It's the last day of mental health Awareness week and it's focusing on stress... Oh boy. I know they want more people to know more about mental health in general but stress? I know everyone 'suffers' through stress, I'll explain why it's put like that later, let's put it through the eyes of someone who autistic.
Stress to us is well... life. I could just sum it up like that but I'm going to explain mainly because when I talk to people they don't understand how I see things, but if i do anything general I'm going to focus from a higher functioning autism (& Asperger's) point of veiw.
Every step I take I see countless dangers, it could be anything from me tripping to a meteor falling on me, most non-autistic brains will filter this. Then add on contacting people so talking or just walking past them, as I think a meteor is going to fall on me you don't have to guess much with might happen with that, still I will say, so to me the person could be harmless to they might spontaneously combust (blow up with no help needed). When it come to talking to people I don’t know what people could say so I prepare phases to things either to buy me time or to give answer. Also like most people with autism I’m sensitive to the world around me, in my case light and sound. So I have to process all the sounds around me to keep a step ahead of what’s in front of me. I have to adjust my vision so I take in enough light to see but that’s it any more and I feel like my eyes are going to burn and too little and I can’t see. It’s handy at night time but I’m not an owl. On top of things I physical twitches so I have to hide that because if I twitch people have been known to either not help me or treatment like I’m a toddler. Also I also have verbal twitches/outbursts, which make things interesting... I sometimes can’t control somethings I say like “peek-a-boo” or “I’m a turtle”. This doesn’t make life easy but you get use to it. To add some general things in its between 23-28% of all autistics are epileptic and a further 25-36% have epileptic like issues but it’s not epilepsy. In this area all of them combine so that is 48-64% of all autistics will have a epileptic attacks (for the 25-36% it is usually their last) usually it will happen whilst being asleep. Also when we have meltdowns or shutdowns all what I said times it by ten because most of us won’t even talk until we can handle what is happening. So the idea of handling stress for neurotypicals (non-autistic people) is laughable because before people usually think they have a lot going on or too much happening. For a day just try being us or look at how much you actually have going on. Most of autistics have all this and most likely more. This is partly why I (and maybe others) have special items such as bowls and forks etc. Or why I have special places I vist or have specific spot I go or sit. If it moves the slightest bit I have to recalculate everything and adapt.
This is why I phrased stress the way I did to a neurotypical, stress can be a hard thing and I can do other things like affect eating and sleep. To people who are autistic we have the same things but it affects us physically we have so much mental capacity we can starve are brain of anything needed or we can stop any of our senses. In theory with the capacity we have over our brains we can do anything in theory. For neurotypicals there are signs and symptoms for us there’s some signs and some symptoms but no one knows what happens in our heads. Stress is the most certain uncertainty most autistics face and it leads to different forms of self harm and abuse. It also makes any condition/s we have a whole lot worse, take socialising it’s tough but it’s doable, with stress it’s like your mouth is sowed shut and your whole body is wrapped tight.
I thought I would end of my mental health experiences. Through my autism I have anxiety disorder called selective mutism also I have anxiety on top. I have also had breakdowns, yes breakdowns-plural, no one noticed accept me. They though I also had depression- but that turned out to be autism. I’ve also had other things happen which I won’t say on here being public. So my mental health was rough and it still is but I take a day at a time because that’s all I can do. I evolve to a different thing every time, like eevee - best excuse for use pokèmon I could find.
