Only very lately, I've started to understand how loud sounds affect me. It's a strange combination of self-controlled loud music (yes, please) and uncontrollable, sometimes sudden, loud sounds making me very tense. I mentioned a loud stop signal in a bus yesterday.
The tensest I get is when our dog, who just turned one, starts to whine at the end of a car ride. We try to teach her that she needs to be quiet in order to get out. When she's agitated it might take a while. It's loud and I feel empathetic and get very tense. I can feel it everywhere in my body. Another example is when she repeatedly barks in a small space, such as our sauna cabin by the summer cottage. It might reverbarate in the structures, and my head.
Another type of sound that gets to me is the sound of brushing. It's physically uncomfortable, has always been. The worst is when a tractor is brushing gravel off the road after the winter. Almost makes me shudder to think about it. Always wondered why it's so uncomfortable. Now with self-diagnosed autism I get it.
it's late, i'm tired, but i'm still in need: haven't been able to do my eye exam or replace my broken glasses. Keep me in your thoughts, throw me a dollar(literally singular) if you can via paypal and read my full needs on gfm
Earlier this year I started hitting a point of simultaneous fatigue and sensory overload in the early evening that I'm not used to, basically has me in dark cool rooms for the rest of the day to avoid shutdown.
Anyone else deal with this as a new symptom?
Coincides with the onset of a depressive episode but has been surprisingly persistent.
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 198 , Monday 13/05/2024
Up early for some reason beyond this simple squirrels reasoning.
Tidied up after herself, did my chores & went for a walk in the warm early summer sunshine !
I cannot seem to find the impetus to get stuff done, I work best to a deadline & the only person pushing me at the moment is me, which would be fine but I have minimal motivation levels at the moment.
I’m wondering from day to day like a leaf blowing in the breeze, no direction, no purpose.
At least the days are warm now & a lot sunnier, saving energy is easier , my lone mission to drag our energy bills down is less onerous in the summer.
Final Thoughts.
I suspect that I am going through a depressive episode, I hope I come through to the other side soon.
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
I know people with estrogen have said their ADHD gets worse during perimenopause/menopause, but I'm wondering if people with testosterone 50+ also notice their Autism/ADHD symptoms getting worse. Especially more "inattentive"/stuck in their thoughts.
I feel like we really need more research on all of this.
Sitting in the bus after a day at work. Feeling tired. The meeting that ended the day dragged on and I stopped even trying to follow the discussion. I haven't listened to music in a bus in ages but now I find myself thinking that maybe I should buy a set of noise-canceling headphones.
The bus is hissing loudly, there are conversations that I can't hear which somehow makes them even more annoying. On top of all I'm sitting under a loudspeaker that plays the stop signal in a very loud tone. Shit, it rang again and startled me. Why does it have to be that loud?
I'm so proud of my boy and how smart he is! I've been having a lot of #SelectiveMutism days because of my #AutisticBurnout I'm experiencing since my father passed. Because I've been mute for a few days I realized I was having issues communicating with my boy Birger. He knows hand signals for things like sit, down, stay, up, etc, but redirecting him and getting his attention I realized I was depending only on vocal commands such as focus or using his name. This was proving to be a problem so I reached out to my trainer and asked for some advice on the matter. He suggested with the focus command that I add a clap or whistle, something I could do that wasn't verbal related. So because I had some words today we worked on him coming and focusing on me when I whistle. And it's working! He went under the couch today and I didn't know where he was. I whistled and he came right out to me and looked at me! Praise and treats were given of course, im just so proud! It's only been a short training session of this and he gets it! #ServiceDogInTraining#ServiceDogHandler#MothersDay#DogsOfMastodon#MiniDachshund#Dachshund#Autistic#ActuallyAutistic
Morning fam! It's the final push to make it to wednesday, and it's been over a week since my gfm got any attention.Sharing is the best way to help me out 🙏🏾💞
Since it comes up with some frequency on autistic social media, I wanted to share my experience with noise cancelling headphones as an noise sensitive autistic person with auditory processing issues. As always, this is just my experience.
I tried writing it for a Mastodon post, but it got way to long... so I ended up dumping it on my blog instead.
If you have any questions etc. do feel free to share.
Y'know, growing up, I observed a weird phenomenon in my life. After about a year of knowing a new circle of friends, I would get kicked out or excluded from that space. I had always understood it as, that's about as long as I can pretend to be a normal person before I accidentally show one of my more unusual or annoying traits.
Now, #actuallyautistic has given me the tools to understand that these are the moments I would let my masking guard down. When people sense I'm ND, they split.
My oldest sent me this. My head just exploded. The first draft of my first 3000 word essay in uni was 8000 words long.
My history essays at uni were labours of love. I could never understand the concept of “pulling an all-nighter” the night before the essay was due. How was such a thing even possible? You had to do hours & hours of reading, note-taking, reflection…
And then write & write & write all that stuff that begged to be said, and then cull & cull & cull & then rewrite to knit the remaining pieces together fluently… And somehow end up with a piece that sent shivers down your spine & got you an HD.
Didn’t you? Or was that just me?
When teaching narrative writing to teens, I could only teach it in a formulaic way. I could only write formulaic model texts. They were quite good, with some character development, voice, interesting vocab etc, but the structure was formulaic.
I could never imagine myself as a writing a novel. Quirky short pieces maybe, but not a novel. And yet my oldest wrote their first novella as a teen.
I need to lie down. Oh, I am. It’s 5am and my cat adoption excitement has woken me. I’m discombobulated. Again.
Diary of an ASD Squirrel. Day 195 , Friday 10/05/2024
I woke when herself decided that 05:45 was a good time to get up - must get in the hours reading time before we go to work!
Managed to get out for another walk , a bit earlier today & those I came across were a lot friendlier than yesterday , everybody responded & smiled 😊 .
Did the daily chores but was in a funny mood, I really felt the need for isolation today , I had a quick spin on Masto but then hid away for the day.
I was strangely chuffed by being visited by 3 bees today , one was a seriously tubby bumble bee !
In contrast I noticed this evening that the 3 spiders who had taken up residence in the top outside corners of our kitchen window have vanished, they left egg balls but either they haven’t hatched or the youngsters have hatched & left. Point being , that for the first time in several years no spiders - & barely any midges from the pond . So I wonder if the spiders left due to lack of prey ?
Finished the day with a pizza, a couple of pints of cider & a ‘Silent Witness’ or 2 .
Final Thoughts.
I had a thought yesterday following a conversation with a neighbour:
I find it ridiculously hard to start conversations , but once started I find it more difficult to end them, I don’t seem to recognise the body language that says ‘bugger off , we’re done here’ & continue to witter on, until it gets awkward or the other party (as happened yesterday ) gets interrupted by a 3rd party.
I wonder if this is related to my autistic self. I wonder if other autistic folks have a similar experience ?
Thank you to all those who are helping me on this journey, in a myriad different ways. I am thankful to each & every one of you! 🫂 🫶🐿️🖖
I've been feeling a little tired and overstimulated over the last few days and I've been trying to find a way to decompress. It's quietly hilarious to me that simply sitting on the couch with a blanket over my head seems to be quite effective.