Can you describe what sensory overload feels like?
Here is some of what pure overload feel like. When I say pure I mean, overload without anxiety or pain, just the essence of overload itself. Which I have experienced when my pain was properly treated and I was calm.
Here is what I wrote about it on another thread. I am too tired to elaborate or rewrite things.
When I talk about overload here, I'm talking about an experience that is not necessarily emotional or painful. Those can exist, but I have experienced at times an extremely pure form of this overload. Where there is no anxiety, no pain, but simply things become increasingly difficult to do or understand, and eventually the whole world goes pixelated in every sense, and I can't find my body or move it, and I can't think, and I'm just aware (without any meaningful sensory input) except when even awareness fizzles out. Sure, it's usually stressful and painful, but I've learned that even without those things it's plenty possible and plenty bad. (Which is why I don't buy that all overload is just a form of anxiety, but that's a whole unrelated topic.)
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"In my world it's a place of patterns and feel. In my world it's a haven for what is real. It's my world, nobody can steal it, but people like me, we live in the shadows." -Donna Williams
I get sort of that "sensory overload" when there is a lot of noise going on all at once. Like if I am in a crowded cafeteria at college, for instance, everyone is talking at once and plates are clattering, forks are scraping, doors are opening and closing, trays are slamming...well you get the idea lol. Now if the person I am with is talking to me, I have difficulty with hearing what they are saying because everything else is going on at the same time. I can't filter it out properly. Oh and then I have phobia of a lot of people all around me too so if people are hovering around me during the above said noise, that's when I sort of hear and see everything as sort of a blur and I shut down and tense up.
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"We can pretty much do what everyone else does, but just in a different way." --Amy Roloff
Butterflies in my stomach - that light, slightly nauseous feeling. Like my stomach is feeling light-headed?
My heart beats faster and stronger.
I feel warmer - kind-of flushed all over with heat.
Things go darker like someone turned down all the lighting, but the contrast changes too and becomes more harsh and glaring.
Sounds get more distant - not quieter, really - it's like they're happening somewhere else instead of right around me - but at the same time they become clearer too so if anything was previously only annoying, it now becomes painful instead.
It's more difficult to move - everything just feels heavier and I have to consciously push to get an arm to move. But I've usually frozen to the spot by then anyway so it doesn't matter too much.
Inside my head there isn't much happening at all. Just a numbness and heavy, thick cloud fogging all thought.
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Giraffe: a ruminant with a view.
Since I always have a way to retreat from people (although not from their noise
When I get overstimulated badly enough I tend to shut down more than anything, and the stimuli just sort of flows around me. I can hear the noise but it feels more distant, and I don't really hear the language as language anymore. Everything else isn't a problem because I am usually in my bedroom at this point.
This is the same for me.
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Diagnosed ASD, ADHD (99th Percentile), MDD Recurring severe, Anxiety Disorders, Severe Expressive Language Disorder.
Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 159 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 47 of 200
Queendom Emotional Intelligence Test
EQ score = 60 Percentile score = 1
I get really tense when I'm overloaded and feel like I want to hit my head against a wall. I feel like I want to cry and scream. I feel like I'm about to blow up and lose control of everything, basically.
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"Have you never seen something so mad, so extraordinary... That just for one second, you think that there might be more out there?" -Gwen Cooper, Torchwood
