I had an odd experience this weekend that I'm struggling to understand. My wife and I went on a date to a haunted house. As far as sensory experiences go, it was really intense. Strobe lights, loud noises, people touching you... the works. Although I recognized that it was intense, I wasn't consciously aware of any sort of overwhelming impact it was having on me. I was genuinely enjoying myself, and If anyone had asked me, I would have honestly told them I was fine.
Even so, I later noticed that I was displaying a lot of signs of distress or agitation. Throughout the experience I was stimming (snapping my fingers) pretty much constantly. After we went through the first part (there were two), I started feeling intensely tired (sometimes a sign of impending shut down), even though it was only 8:00 and I had recently had a cup of coffee. When we got home, rather than talk to the babysitter, I went and played with our dog (something I tend to do when human contact is overwhelming for me, but rarely otherwise). All of these were initiated unconsciously, and I only realized what I was doing either in the middle of it, or after the fact.
On their own, I would probably write each of those off, but together they seem to form a picture that I was experience some sort of overload. I'm not really sure what to make of this. How can I be overwhelmed without realizing that I'm overwhelmed? Could my interoception be that bad? Or am I just reading too much into my behavior?
Do other people have experiences of getting overwhelmed without being consciously aware of it?
27 Oct 2014, 2:41 pm
