under or over stimulated?

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Reading some recent posts I have become a bit confused.
I have heard people talk about sensory overload etc and now I hear about the need to self-stimulate.
I guess 'stimming' means stimulating
For me I thought AS was like having no filters to block out or select from the mass of incoming information and that stimming was a way to focus on one thing to try override more external stimulae.
Recently some people here talk about being understimulated and needing more external signals so they stim.
Is it one or the other or both?

thoughts please....

Severe understimulation. Major Depressive Disorder soon to be diagnosed, probably. Taking 20 mg of citalopram HBr a day, not enough, need a higher dose or something. I cannot fathom sensory overload. I feel dead. So dead. I sometimes feel like I'm slipping away into a black hole. I have to really force myself out, and I barely make it out, and sometimes I wonder if I really am out. I am terrified of becoming catatonic!


For a long time I looked into an abyss, and now it's looking into me.

usually if im fantasizing about my twin brother (when listening to music) while im walking no stimulation is needed. now if there is no music and i try fantasizing nothing happens, i cant do it. is this the question your trying to answer?

I think you can be a over or under stimulation kind of person. The thing I like about stimming is that I can control the stimulation..... But maybe thats just me.



BTW I just relized I am extremly overstimulated right now! LOL

Cecil, please give some of your stimulation to me; I need it!

W000007!11


How will you get it to me?


Now seriously, how do you get rid of all that extra stimulation? Please give it to charity; it mustn't go to waste!


Now really seriously, what stimulates you? Everything? Lucky you!

I get overstimulated by being around too many people. When they are all taking at the sametime. It is like in the M-Men movie where Jean Grey gets overstimulated. Also little kids sreaming! Being on the city bus gets me upset all the time. Fat people siting next to me on the bus makes my skin crawl. Lets just say I'm freakishly overstimulated all the time.

That's not necessarily overstimulation, is it? It sounds like understimulation... yuck, this fat person is sitting next to me preventing me from being stimulated by the things I enjoy... aaah, all these people are babbling and getting on my nerves, preventing me from getting the stimulation I need from other things...

Yeah Ana You havea point. But it is like I can feel the heat coming from their body I can feel the sweat. I can feel every body move. It is overstimulation because they themselves are what are causing me to stim, not what is around me. I'm focusing on them.

I'm hypersensitive to some things but at the same time I tend to have a taste and tendency for extremes, in my music, in the way I say things and the types of interactions I want with other people, in my reactions, in my feelings, in the types of inner experiences I try to cultivate.