Coping with overstimulation without a meltdown: help?

Post Reply New Topic

I'm finally able to recognise this for what it is.

This afternoon, we took our four kids, and our eldest's girlfriend into the city for the afternoon to see a few of the Christmas things that were on in the city. I drove.

One of the big Melbourne department stores puts on very detailed Christmas window displays every year.

6 hours total, four of that with constant noise, crowds of people, the constant & incessant visual stimulation, corralling five kids, ranging from two 16 year olds down to a 18 month old toddler. Plus it was the first time I'd met his girlfriend, so I was trying to appear as NT as possible.

After a couple of hours I was on the verge of shutting down, because I don't have meltdowns. I just shut down. Which you can't do with having to look after five kids in the city, so I had to force myself to keep going.

I don't know how to relax. I feel like I've been sandpapered raw and stretched taut like a high E guitar string, and I'm vibrating madly.

I also never learnt how to relax, mainly on a physical level (I'm always stiff). My shutdowns can last forever and I hate it.

Hi, working at MegaMart*, I've experimented with wax earplugs, which are not visible under my hair. I can still hear and it's like sound feels further away. When it works, ten minutes with the wax earplugs feels like a mini-vacation.

I don't know if this will work taking care of five kids.

I can cope with overload without it becoming meltdown if I have the promise of some chill-out time in sight after a given period. This usually means: "We're going to the pub when we're finished," or: "I've had enough and I'm going to the pub now: See you there."

Fair's fair, after all.

Yesterday at work we had a visit from Steve Backshall. If you don't know who he is, he's like David Attenborough crossed with the Crocodile Hunter for kids. He came in to do a book signing because he has some kids' books.

There was a massive queue. We had more staff in to cope, but they were mostly just facilitating the signing. If anything, we had fewer staff than usual doing the normal functions of running a bookshop, which was busier than usual. There were massive queues for the tills. These were made worse because we have a new till system that everyone is unfamiliar with, and only three tills- previously we could go up to five if we were that busy.

After a few hours, the noise from the queue was getting too much, and I hadn't had a rest from the constant stream of customers needing to be served. I was stammering, saying the wrong things, needing to repeat questions because I'd forgotten the answer, and I was generally a trainwreck. It would have been so easy to meltdown but I knew I would probably have had to leave my job if I had (even if I hadn't been fired, I would not have been able to work with my co-workers). So I just struggled on, getting worse and worse, until I had an excuse to leave the tills (somebody needed letting in the staff entrance and, I kid you not, the girl who answered the phone didn't know we had a staff entrance). Fortunately I didn't melt down on my break or anything when the pressure was off.

So, it seems that it's a thing that we're able to stave off the meltdown/shutdown... I think there's a potentially high cost to that.

Did end up getting to sleep, but I'm still feeling pretty raw today.

I'm feeling aspier than normal though, if that's a thing. Less able to appear NT, less willing to try.

I use avoidance. If someone asks me to do something that stressful I say no or come up with an easier option. Its not worth it because most people don't understand why you can't function with chaos around you.