Avoiding Shutdown at the Massive DC March

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OK, politics aside, just on ASD issues here. If you want to talk politics, that's elsewhere on the forum.

I went to the march in DC yesterday, which had an estimated 500,000 people. I WAS FINE. It was crazy. At one point I was boxed in so I couldn't even move, for about over an hour. I started panicking early on, but then I just started taking deep breaths, closed my eyes and focused on the rhythm of my breath, and calmed down. It was hard, because I was constantly being pushed and having to let people squeeze past me, but I managed to get left alone for about ten minutes at a time and that really did the trick. Then I told the two friends I was with -- in a calm voice -- that I thought we should think about moving out of the center of the crowd and go find a place for lunch, which would take about an hour to do, and we waited until a good opportunity and began doing that after about 20 minutes.

I never actually panicked, and I felt calm and was able to look around and interact with the crowd. I was even sociable, and helped my out-of-town friends find a place we could eat, and then handled all the arrangements to get them drinks and reserve a table while we were in the standing-room only bar area.

I couldn't have done any of this before getting diagnosed a few years ago and learning coping mechanisms since then. In my case, I had been practicing ten minutes of mediation for the past six months or so, and I was able to quickly tap into that in this situation. (I think other coping mechanisms would also have worked, but that's the one I had been using.)

This is a huge victory for me. I don't plan to get myself in these kinds of situations very often, but it's nice to know that I can deal with it.

One caveat: I was able to focus on myself because my friends were not super talkative, or were chatting with strangers nearby. When people insist on keeping up constant conversation with me in crowded areas, I begin shutting down pretty quick. I went with family to Colonial Williamsburg for a weekend recently, and I began shutting down at 4pm the first day, 2pm the second day, and at noon the third day (I got some alone time and was sort of OK for dinner the two nights we were there, but I was relying on a glass of wine to help with that). For me, the phases of shutdown include a turning point where I'm aware things are bad, and can get better if I get out right away, but if I ignore the signs I will begin to lose words and enter into a restricted speech phase soon after; at that point, it usually takes several days being alone to recover.

That was quite an accomplishment

Large crowds are strange organisms. I've been in a few but I don't think any that were quite as constraining as what you describe (which I don't think I'd like). One of the nice things about a public crowd is that you can actually feel quite invisible, and not having any attention directed specifically at you can be nice. And they do provide endless opportunities for aspie-ish observing -- if you can find a spot against a wall or next to a tree, you can zone-out and watch all the activity like watching a swarm of ants.

Wow, you handled yourself amazingly! Congratulations.

Coping skills are just mind bogglingly important, and the same ones don't work for everyone. The other day I was in the ER, it was one of a long stretch of snowy and icy days and half the people in there had slipped on ice or been in car crashes like me. A teenage girl with purple hair sat near me. While her father went to talk to the triage nurse, she folded her jacket, put it on her chair, got down on her knees and leaned her elbows onto the seat then started rocking. I immediately smiled and looked down at my rhythmically shaking leg. Ha. Because I'm old I was forced by society to learn to stim in more socially unobtrusive ways, but I think because there is more awareness among doctors and acceptance among the public, this young woman was able to assuage her stress in the way most effective to her. She'll likely learn other ways as she matures and it's important to work on multiple approaches until you find the ones that work for you. A process made tons easier if you have professional support. It's so frustrating when clinicians are reluctant to give out an autism diagnosis to adults. I'm sorry and annoyed that doctors in my area only evaluate children and doctors who care for adults won't consider evaluating me (and wouldn't know how to anyway). But I'm happy and hopeful when I see young people being identified and helped. And I hope someday my kids will be as skilled and brave as you. <3

Wow! That is great. So happy you were able to enjoy the march, what a great experience it must have been. So meditation works? Thanks for sharing and giving me some motivation to try meditating again.

Thank you for sharing your success with this! Maybe others reading the thread will be inspired to try meditation now.