I’ve talked about sensory problems before, because it’s an
extremely important part of what it
means to be autistic. We have to live in a world created by neurotypicals and
because we don’t understand it or its rules, if we are to have any hope of
functioning in it we have to use up a lot of energy to try and overcome our
difficulties. When you throw into the mix the fact that we don’t see lights,
hear noises or feel things in the same way most people do, you can begin to
understand why meltdowns occur, and why our coping mechanisms can fail.
For the most part I consider myself lucky, compared to a lot
of others on the spectrum, because although I do have sensory issues, generally
they are nothing like as bad as some people experience. I do not suffer
physical pain from sensory overload, as I know some do. However, I recently had
an experience that stripped away all of my coping mechanisms, reminded me just
how solidly I am on the spectrum and allowed me a better understanding of those
who suffer this way on a daily basis. I hope it will let you understand them
better too.
My day started normally. I was not overly agitated, it was a
usual Monday morning. We had been told that the lights in the office where I
work were being changed over the weekend, and although I anticipated that I wouldn’t
like it, I hadn’t thought for a moment that it would actually cause me any
problems. How wrong I was.
The new lights were bright. No, I mean they were BRIGHT! That’s
not just my opinion because I’m hypersensitive, everyone who came into the
office was shocked as they walked through the door at how bright they were. The
difference between me, and everyone else, is that they proceeded to then get on
with their day as normal, while I could not.
I felt as though the light was freezing me, so that I couldn’t
move. I did manage to make it to my desk, but moving felt very wrong. I just
wanted to stay completely still. I felt so completely frozen by the light, that
I couldn’t even think straight, and failed miserably to try and focus on my
work. I dreaded my phone ringing, because I knew that if it did I would be no
use to my customers at all. I’m usually a complete chatterbox, but that day
talking was an effort and I didn’t want to talk at all. Forming complete
sentences felt like a struggle. I was focusing all my energy on coping with the
light!
What scared me more than anything though was that for an
entire working day I completely lost the ability to make eye contact. I don’t
like eye contact at the best of times, but I can do it. I regulate it and plan
it because it doesn’t come naturally to me, but I do it. Not that day. I was
even really trying to make eye contact with people who I consider to be
friends, not just colleagues, but I just couldn’t do it. Again, it was as
though I was frozen. I was an island, and the only way I could cope was to stay
an island, so the thought of looking at someone else and connecting with them
absolutely petrified me. I felt more helpless in those moments than I have ever
felt in my life.
I have had 34 years to build coping mechanisms, to repress tendencies
that aren’t appropriate and to cope with situations or sensations that aren’t
comfortable for me. I’ve been doing it for so long, that I’ve stopped noticing
how much I am actually regulating my behaviour. The lights in the office
completely threw me, because they were so extreme, that they forced me to focus
all my energies on dealing with them and all my usual coping mechanisms were
abandoned and stripped away. I barely recognised the person that was left. I
felt so…..so…..Autistic.
All I really wanted to do (and I very nearly did) was crawl
under my desk where it was dark, curl up into a ball, and calm myself. Instead
I settled for putting on a pair of very dark men’s sunglasses one of my friends
had in his draw. I know I looked ridiculous sat in the office wearing dark
sunglasses, because everyone told me so, but it did help and it was the only
way I could get any work done.
Thankfully I did get used to the light, and now it’s
completely normal to me, but that first day is an experience I will never
forget.
