt of hair on the back of my head from the rocking I often do in my sleep when I am dysregulated.

Gradually it is easing, and I remind myself that this is how my life is and always has been. I will probably always experience times like this. When I keep my senses regulated I can cope with fluctuations in sensory information much better. When I am in a state of distress, everything can become the last straw.

There hasn’t been a last straw this time. I have been able to apply the healthy strategies I have learned to keep myself functioning.

The consequences of Sensory Trauma can be catastrophic. Terms like “meltdown” have become almost common place and do not capture the pain, severity and impact of sensory overload. It is not just a short-lived reaction born of poor tolerance and low resilience. Even when a meltdown is avoided, my body pays a price. My body has been physiologically activated and is hypervigilant and on alert. Without the escape of shutdown or catharsis of meltdown I wait in a sensory nightmare, hoping it will soon stop.

Experiences of sensory overload may be misdiagnosed as psychosis, or personality disorder. Perhaps they are viewed as attention seeking or over-reactions. Understanding my sensory processing system has helped me accept my experiences and not be scared of them. However, they are real experiences and have not disappeared just because I know what they are.

The world is an overwhelming place. Even with my practiced strategies and proactive approach to managing my life, there are inevitable times where Sensory Trauma occurs for me. My experiences may sound dramatic, but they are totally normal in my experience of the world. All day everyday I need to proactively regulate myself and keep the build up of potential Sensory Trauma at bay. It takes a huge amount of energy, but thankfully less energy than spending my life in a constant state of dysregulation.

Sensory Trauma image by Autism Wellbeing

I am tired now because I am in pain. I have had needed to keep myself living slowly and calmly so I don’t flee away from the pain or absorb myself in distracting but destructive pursuits to take my mind off it. I have incorporated endless self-care into my days and hold on to the knowledge that this will pass at some point. It always does.

Be kind…

If you know someone who cannot articulate their sensory experiences in speech, please consider how they may be experiencing the world.

Challenging behaviour, masking, meltdowns, shutdowns – look beyond the behaviour and stereotypes.

To learn more about Sensory Trauma visit

https://www.autismwellbeing.org.uk/sensory-trauma

Tags Autism, sensory pain, sensory processing, sensory trauma

5 minute read Autism sensory trauma

Sensory Trauma

Post author By Emma
Post date 28/09/2020
5 Comments on Sensory Trauma

I’m sat at my desk at work. Outside the lorries have been reversing non-stop since 8am. Each “beep beep beep” sends an arrow of pain and shock straight into my chest whilst simultaneously burning my eyes and ears. I can hear my colleagues laughing and joking in the corridor outside, completely oblivious to my pain and to the lorries. I don’t want to go and see them because the tsunami of perfume and aftershave mixed with the sudden change in brightness when I leave my dark room for the fluorescently lit corridor will hit me so hard it will almost wind me. And their voices will get even louder, and the laughter will hurt my ears and make me jump and sound like someone chucking a bag full of spanners into a washing machine on spin cycle.

But it’s ok. I stay where I am, hyperalert and shivering at the thought of someone opening the door to my office to see me. If they do, I will need to quickly whack my mask of normality on, and pretend all is well – and nod my head and make eye contact and fight the urge to hide under my desk and sob. If I am lucky I will still be able to speak but will probably say something a bit awkward or slightly out of place as my overloaded brain tries to coordinate thoughts into spoken language.

I’ve tried to tell people how my world is. Some doctors thought I was mentally ill. Some colleagues thought I was unsociable. Teachers thought I was lazy, distracted or not trying. Some friends thought I was weird. Some partners assumed I was overreacting. I always knew I was different but couldn’t quite say why – if I wasn’t an alien; and it wasn’t pathological; it couldn’t have been spiritual, then what was it?

The trouble is this is my reality every single day. All day. It is not an overreaction. It is not an exaggeration. It fluctuates so can be difficult for myself or others to anticipate.

The answer:

This is how my sensory processing works. Nothing more, nothing less. Simple. My sensory processing system works differently to the majority of peoples.

Why is my sensory processing different?

Again, the answer is relatively straightforward. I am autistic. I was born with a sensory processing system that works differently to other peoples.

My earliest hospital notes refer to how I would not feed or would feed very slowly and if someone persevered with my bottle of milk, I would typically fall asleep whilst being fed.

Roll on 47 years and I am still the last to finish my meal. A few weeks ago, I was discussing this with a friend who is far more knowledgeable about sensory processing than me. We were both eating an apple and I discovered that I have a completely different awareness of sensations in my mouth than she does. I can feel food on my lips and the tip of my tongue, and then again as I swallow, but in the centre of my mouth I have almost no sensation. This means that when I eat I feel very stressed because I never know when food is going to reach the back of my mouth. I frequently gag and I am highly anxious about eating because swallowing often comes as a surprise and catches me out. My awareness of how my body feels is muted.

This is quite different to how my hearing works. My brain tends to process sounds as very loud and harsh. Some people may refer to this as hypersensitivity. Whereas my brain processes sensations in my body as quite muted. Hyposensitive interoception you might say. These terms are all well and good for clinicians who are not autistic – they tend to feel comfortable using their sensory experiences as the “norm” and measure my experiences as “too much” or “too little”. My normal is different though and always has been.

This experience with my friend and the apple helped me understand more about how my sensory system works. Interestingly I was yawning non-stop by the end of our focused fruit eating session, and I did have a lie down and sleep afterwards. This is very typical of how a human being’s nervous system works when we are in danger. Fight, flight, or freeze. My parasympathetic nervous system responded to my stress and I couldn’t help but crash out for an hour or two. Just like I did as that tiny baby who felt distress at having something in her mouth from the moment she was born.

My reactions to certain sensory information are totally proportional to what my brain is processing. It is logical to run away from danger, or fight if your life is being threatened. Completely normal to freeze if you are terrified, or collapse and disconnect if everything is too overwhelming.

The difference between myself and someone who experiences eating an apple as mundane; or laughing colleagues as insignificant; or reversing lorries as mildly irritating at the most – is the way our sensory processing systems work. My brain processes those sounds and sensations differently to the other person I have just described. My brain gears my body up for action or inaction because it perceives a threat that the other person does not.

My reactions are normal for me. Their reactions are normal for them.

I have always been like this because I am autistic, and for me this is how my sensory processing system works. It is not a choice; it is part of my neurology. Other autistic people have their own sensory processing experiences because we are not just made up of our neurology, we have our physiology; our life histories with all their joys and traumas; our individual personalities; and our own psychologies, capabilities and characters.

Each of us perceives the world differently. To me, a vacuum cleaner may be a terrifying source of noise that looms towards me, spewing its musty, dusty smell and roaring like a belligerent dragon. To you it may be an innocuous piece of cleaning equipment whose only fault is it takes up too much room in the cupboard under the stairs! I understand perfectly well what it is for. I’m certainly not scared of it and I absolutely don’t feel any emotions towards vacuum cleaners in any form – positive or negative – they are vacuum cleaners for goodness sake!

Aaaargh – It’s got a face!!! A vacuum cleaner that wants eye contact!!!

For me, this piece of equipment causes me great distress because of the effect it has upon my senses. For you it is fine. We both see the same item, understand its intended function in the same way, but our relationship with it is very different. It causes me pain in my ears and makes my body react as if I am being attacked… It cleans your carpet.

There is no right and wrong in this situation. We perceive things differently. A bit of mutual understanding can go a long way. So can a bit of common courtesy. I wouldn’t do something that hurt you, so please don’t do something that hurts me. I cannot desensitise myself to this, its how my body works.

Of course, many of us grow up assuming our perception of the world is shared. I didn’t know that most people don’t have to have their food arranged in a certain way because vinegar or sauce touching bread would require the whole meal to be thrown away due to the unbearable texture created when bread gets damp. You may find that outrageously picky and assume I am spoilt or attention seeking. You may assume that everyone finds the smell of perfume enjoyable (they don’t!) or that everyone likes to look at spreadsheets on a computer (believe me I can’t!) or that brushing your hair is easy (some days, it really, really isn’t!).

My reactions to sensory information may well appear unusual to you. But for me they are logical and proportional.

Spending my day to day life in anticipation of what distressing sensory experiences may happen next takes a toll on my health and wellbeing. It is not healthy to spend my life in an activated state, hyperalert because I am scanning for latent danger. The ordinary activities that happen frequently throughout the day are an unavoidable potential source of trauma for me. And maybe people won’t understand when I demonstrate how distressing they are – perhaps they will think I am overreacting or have challenging behaviour. Maybe they will pathologise my reactions and mislabel them or not even believe me at all.

My experience of the world and the way I react to it has impacted on how I am perceived by others; how they have responded towards me and how that has affected our ongoing relationships. It made me more vulnerable to other types of adverse life events and left me growing up without a sense of agency. I was left invalidated and unheard.

I’m not the only one…

Autistic people have been describing their sensory differences for a long, long time. Blogs, interviews, and personal testimonies are filled with evidence of sensory differences and the effects these have on autistic people. Autism and trauma are discussed together frequently. They can manifest in similar ways and be difficult to tell apart. Being autistic increases vulnerability to trauma – of course it does! Being in a minority in a neurotypically biased world where your differences are perceived as deficits is not a good starting point for anyone.

But there is more to it than that…

The way I perceive the world through my senses is in itself traumatic. Repeatedly experiencing unavoidable pain every day that makes my body react as if it is in mortal danger is traumatic. Not being believed is traumatic. On top of all the trauma I have experienced due to the impact of my autism and the adverse life events that I have been through, I have experienced trauma since birth. Perhaps even before birth. This is sensory trauma.

Sensory Trauma has been hidden in plain sight for a long time. It is time to start some conversations about this lived experience of autistic people. It is time to be listened to. At Autism Wellbeing we have prepared a position paper about Sensory Trauma and made a short video about it.

I would like to hear other peoples experiences of sensory trauma. We are publishing our book soon and are interested in feedback on our position paper.

Our position paper has been published by ourselves at Autism Wellbeing because we want it to be read as widely as possible. It has only just been made available – please leave a review on amazon if you decide to buy it. You can purchase the position paper here:

For USA based people please use https://www.amazon.com/Sensory-Trauma-DIFFERENCE-EXPERIENCE-Wellbeing-ebook/dp/B08JKW5H1N/ref=mp_s_a_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Sensory+trauma+autism+sensory+differences&qid=1601370659&sr=8-2

Tags Autism, interoception, sensory processing, sensory trauma

5 minute read Autism

Sensory Joy and Healing

My dog has just come in and jumped up on the bed to see me – I can smell the weather on her. It feels exciting to be able to tell that autumn is approaching, just by smelling my dog!

We take the same walk every day, down the track and across the field to the little piece of woodland that looks out over the meadows to the distant river and castle. I’ve walked this route for 20 years – either with Blaze, or with my previous dogs. I never get bored of it though, and I take such delight in how it is always a different experience. A good, solid, natural, different experience each time; a difference that is meant to be. Rather than a man-made, enforced, upsetting of the natural order, type of different experience, that makes people think I’m typically autistic and “don’t like change”.

I notice the tiny insects; I hear the far away birds; I smell which animals have passed by. This means I have a whole world open to me that others miss – it is like a great, exciting secret between me and the Universe. It feels special and precious, and an honour. Sometimes my interest and curiosity are stimulated, and I observe and study and wonder at the natural world. Sometimes I just let my senses take it in and I don’t engage my thinking brain at all. The power of my senses gives me respite from the endless mental processing I have to do in order to function the rest of the time.

The physical power of music moves me. I can reset my dysregulated body with just one, single, repeated noise that has the power to rebalance me. I can listen to an orchestral piece and take in the enormity of it, like an overwhelming wall of sound – or I can follow the different instruments, interweaving and passing the melodies and harmonies back and for between them. No tune ever sounds the same twice. Music creates in me something that can’t be captured in words. I see musical chords in colour – and when I see these colours in nature, I hear them in my soul.

My senses work differently to many people’s. I can feel pain and fear from sights and sounds that others find mundane or inconsequential. This can be overwhelming – and other people frequently don’t notice the extent of my suffering. But I can also become overwhelmed by the joy and beauty I discover through my senses. Sometimes I secretly smile inside because I know that I may look calm, bored, or even detached to a casual observer; but in my soul I am full of joy, I am experiencing psychedelic colours; orgasmic noise; and fragrances that cleanse and purge my body and mind.

I can heal my painful and distressing sensory experiences.

I can listen to music; I can walk; I can smell lavender to calm me, or sandalwood to help me think.

I can crunch on pickled onion crisps and allow the astringent flavour to cut through my brain fog and overwhelm – and reconnect me to the world again.

I can listen to the same glissando and allow it to lift my mood, exactly in tune with the rising pitch.

I can move my body so that I know it is me and I am in control and there is something predictable and safe that I have agency over. It makes me be “me” again – I fit back in to the world that so often overwhelms and alienates me.

I am privileged to have a sensory system that can bring me such joy and healing.

Tags healing, joy, music, nature, self-care, senses, sensory processing