Sensory Overload

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Read this!!


http://firstclass.ultraversity.net/~eve.thirkle/ILM2/senses.html


My goodness!

I did not entirely realize exactly what sensory overload meant, although I did realize that it did mean that what was percieved was way too much for one to handle, and would essentally quit functioning.

Lets share some experiences!

When I overload, I tend to just shut out the world around me and ignore everyone, and if they try to talk to me I just be as curt as I can to get them to shut up. I overload the most in large assemblies of people as I have no chance of catching up with them whatsover.

I learned a new word from the site; Hyposenstive, which describes me better than hypersenstive.

When I was smaller, I used to crawl under the loveseat in the living room.

And I could give specific examples for each one except taste and smell, but I would hate to take up too much time[/quote]

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Last edited by GalileoAce on 02 Apr 2006, 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Prometheus!

Sensory overload to me is when I have
reached a emotional point that I feel
I want to walk away, but sometimes
can't. A example is "Are You Drunk"
Forum I did a long time ago.

I hope this helps!
Ghosthunter

Me also. I'm not sure it's always so directly correlated to immediate sensory stimuli. A lot of the things listed in that article are specific triggers like a single noise or a single tactile sensation. Going through the list, I found very few I could relate to. Yet I know I have significant trouble with overload.

Overload is also about the complexity of incoming information and the need to process it. For instance, navigating a crowded party. Several different conversations are coming in through the ears; the network of bodies and personal spaces is coming in through the eyes; the mind likely doesn't have spare energy to pick out the nuances of any particular voice. So the person's emotions start going haywire and the mind slips into overload. Yet watching and hearing the same scene in a movie theater might not have near the same effect.

The difference? - at the real-life party, it's necessary to process the information and respond in real time. Coming up with an appropriate response isn't a direct function of the senses, but it can still be a big part of overload. It calls upon separate and perhaps underdeveloped areas of the brain. Same with emotion - people on the spectrum tend to fluctuate between extreme emotions and a complete lack of emotion. Emotions aren't a sense, but they're one more thing the brain has to process.

So overload isn't just about the senses - it's also about having trouble integrating and forming "the big picture" from other kinds of data. At least in my experience. What do you all think?

-For the most part, I have hypersensitivities to things. However, some things like light and noise are inconsistent and bother me more on some days and less on others. Touch and taste and smell are always bad for me. Taste isn't quite so bad though because I know the things I like to eat and eat them. Simple. However, tactilly, my gag reflex is horrible and sometimes makes brushing my teeth slow-going, because I have to take pauses when I get that feeling. Smell: I just want to smell plain air, the fresher the better.

-My balance isn't good at all. But I always look at the ground whenever I walk and rarely walk very fast, so falling is rare for me. If I do trip or teeter, I usually catch myself.

-As for knowing where my body/head lies, this is difficult to say. I have a hard time of knowing for the most part unless my eyes are open.

-There are also many times I can only concentrate on one sensory stimulus at a time. Often, if I look at a person while they're talking, I begin to study their face and my hearing shuts off. So my eye-to-face contact (I don't do eye contact) is fleeting.

-I also tend to like to take odd positions with my hands, especially when I am nervous. I'm sure this looks fairly strange, but I attempt not to make it obvious, and thus far no one has mentioned anything to me.

-And like most autties, I stim: rocking, flapping, foot tapping, swaying, pacing, etc., etc., etc.

Um... can't think of anything else (right now).

I can get overload to sound sometimes people assume i may be deaf as i am often saying pardon me but there is so much going on with my hearing it can sometimes make me loose my balance for a split second i do and can get ovewelmed with it emergency services sirens hurt . i can sometimes hear electic lights or at least the motors that work with them and the constant sound of electric fans even from anothr room couple this together with the radio and just for good measure throw in 6 to 8 people having conersations at the same time imagine hearing all this at once and tryingto complete a task and answer someones question - all at the same time do you start to get the idea some days its not as bad other days its like someone has cranked the volume up and then broke the off switch certain smells bother me and can become intensified at times.

Aspies rock...................

There have been times when I have felt really nicely drawn into a discussion or whatever with a group (at home or at a family gathering) when I have felt really welcome and the barriers have started to dissolve. Then someone starts moving the discussion into more intimate relationship details, and (although I am not inexperienced in such things), I have felt myself more and more distant and panicky, and wanting to depart and get away from these people (into the point of terror).

That's a really good article. It explained things in a why that made a lot of sense to me. I'll definately keep that handy.

BeeBee

More to think about. I read somewhere else that a misfunctioning amydala is responsible for our eye contact problems, and I was wondering what else may be possible. I found this, in the bottom 25% of the site
http://www.aea267.k12.ia.us/cia/motivation/brain.html

Tell me what you think!

Another Amydala site is:

http://psych.rice.edu/mmtbn/autism/autismTheory.html#part4

From the link posted by Prometheus at the top of the thread:

That reminded me of a Linux Users Group meeting I recently attended where one of the speakers asked everyone to open their soft drink cans before he started his presentation...

I have a very mild case of AS, but my senses are tied up with my emotions. I had both a 'panic attack' and sensory overload during a fire drill. I had been avoiding this teacher, for more info on her, see my 'Um Hi' topic, for about two weeks now, and she was nearby. Do you know that feeling where you think somebody's watching you out of the corner of their eyes? I was very sensitive that day, and having her nearby, chaos all around me, frazzled teachers, etc etc? Well, I half fainted, the sky seemed bluer, I could see things from miles off, I could smell the smell of smoke, I could hear everything, and I almost half fainted into my friend behind me. I got similar things when I had my breakdown, though not as bad (?) Dunno why, the breakdown was one of the worst things that has ever happened to me.

I think I know what you mean about senses being tied up with emotions. It used to wreak havok with me, because any intense conversation (and when I was in my early teens, that meant any conversation without an obvious purpose) sends my vision haywire, messes up my depth perception so that I can't tell if the other person's face is a foot from my own or twenty, etc. For anyone who knows Photoshop, it's like having about 10 too many sharpen filters applied - every edge seems crisper, every contrast stronger. Eventually I figured out that by ignoring my vision and just focusing on sound, it wouldn't cause me any harm and I could stop my body from reacting in a way that people would notice as unusual.

I've been training myself over the past year and I've got it almost entirely under conscious control now... which can be fun, turning it up and down, using it like a drug.

Intense converstions? Deep and Meaningfuls? Welcome to both my heaven and my hell. Those little buggers seem to occur whenever a certain little Aspie (moi) and a certain curly-haired teacher by the name of Mrs. Jennifer Tap (Her!) cross paths. I have a few eye-contact difficulties with her, if I do this, I get a sensory overload, or what I call a 'spike' which is a sorta mini-overload, she knows about the spectrum, is amazed I'm on it, knows about the eye-contact thing, it gets heightened with her, but yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. I wish I could control it like you can, at times, I really need that intensity, but at others, it triggers certain emotional memories... But otherwise, yeah, I'm pretty similar to you in that way. BTW, did you get my pm?

I'm slowly getting better at dealing with overload especially sound overload but it very much depends on if I'm generally coping with other aspects of life.

Screaming kids is the one I find worst to cope with - I don't mean so much if they are playing happily and squealing, but when they are having a tantrum particularly in a crowded shopping mall. I find it so hard to cope with both the noise and the emotion behind it and it gives me an overload - this has been the case ever since I was really small.

I feel like lashing out at them but I control myself and try to leave asap. Occasionally if it gets really bad, I yell at them to be quiet and leave really fast before I get into trouble. I think the parents should think about leaving them with a babysitter if they can't behave better but I know this is often easier said than done.

I also work with some noisy and annoying people. One woman has been ostracising me for over a year. She's always been silly and noisy but it didn't bother me so much until she put me well onto the outer and encouraged other people to do the same. I find team meetings hard to cope with when people are all talking at once and especially if they are talking about stuff that I find very boring (which is often).

I asked my manager if I could leave if it got too much and he said that was okay - he could send me the minutes of the meeting later on. He is really wonderful and I can't say enough good things about how understanding he has been. It kind of makes up for all the bad managers I've had over the years before I got my diagnosis.

Some perfumes and other smells make me feel ill. Eg. if I am in the supermarket and go past the dynamic lifter it makes me feel a bit like puking because it smells like poo (which it is). I don't like smelly public toilets either, or when someone farts in the lift.

I personally often have the experiance that bright rooms are too intense. I describe it as being too loud. I like quieter light. I also dislike very dark light, i feel lost in it, like it is endless.

My worst nightmares when i had flu dreams were experiances of incredibly large areas. VAST areas where i was forced to comprehend the entire area at once.

Once someone asked me to visualize something and then look at them in the face. I had a CLEAR mental image of a steak on a counter-top, and when i looked at their face it disappeared into nothingness, replaced by their face. I can only study their face, cheekbones, skin tone, complexion, shape of lips, eyebrows, shape of forehead, it all is defined and made rich in my mind, but if they want me to think while i'm looking at their face all i can do is describe their face. If they want me to talk about something else, my first impulse is to look at a blank wall. If they make me look at their face and talk about something else, all that comes out is "...u...I...." I can only think about something else, or comprehend their face, not both. So far i've managed to get by this by looking at their hair, or forehead which doesnt move or change. But their eyes! their lips! They move.... Grrrrrrr.

I'm actually wondering how much of this any given person who's replied to can relate to with direct experience. I can relate directly to only about half of it. There are some aspects that I had slight resonance with, but nowhere near the magnitude implied.

Now I'm not actually diagnosed with Aspergers. I know my parents have suspected that I may have it (without telling me), and I came back as "almost positive" for ADD, which I know is a common misdiagnosis for people with Aspergers. I know I bear a lot of traits (moreso when I was younger than now), such as intense, obsessive focus (ironically, my focus is on learning as much as I can about Aspergers), difficulties understanding other people, unable to read between the lines, etc.

So my question is, am I alone in this line of thought? Am I actually an Aspie??