So I just realized I might exhibit one of the common autistic experiences. It certainly feels like overstimulation in a literal sense, previously I’ve thought of it as being overwhelmed or things getting too intense. I snap my fingers, flex my hand, scrabble around with whatever’s in my hand, repeatedly whisper
CW: suicide
“I hate you” or “Kill yourself”
under my breath almost like an incantation, even bash my fists against my temples when it gets bad.
The problem is this is almost always in response to thoughts I’m having or something I remember, which doesn’t seem very external, and everything I read keeps saying it’s only with external stimuli from one’s environment. So is this something else?
Edit: Talked with my therapist and she said this is extremely OCD pilled. Task failed successfully
Internal stimuli is not given nearly the amount of attention it deserves however it is absolutely one of the ways that we sense things. In fact, the name we give it is interception.
Our brains do not distinguish between an stimuli from an external source, like hearing a sound, and an internal source, like tinnitus. Sure, there’s probably some subtle distinction somewhere along the way but in the most direct sense, your brain is stimulated by the experience regardless of the source itself.
Being emotionally overwhelmed can cause meltdowns and shutdowns just as easily as being overwhelmed by external stimuli.
Talked with my therapist and she said this is extremely OCD pilled
Without further information it isn’t possible to determine what the cause of this is however I’d urge caution about jumping to either conclusion as autistic perseveration and stimming can look extremely close to OCD behaviours and most therapists are far more fluent in working with people who have OCD than they are with autistic people.
I’ve never polled therapists on this but if you asked most therapists to list the modes of sensory perception I’d guess that you’re gonna get 5, maybe 6. The chances of them getting proprioception, vestibular, and interception are slim. Especially interception. (I’d be genuinely interested to know how a typical occupational therapist performs in this regard too and if they would manage to include interception.)
Therapists can be really good at what they do but they tend to suffer from the curse of the engineer and they are likely to presume that their expertise exceeds the bounds of their knowledge. Not making a call either way on this one but I’d do more exploring before I’d settle on a conclusion and I’d also be weighing the therapist’s opinion against how thoroughly they investigated this with you - did they listen and give an opinion? Did they ask you pointed questions that made it seem as if they were weighing your responses against different models? Did they ask you things like “What would/what does happen if you forced yourself to stop this behaviour”? etc. etc.
Thank you for the detailed reply
The way I phrased that did my therapist a bit of a disservice, she said it was very evocative of OCD but that she couldn’t necessarily rule it out as an autism thing while noting the latter is not her expertise, despite having an interest in it. I don’t think she asked that last question.
I’m going to look at some self assessments and do some reading (still on the second chapter of Unmasking Autism) and see what comes of that. The subjectivity of it kinda sucks honestly. I wish I could just take a blood test or something and know 100% what’s up with me
It’s all good.
I’m glad to hear that your therapist has a measured approach to this stuff, I genuinely hate being in a position of criticising a therapist or a clinician as an outsider based on second-hand info because there’s a lot of layers of complexity within that and I think it’s kinda wrecker shit to go and mess with what’s going on within the consultation room, except where there’s a clear example of something being really wrong. Hence why you hear me talking in generalities and encouraging caution or speaking about trends without making any direct statements about someone’s therapist except where they’ve really fucked up.
The subjectivity of it kinda sucks honestly. I wish I could just take a blood test or something and know 100% what’s up with me
Indeed. It would make things so much easier.
I do the same thing. I’ve found that I often am dealing with external stimuli that I just never considered to be part of the problem (very late diagnosis).
So as an example, sometimes when I’m working at my computer I find myself getting frustrated and then slowly start talking to myself in a very similar way as to what you’ve described here. It’s kind of like I don’t realize it’s happening until I’m already 10 minutes in and then I’m experiencing a lot of executive dysfunction, etc.
Anyway, the point here is that I started analyzing the relationship between my behavior and my environment more after realizing I was autistic. I noticed that I was actually being overstimulated by normal, everyday things and not recognizing the overstimulation. So maybe the washing machine is on and it’s a little too hot/cold, my body hurts, I have to pee, hungry, the lights are bright, etc. This shit all adds up and then I also have work I’m dealing with (I hate it so much), so yeah having a meltdown is inevitable a lot of the time.
I guess maybe try to think bigger about what you consider external stimuli and see if maybe that makes a difference in how you think about it. Generally I find that there might be one thing I focus on, but it’s really 5+ things that just aren’t as intense on their own
Right there with you. I do the exact same stuff in response to uncomfortable memories that I involuntarily obsess over.
I always figured it was just an anxiety attack triggered by the ruminations. Haven’t really found any good coping strategies, though. It is very unpleasant and I wish I could stop it.
i have to use weed to cope with intrusive thoughts like that, it definitely doesn’t work for everyone but it works for me so far. i have to spend a lot of effort almost all the time editing what i say because i have a lot of toxic self deprecating thoughts, especially relating to self harm and past traumatic experiences. i often struggle to focus on what people are saying to me over my own self deprecating internal monologue.
Me too
