Dizziness & disorientation in malls, is this an Aspie th

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I really try and avoid going to malls, because I hate them so much.
I walk into a mall and hear all of the echo's of voices and clincking spoons and forks at the cafe's. I see all of the tiles on the floor, organised into a sequential pattern of colour. I see sign-lights outside of fast-food bars, which almost blind me. And the amount of people the is literally an obstacle course, trying to not go near them.
All of this combined is very disorientating, I don't know which way to go into a store or how to get out. It's stressful.
When I finally get out of the mall, the immediate volume drop makes me immensly dizzy.

Is this an Aspie thing? Does anyone else have similar experiences?

Well, I am an ADDer and I have similar experiences...also with large department stores like Target or Best Buy....the moment I enter, I become very disoriented and start bumping into people and things....alot of it has to do with the lighting and the wash-out color schemes....

I can tolerate the mall itself pretty well. But the large number of high schoolers that hang out there really put me off. So I try to go during the times when people in high school aren't likely to be there, such as weekend mornings or later in the evening on school nights.

Double-post. Sorry.

personally I dont like going to places like the mall or anywhere with a lot of people is because I feel people are watching me and talking about me behind my back... I very much prefer an environment with a lot of sensory stuff because I have chronic understimulation (is that an ADHD thing?)... you see others here don't even like going to concerts for their favorite band...

dubbal post!! !

Another double-post. Sorry about that. Looks like WP was having glitches while I was posting this.

My dad used to work at the mall...so I was there alot as a kid. I enjoyed it then...but I was not your average mall shopper. I was more of a mall-goblin...Would spend hours sprawled out in the aisles of the bookstores or zoned out on the PC demos...(this was in the 80's when they were fairly new)
Back then, I was more prone to sensory overload when I was outside the mall...now when I go to a mall I can't stand it.

its due to filtering/processing difficulties,with sounds,sights,eg,not being able to filter out sounds [and what is seen through eyes] , it can also about the noise levels and pitches.
depending on severity,it can cause the person to meltdown,bite own flesh,tic,lose vision,walk into people/things,trip up etc,not realise how close/far away things are.....it is an attack on all senses for people with autism,aspergers and sensory conditions...shopping malls especially, are not great for Autists and aspergists.

I sometimes get this so badly I have to go and walk beside a wall in case I fall as it really does feel as if you might fall.
But most times I manage as long as I walk fast and dont pause or focus on all the activity around me. I tend to just march through to where I am aiming to go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensory_overload

I can tolerate going to the mall on quieter days, during school and work hours, but on busier days I prefer not to go.

For me it's not so much the all the stimuli, it's the throngs of people walking eratically going in all directions at varying speeds and seemingly not paying much attention to the world around them. It starts getting me all hyped up and my heart starts to pound. I get "mall rage" and feel like just plowing through the crowd.

I have a similar experience when I go to certain places. Grocery stores make me feel really disoriented because of the smells, sounds, lights, and people. Also places like that make my nose burn because I think I'm sensitive to certain smells. I've concluded that it must be some kind of sensory overload.