The Invisible Onion

Following on from my post last week on what overstimulation feels like for me as an autistic person, I wanted to share some thoughts on how I manage overstimulation, both from a preventative and reactive perspective.

After living 34 years undiagnosed, I’ve had to do a lot of self-reflection to understand my triggers and learn how to support myself better. I definitely don’t have all the answers.  I was only diagnosed 8 months ago, but every day is a step forward in learning how to feel calmer, clearer, and more balanced.

I’m really enjoying the journey of getting to know myself better. I’m finding it such a fun and eye-opening experience. There have been and still are, lots of mini eureka moments along the way. 

Like, for example, through counselling therapy, I have been learning to identify emotions and how they feel in my body. I realised that I could identify that I was feeling emotions in my head, but most of these emotions, I wasn’t feeling in my body at all. 

I’m loving being inquisitive and discovering how they feel. They’re coming through quite strong right now because they are so new to me but I am embracing them, no matter the emotion. 

Anyway, back to overstimulation… here are both preventative and reactive measures that work for me to try to minimise overstimulation:

Preventative

By preventative, I’m talking about steps that I take to stop overstimulation from happening in the first place.

Planning ahead

• Take time to think about and define what situations and scenarios are more likely to cause me overstimulation and from there work out what can help me in each situation. 
• An example here is social situations can cause me big overstimulation from making conversation with people, noises, bright lights, smells etc. 
• If I look at noise in isolation here, I struggle to hold a conversation with people, with loud background noise. It can be hard to focus on the conversation because I’m distracted and overwhelmed by all the other noise going on at once. 
• Things that can make things easier for me are moving close to a wall so that background noise is quieter, finding a quieter room or moving outside.
• Having a plan for each scenario beforehand  mean my overstimulation levels are lower to start with and can greatly reduce my anxiety.

Try to unmask

• I know this is a hard one because masking is like second nature to me, as I am sure it is for others. 
• Masking causes me to feel stressed and anxious and consumes a lot of my energy, leading to big burnout. 
• Being aware is the first step. Even just the thought of trying to unmask in certain situations has meant that I am more aware of trying not to mask and just takes the edge off of my overstimulation levels.

Take time to slow down

• Taking time to slow down and listen to my body and how I am feeling before starting a new task can be hugely beneficial.
• I can easily just keep moving from one thing to the next without coming up for air and suddenly, I feel so overstimulated that I need to rest without realising what has caused it. 
• I try to regularly check in with how I am feeling throughout the day and plan in additional rest periods or other types of activities that I know will make me feel calmer and more energised. This could be doing a hobby I love, or perhaps meditating, amongst other things.

Reactive

When thinking about reactive steps that I take to reduce overstimulation, I mean things that I do to bring my overstimulation levels down when I feel the barometer creeping up.

Escaping

• Not always the best option, but sometimes very much needed! If all gets too much, finding a quiet and dark spot to put myself in to try to reset.

Reducing noise

• If noise levels are too much, then I use noise cancelling headphones or Loop earplugs to bring noise down to an acceptable level for me.
• It’s so interesting how much better I feel when reducing the noise around me. For example, I’ve noticed how much it helps, when I’m travelling on a train to reduce the noise around me. 
• The train itself (without people in it) can make so much noise and cause me to feel on edge. The first time I tried this and then stepped off a train, was a game changer. I didn’t realise before that how much noise affected me and I felt so much calmer stepping off the train at the end of my journey.

Understanding smells

• Eliminating smells can be a lot harder than noise most of the time! You often can’t control the smells around you. 
• Knowing when to cover my nose can be helpful and not worrying about what other people think when I am doing it!
• When I can control a smell, like what type of deodorant my husband uses, then I do it. I’ve found that roll on deodorants are much less smelly and offensive on my nose than sprays and now I only buy these.

Light sensitivity

• Daylight can impact me quite a lot (as much as I love it). I wear sunglasses all year round when outside, even when it’s not sunny and sometimes wear them inside too.
• Light from my phone or laptop can also be triggering. I turn the brightness right down on both and use dark mode as much as I can.
• If I’m in a public place and the artificial lighting is too much, I try to take breaks outside or move outside if I can.

Managing tastes

• Taste overstimulation can be minimised quite a bit. I try to stick to tastes that I am comfortable with and if I encounter something I don’t like, I’m not afraid to leave it. 
• I used to just eat or drink things even if I had a strong aversion to them, particularly when in the company of other people. Now I don’t do this and will just avoid things that I don’t like, even if it might upset people.

Touch

• This is another tricky one because it really depends on the situation and how I am feeling. Sometimes, the smallest touch can negatively affect me in a big way.
• I’ve learnt that the more stressed, anxious or uncomfortable I already am, the less likely I am to tolerate touch.
• It’s ok to tell someone not to touch you and to remove yourself from a situation if you don’t feel comfortable.

Mental focus

• Depending on what I am doing, too much mental focus can overstimulate me quickly, particularly when I’m working.
• I’m trying to take regular rest breaks and keep my body moving as much as possible. This is something I’m still beginning to learn how to manage and I find it hard to navigate.

Letting my emotions out

• Sometimes I need to shout, sometimes I need to sing or dance, sometimes I need to hide away by myself. I’m trying to learn when I need to do something and listen to that intuitive feeling that tells me to do it, and not be afraid to let it out!

What I have learnt

I think that learning my triggers has been a big help in reducing overstimulation for me. I know that I’ve only scratched the surface and am looking forward to continuing learning more about myself so that I can adapt how I approach things as needed.

I’ve learnt not to be afraid to do things that other people might think are “weird”. I’m slowly getting to know my authentic self and loving who that is. 

I’ve learnt that I just have to take the plunge and do things that work for me, regardless of how they are perceived. This was hard at the beginning but it’s getting easier as I do it more.

This process of learning and unlearning has been emotional, empowering, and sometimes exhausting, but it’s helping me build a life that actually works for me.

Do you have any coping mechanisms that I haven’t mentioned? I’d love to hear from you on what works for you or what works for people that you know.

Much love, Rachael xx

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