This morning I had a total autistic executive function breakdown that I think perfectly shows the way that sensory overstimulation can affect us in a physical and mental way, so I’m going to share it.

This morning I was pottering about, decided to have a slow wake up in bed because I did a lot of work this last week, when suddenly a pneumatic drill started going off outside.

At first I was like okay, I’ll just lie here for one more minute and then I’ll get up and shut the window. The sudden jar of the noise meant I had a delay, so I needed to give myself time to get through it.

Except what really happened was every time I tried to think about getting up and moving, I couldn’t. Not a paralysis thing — my brain literally couldn’t continue the line of thought. It’s like it would fizz out and I’d have to do the ok let’s psyche myself up for a minute again

But I kept getting stuck in this loop of:
- Attempt
- Fail
- Preparing
- Attempt
- Fail
- Preparing

But each fail added like +5 difficulty because I was getting more overstimulated.

In the end, I had to text Tim for help to shut the window because I knew I had to get to work ASAP, and even was slightly late for a meeting and had been alerted to that, because my brain literally couldn’t do anything.

Of course once the window was shut and I spent a few moments destimming with headphones, I was able to move forward. But I think it’s such a good example of what we mean by overstimulation and how it can be a cumulative unseen process as well as an instant one.

So: what does this mean for you, non autistic person who might be reading this? Well, if you're with someone autistic and they start to blank, get a bit distracted, clearly struggling to think, covering their eyes/ears: check the environment. What is going on around you?

The attempting to cope through it is part of masking behaviour which can be long term detrimental to our health, so you using this new knowledge you've acquired to ask for music to be turned down, or to go sit outside for a minute etc, will help your autie pals.

Also just to be clear, in case anyone thought my tweet about keeping going meant I was fine that’s not the case. I’ve definitely got a possible migraine brewing, so I’m probably going to have to take a few hours off, maybe even the afternoon.

Sensory overstimulation is a very serious problem for autistic people, so please listen to us when we say what we need, and learn enough to be proactive about assessing your surroundings. Yes the lights/music/smells/textures might be nice for you, but it might be serious for us.

Equally as long as we never have to go anywhere where the walls are chartreuse we’ll be alright. The colour smells like sick to me

In the interest of continued education, it's worth adding that I'm still feeling the brunt of yesterday's overstimulation today. My cognition is slowed, I'm finding it hard to task manage, my proprioception is off (i.e. i'm walking into everything and dropping stuff)

This is definitely exacerbated by the heat and a poor night's sleep, but this is important for those of you who know autistics to be aware of, especially if you employ them. These incidents aren't as isolated or acute as you might expect, and take longer to shift.

Perhaps at first instance it may seem "overkill" to still be having knock on effects the next day, but we're talking about a nervous system response and a cognitive overload. These are complicated and energetically expensive processes to recover from, so be supportive.

I am also grumpy because it affects my memory* which meant I forgot to put the leftovers of my delicious chicken and broad bean pilaf in the fridge *cry*

* in auts, short term memory can be poor, while long term memory is fairly cinematic in comparison.

Anyway I am glad the saga of Lizzie vs. the pneumatic drill has been useful for so many people!