On Being Taught to Ignore My Body and Why “You Don’t Need Sunglasses Indoors” Was Some of the Most Dangerous Advice I Ever Received.
#AskingAutistics & other sensory-sensitive people: What is something you wish the rest of the world understood about sensory processing differences?
I was diagnosed as Autistic almost 10 years ago, in a period of intense burnout and during a mental and physical health crisis.
Often I reflect, with frustration, on the fact that it wasn’t until I reached crisis point that my Autism was finally recognized, because it should never have gotten that bad.
Spiraling so far down that I almost gave up, and growing dangerously close to becoming another statistic shouldn’t be what it took to learn the truth about my brain – that I am and always have been Autistic.
Many things contributed to me reaching such a state that I almost ended everything.
I can’t speak for all Autistic people as to why so many of us choose to self-exit and end the game of life early. However, in my case, a big part of why things got so desprate was tied to having significant sensory differences that, unsupported, led me to having multiple physical health issues (that I’d been gaslit about for most of my life).
“It’s not that big of a deal,” “You don’t really need to wear sunglasses indoors,” “No hats in class!” “You’re outnumbered, the rest of us want the lights on,” “Nobody else is complaining,” “Tough it out,” “Push through,” “There’s nothing physically wrong with you,” “Sit still!!” “It’s not that bad!“
In my case, the deterioration of my physical health (that was directly related to my unmet sensory needs) came first. Then, after years of not understanding why my health was declining, when things started to feel hopeless, my mental health started crumbling.
My whole life, I was encouraged to ignore my sensory needs and push through.
Even when being in environments that were hostile to my senses was sending me into fight, flight, and freeze, I was encouraged to act like everything was fine.
Chronically teetering between states of hypervigilance and shutdown/freeze took a toll on my body, leading to physical symptoms (like migraines, stomach and digestive problems, muscle pain, disorientation, brain fog, neurological glitches/seizures, and dissociation when the discomfort grew too big to handle).
One of the most uncomfortable manifestations of my unmet sensory needs was headaches that would evolve into full-blown migraines, with vertigo, dizziness, and vomiting. All of which stopped once I started taking care of my sensory needs and quit forcing myself into environments that were hostile to my senses.
I had nearly 30 years of frequent and totally preventable migraines that left me sick in bed (multiple times a month and sometimes multiple days a week), or forcing myself to attend school and work (with disorientation so intense it was dangerous for me to be out on the road driving, but because I had to work to get paid I forced myself to drive anyway just like I’d been forced to go to school growing up in a similar state).
I was constantly on edge, which meant very “little” things could easily send me into meltdowns or shutdowns, because my capacity was already being maxed out by the sensory environment alone.
For most of my life, I thought I had a bad temper, but it turns out I was really just spread too thin (and most people would lash out if they were in the state I was in).
I was mentally overloaded due to living in an environment that was hostile to my senses without access to sensory protection or understanding of how to care for myself and my sensory needs.
Learning I was Autistic, at the age of 29, changed everything, because it validated my experiences and prompted me to start learning about my sensory needs (and the human spectrum of sensory experiences).
Once I finally understood myself and my own sensory needs, I was able to mostly remove myself from environments that were wreaking havoc on my nervous system, or (when these environments were unavoidable), I was able to equip myself with sensory protection to keep myself from being tipped into that on-edge state.
I also started to implement what is sometimes referred to as a sensory diet, where I mindfully immersed myself in activities and surrounded myself with pleasant sensory experiences that helped me to re-regulate my chronically dysregulated nervous system.
Eventually, once I got myself back in balance, the migraines I’d experienced for most of my life mostly stopped, only returning on very rare occasions when I accidentally pushed myself too hard. In addition, the meltdowns (that were happening several times a week) also greatly reduced.
For most of my life, I had been encouraged to tune out of my body and ignore my own discomfort.
I was bottling up discomfort like a volcano building pressure, but I didn’t feel the pressure building until it was too late.
These days I rarely have meltdowns because I’ve learned to be more tuned into my body and my emotions, so I can recognize when I’m feeling overwhelmed, stop everything, and take care of myself before I hit that meltdown threshold. However, ten years ago (and for most of my life) I was so on edge and disconnected from my body’s interoception sense that I didn’t notice what was happening to me until I was past the point of no return.
All of this (the physical sickness and meltdowns that seemed to come out of nowhere) made me feel like a failed and broken person, and I hated myself for it.
I wish I could have known sooner how much of my struggles were tied to my overwhelmed sensory system, and what I could have been doing to prevent that pain, sickness, and distress sooner (because, in my case, much of it could have been easily avoided if I had been taught to pay attention to my sensory needs and care for them).
I also wish I hadn’t been encouraged to ignore my pain and discomfort, suffering in silence and acting as if everything was fine, when, in fact, on the inside I was far from okay.
In this way, I was systemically trained to disassociate, disconnect from my body, and ignore my needs, because the people around me didn’t believe I needed what I tried to tell them I needed during a critical developmental period of my childhood (when I was learning to listen to and decode the signals my body was sending me).
Because I was trained to ignore my needs growing up, in adulthood, in my thirties, I began the journey of learning to tune into my body, sensory processing, and my own sensory needs (something many learn in childhood).
The following is what I have learned about sensory processing over the last 10 years and what I wish I knew about my sensory needs growing up.
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You’ve just read my story (the gaslighting, the preventable migraines, the near-misses). Now comes the part I wish I could mail back in time to my younger self.
What follows is the exact sensory framework I’ve spent the last 10 years of my life piecing together:
The 10 specific lessons about hypersensitivity, auditory processing, cumulative sensory overload, and the “sensory diet” that finally pulled me out of chronic illness.
Subscribe now to get the tools that doctors, teachers, and even my own family never gave me.
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