I dont know if this is sensory overload

Post Reply New Topic

yesterday my teacher was talking to me and she is the type of person who requires eye contact when spoken to, these kinds of situations forces me to look her in the eyes as i don't like conflict.

when she looks at me i remember feeling like she was standing right in front of me and it felt as if my vision zoomed right at her face and i could not perceive what was going on out side the area of her face. She was standing right in front of the class and i was at the back

my neck felt like it was going to break because i held it at a weird angle.
i am wondering if anyone else experiences this when they are forced to look at people.

in case you are wondering my eyes dart from place to place and spend little time looking at peoples eyes like maybe 5-10 seconds every 3 minutes.

i was also a bit nervous and started tap my right hand on my leg quite rapidly until i calm down (nobody saw).

i also sometimes stare at people's noses and mouths when i am near them to study their breathing patterns to see if they think i smell. people tend to breath more from their mouths if they think you smell.


I am also pretty close to giving up going for a diagnoses due to the fact that i hate being rejected (a symptom of many frequent rejections ) as a child. i want to be sure and i probably spend a long time trying to research if i have it.

there are people who want the diagnoses as a status symbol but i want to understand my self when at a time i feel as if no one else does.

Last edited by abdi2 on 17 Sep 2014, 10:49 am, edited 1 time in total.

Difficulties with eye contact is common for AS, but it is also common for SAD.

i don't think its SAD although this just happened recently,
its just i feel like i am being treated like a child by almost everyone i meet. everyone i meet says to me "wow you are clever" but i think i am a ****ing idiot most days.

it feels to like people turn away from me. i spend alot of time researching how to become better at socializing with people but it is soo hard sometimes, i have no idea how to react in non researched situations. i have 2 people over the past 5 years come out and say to me "yeah i think you might have Autism" and others plainly either avoid me or try to give me hints that they find me annoying. i only find out when i pissed them off too much.

i feel like a idiot who is lucky people even speak to him sometimes.

SAD as in Seasonal Affective Disorder?
That doesn't make sense to me.

Give your teacher a copy of Dude, I'm an Aspie (see link here: http://www.dudeimanaspie.com/2009/11/dude-im-aspie.html) and tell her that the page on eye contact really applies to you.

Social Anxiety Disorder

Oh, okay. I figured I must have the wrong acronym, and I did.

My husband has SAD so I read a book about this (and now I can't remember the title) which said that with SAD, the person has difficulty with eye contact with people they're uncomfortable with but not with family and friends. AS would not discriminate between who it is- lack of eye contact would be constant.

Not claiming to be an expert but that was my understanding and I thought it was an interesting distinction.