The Third Degree

Believe me, being in a non-verbal state is as frustrating for me as it must be for anybody trying to communicate with me. It is usually a symptom of stress, of emotional overload, so the worst way to react is in any fashion that increases my stress - becoming emotional, speaking louder or more insistently, coming too close and encroaching on my personal space. If you must try to interact with me at least speak quietly, unemotionally and without approaching too closely or making sudden movements.

Any hint of threat, whether it is a raised voice or unexpected proximity, only makes me feel more anxious and ensures that the episode will last longer. If I do manage to force some words out then don't assume I've come out of it - this can be a delicate moment as I start to regain some control and pushing me - giving me the third degree - will only send me deep back down into my uncommunicative state.

Above all, don't take my lack of responsiveness as a sign of indifference, ignorance or antipathy towards you: it is not. It is simply that my faculties are fully occupied dealing with my own mental turmoil and there is no spare capacity to handle interacting with people. I don't enjoy being non-verbal: because of the continual commotion inside my head it is mentally exhausting, and the muscular tension that results also causes physical tiredness. It is absolutely draining and leaves me in need of peace and quiet to relax. The fact that I might have been sat there, hardly moving or uttering a word, for hours does mean that I am ready to jump back into "normal" activities from the get go. Without some down time to recuperate it is very likely that even a small trigger will push me back over the edge.

Recognition of the causes and effects involved coupled with a little understanding makes it quicker and easier for me to work through the effects of the stress overload, and that has to be a good thing all round, doesn't it?

The Rage

Bright, flashing lights. Loud, high-pitched sounds. Rough, scratchy touches. I find all of these overstimulating, sometimes to the point where they overload my senses causing physical pain and stress. It's a cumulative effect - as I experience the sensory input I first feel discomfort. This builds along with my stress level.

There are times when I just up and leave to escape from the sensations. This is effective from my point of view but not so good when I'm in company. Then there are times when I dissociate - withdraw into myself - and largely stop being consciously aware of my surroundings. Finally there are the times when I am not able to get away from the stimulation, when I am not in a calm enough frame of mind to withdraw.

In those situations the stress builds and builds like a lake filling behind a dam. Only instead of water it is an inner rage. From trying to block out the offending sensation, I now find myself fixated on it - tunnel vision where all I can see is the source of the anger and pain. My muscles tense, my blood pressure rises. Unbidden, dark thoughts of violence rise from the depths of my mind, hurling themselves against the walls of self-control that contain them. I am beset by images of the destruction of my nemesis; I picture myself wielding sledgehammer or wrecking bar and pounding the offending object into mute submission as I scream and howl, releasing the rage.

I am not a violent person by nature - people know me as laid-back and easy-going. It usually takes far more to rouse me to anger than most other people, and I very rarely feel anger towards a human or other animal. But when the pressure builds inside... I find it exhausting to hold it all in, and when the dam breaks open everything I had held back floods out in a meltdown.

Afterwards is emptiness and exhaustion. And then, later, comes the shame. Shame of failure because I lost control. Shame of drawing negative attention from those around me.

Two things prompted me to write on this subject today. The first was this blog post about misophonia. The second was a very unwelcome change in my local pub: a slot machine was moved to a new position right next to where I usually sit. Bright, flashing lights directly in front of me - need I say more.

Overloaded (Again)

This sensory overload business can be so darned inconvenient at times. It caught me out tonight - wasn't expecting it to rear its head at all. I was out with my wife at a friend's birthday party. All fine until it got busy with loud music.

The trouble is that it all makes such demands on my faculties as I try to pick up what people are saying to me, while simultaneously attempting to block out everything else that's going on around me, that I end up very quickly feeling drained and shutdown looms.

At that point I need to take time out - find somewhere quiet to sit for a spell - and "chill out". (Literally chill tonight because I'm sat in the car and it's none too warm out here.)

So right now I'm afraid I'm poor company and not much fun to be around. I'm managing ok out here, and some of my friends have popped by to see if I'm all right - that helps because it shows support from which I take strength.

It's just unfortunate that at times like this I am unsociable - not antisocial - and just need a little space. I'd hate to think I'd put a dampener on anybody's enjoyment of the birthday party.

Getting Through

I have times when I feel such utter frustration and helplessness, times when I feel buried under a growing mountain of pending tasks, times when almost everything I touch seems to go wrong or fall apart and I don't know what to do to fix it, times when I just feel trapped by the flow of events - pulled in so many different directions that I feel dizzy and overwhelmed: adrift.

At times like these there are some things that help me get through, none more so than the support of kind words from friends. That gives me just enough of a boost - a positive feeling of hope and self-worth - that I can face the situation and start to deal with it instead of feeling dwarfed and powerless by the terrific enormity of what is facing me. I need to have my mind at peace to handle difficult, stressful situations - this is a great challenge to achieve and I often need help. That little bit of support, telling me that I'm doing OK and I've got somebody behind me who can catch me if I fall.

That's all I need to reduce my anxiety and insecurity to a level I can manage, a level at which I can think straight. Because when my mind's thrashing about, floundering, wasting energy in an attempt to keep afloat, it can escape my notice that I'm not really out of my depth - I'm just so flustered and panicky that I don't realise I can touch the bottom and instead feel as if I'm drowning. That's such an unpleasant sensation. The relief I feel when somebody helps me find my feet and steady myself is immense.

I Think I Need A New Word

I'm struggling to think of one word that will describe the feeling of acute mental discomfort and anxiety I get when I hear somebody making hurtful remarks about anyone I know. I don't know if there is a word for it: maybe those people never feel like this. It would explain how they are able to behave in that way.

This feeling I get is so intense that I find it hard to describe, especially when I try to tell the people causing it how they are making me feel with their malicious comments. I don't do that very often - it invariably ends up with them turning on me. But it still makes me angry that they feel so superior that they have the right to put others down.

And then they try to justify themselves by saying they are being honest and direct. No, they're not. They're simply being rude, voicing their opinions behind people's backs and presenting gossip and rumour as fact. I've noticed that they never explain why they hold those opinions. There's an arrogant, unspoken assumption that the reasons are so obvious that any "right-thinking" person would be in agreement.

I don't know how to handle this kind of behaviour except by walking away - it upsets me so much that I overload. I feel that I'm letting the target of the comments down by not standing up and defending them, but I've tried and I can't handle the stress of the confrontation that results.

I guess there are just some people out there who are hazardous to one's health - poisonous if you like. Certainly incompatible with my peace of mind and general well-being.

Empathy and Selfishness

I fear I've been behaving selfishly recently. I don't want to make excuses - just try to explain. As I wrote recently, my wife is very ill at the moment and her physical pain, exhaustion and isolation are causing severe depression.

I find that I resonate with how she is feeling. I feel her depression like a deep, black pit; like a hundred hooks in my insides drawing them down into the depths, leaving a void yearning to be filled with anything other than the aching emptiness. I find it very difficult to function in the face of such intense emotion - and I am only feeling it second-hand, picking up the echoes of what my wife is experiencing!

I just don't know how to handle the situation; these feelings. I don't know what to do for my wife to help her with her depression. I feel lost. So, selfishly, I have been withdrawing and taking refuge in familiar routines. I've been alternately detached and irascible with her instead of being supportive. I know that's wrong and I want to be supportive - it's proving to be a big challenge.

My reaction to strong emotions is not at a conscious level - it is sheer gut instinct. Such feelings push the buttons of my primitive fight-or-flight response and my conscious mind has to fight hard against the tide to overcome these basic instincts. It doesn't always succeed and that is when I overload.

Imagine, if you can, how a pet dog would react to its owners having a row in front of it. The dog can't understand what is causing the situation but can pick up the emotional overtones and becomes distressed. Perhaps it slinks off, tail between its legs, and cowers in a corner, whining. And over time the dog will become more wary and it will take time and effort to overcome its reluctance to approach, its fear of being in that situation again.

Neurotypical people don't react like that dog, and so don't expect that other people would either. But some autistic people don't have the ability to handle these emotionally-charged situations. We can't rationalize the causes when we're experiencing such distress. All we can do is react instinctively. There's a very good article on this subject on the Autism and Empathy blog.

When I fail to react to somebody in the way that they expect, when I react in a way that appears unfeeling, irrational, selfish - that is often the result of all too much feeling on my part. Feeling - emotion - so strong that I can't rationally cope with it and my mind regresses to a more primitive mode of operation: instinct, the primitive drive for self-preservation.

Too Much On My Mind

Sometimes...
      there are too many thoughts
      running round and round
      inside my head.

Sometimes...
      I feel so anxious
      I find it hard to focus
      on the task in front of me.

Sometimes...
      I get exhausted by the effort
      of forcing my conscious thoughts
      through the noise.

Sometimes...
      I just want to close the curtains,
      switch off the lights
      and lock the door.

Until...
      my spinning thoughts slow down
      to a manageable speed
      and my mind becomes quiet.

Tired But Happy

This weekend exhausted me but - for a pleasant change - not because of emotional problems. It was down to working (and playing) hard. I worked the bar Friday night during a 21st birthday party - it was a sensory maelstrom with loud music, flashing coloured disco lights and plenty of people shouting. I handle it by focusing on serving the customers, getting into the rhythm of taking orders, pouring drinks and working the till. It's so familiar and I enjoy it so after about ten minutes I just flow. I can block out everything else pretty successfully - so much so that I don't even notice much of what's going on more than a few feet beyond the counter - and I lose most sense of the passage of time.

However at one point it got really loud - several people whistling - and I overloaded for a brief time. I have little idea how long it was - nobody else appeared to notice. I just stood there with my back to the room, holding on to the back bar counter to keep myself upright, with two half-poured vodkas in front of me. I couldn't think - the noise had suddenly become painful as it breached the mental blocks on my senses and flooded in. All I was aware of was this glaring, intense, piercing whistle - everything else ceased to exist as my other senses were drowned out.

The whistling stopped and it was like waking up - that short period while my brain orients itself before I remember where I am and what I'm doing. Somehow I remembered the order I was in the middle of pouring, and - slightly unsteadily at first - carried on. It took a couple of minutes to get myself together before I was back to business as usual.

Saturday morning I had to go shopping. It wasn't a long list I had to pick up but I needed to visit several shops to get everything. I hate having to shop on a Saturday morning - it's so busy and people get in my way, encroaching on my personal space. It started fine. I got parked where I wanted and even had enough change for the car park ticket machine - a definite result because I usually forget to check I've got enough before leaving home. There weren't many people around yet so I was feeling reasonably comfortable. And then I got into the mall and there was music playing too loudly - it was distracting and put me off balance a bit and I thought about fetching my earphones from the car but decided to persevere.

My first destination was a department store to look for a shirt. To get to the menswear department I had to get through the perfume department. I don't know why but nearly every department store I've every been into puts the perfume department just inside the front doors so you have no choice but to endure the overwhelming smells and eye irritation from all the solvents in the air to get to any other part of the store. It turned out they didn't have what I was looking for after all: I'm very particular about my shirts - the material has to feel right, the colour has to be right (usually black) and the arrangement of buttons and pockets has to be right. Ideally I would be able to pick up exact replicas of the shirts I already have but it doesn't work that way. They change things. So I ran the gauntlet of the perfume department again to get out of there and went on to the next store. That one was thankfully simple - straight to the single item I was after, on to the checkout and out of there. Then back to the car, enduring the intrusive mall music on the way, and on to phase two: the supermarket.

Up to now I'd managed to avoid the crowds - it must have been because they were already at the supermarket, waiting for me to arrive so they could block the aisles and bump into me and run over my feet with their trolleys. In the midst of all this I ran into the first obstacle: my wife had put "nail varnish and lipstick amethyst" on the list. Now I'm not very familiar with these kinds of products but I did know which area of the store would have them. So I headed there and there were about six different brands, each with at least two or three different kinds of lip and nail colouring stuff. I examined them all and not one had the word amethyst on it! Any number of different, almost-descriptive colour names but not what my wife had written on the list. I was getting stressed so I decided to phone home and ask for clarification. Then I discover there's no phone signal in that part of the store. Aargh!

I moved around until I got a signal and made the call. On my third attempt it didn't drop out and I asked my wife what colour she meant by amethyst - she said "purple". I asked was it a blue or red purple and she seemed confused - I explained that purple is a mix of red and blue with some being more blue than red and vice versa. I think I managed to make myself understood, but she said any shade of purple would do. (So why write amethyst then? I wondered.) So that was sorted. I went back to the shelves of cosmetics and looked for something that was unambiguously purple-ish. I found a nail varnish and then just had to locate a matching lipstick. Because naturally they would have matching colours, wouldn't they? Hah! That would be far too easy. So I just picked up something that purported to be a kind of purple lipstick and high-tailed it out of that section of the store to go look for the next thing on the list.

What I haven't mentioned yet is that they are reorganizing the layout of that store. Even the staff are not sure where to find some products. What hope have I with my out-of-date mental map? It took me about an hour to pick up eight or ten items and by the end of it I was about ready to throw a tantrum right in the middle of the place - like most of the children in there appeared to be doing. That's one thing I struggle to understand - why do people persist in dragging their children round busy shops when they clearly get bored by it, hate the experience and don't want to be there? I can completely understand a child finding it all too much and having a screaming fit because they have no other way to communicate their frustration. I don't like to hear children crying and screaming - I find the sound unsettling and uncomfortable, even painful to hear.

I managed to get hold of every one of the dozen or so items on the list and was back home about two and a half hours after leaving - it was about a six mile round-trip. Boy was I worn out! But there's no rest for the wicked - not even the very wicked - and I had to get changed, ready to go out to a wedding. Which meant I couldn't wear my usual comfortable clothes. Suit and tie. In temperatures above 80 degrees, and humid with it. Unusual weather for this time of year in southern England. I've never enjoyed hot weather - I feel too hot and sweaty and my clothes cling to me in a most uncomfortable, irritating way. But I wasn't about to let anybody down - it was somebody else's big day and I was determined to show my support, relax and enjoy myself. And I did.

It was rather warm inside the reception venue - the local pub - even with the doors wide open but I just popped outside for a bit of fresh air every now and then to cool off. And to get a bit of a break from the disco lights, loud music and too much movement from people dancing close in front of me. I struggled a few times with the levels of sensory stimulation but got through it. And I did enjoy myself - it was a good night and the atmosphere was relaxed and friendly - although it was very tiring coping with the heat, noise, lights and people.

As a result I was kind of hoping for a quiet Sunday afternoon shift at the pub. I turned up a little early in case there was any setting up to do. Just as well as it turned out - even though a group of volunteers were helping, the place wasn't nearly ship-shape by opening time. It was a moderately busy shift as well, with two soccer matches on the TV that brought a number of customers in. But I like it like that - as I said before I find my rhythm and it just flows. (I still dislike the food - table-waiting - side of the job because it disrupts that flow, but that's only a small part of the whole.) I didn't notice I was getting a bit dehydrated - I forgot to make sure I had a drink of water every now and again. Sometimes I'm not that good at taking care of myself! I think I surprised the boss a bit when I readily agreed to take a break the first time I was asked and grabbed a glass of water - I'm normally reluctant to take a break because I find it a distraction but that afternoon I was feeling drained and needed a short break.

I was pretty exhausted by the end of the shift - we seemed to go through an inordinate number of glasses given the moderate level of trade, and I'd also moved a number of barrels around the cellar. The 22 Imperial gallon kegs aren't light when full - they weigh more than I do - but there's a technique to moving them so you don't have to lift the whole weight. In a way I was happy to finish the shift. I enjoyed it but I was so worn out and drained by the end. It had been a long, physically- and mentally-demanding but ultimately very satisfying weekend and I was very glad when I got home to retire to bed for a well-earned rest. Recharge the batteries ready for Monday morning and the return to my main "paid hobby", software development.