Edited by Malcolm Taylor, Thursday, 10 May 2018, 22:23
I thought i would talk about what overloads feel like and also what shutdowns feel like aswell. I thought i would firstly explain what overloads and shutdowns are for anyone who isn't ASD litteral.
Overloads are where all the infomation me or anyone with autism has collected through the day but it usally hasn't been processed yet most of this is filtered by your brain if you don't have autism or some learning disabilites. This will usally be everythign you encounter so everything you see including raw light, hear even if it is distance or background noise, feel inculding air touching your skin and taste including everytime you breathe. If you think about it you do alot of this in a day and not relise. So if you overload you feel slow and sluggish as your brain can't take anymore thing in but it has to, it's like force feeding your brain to stay awake and take more things on.
Shutdowns/Meltdowns usally happen if someone is overloading or have overloaded this is where we can't take anymore infomation or don't want to and we stop everything we are processing but no how to shut ourselves off so there are usally three ways someone with autism will go. They will shut them selves off completely, get very angry and bossy- this usally looks like a tantrum that a todler might have at times or they still keep try to keep processing but have to slow everything down to get to a point where they can keep everything stable. Guess which I do? That right number ...3 ! I have done all these somepoint in my life, but i think if i keep going i will eventually pick up the slack although this dosen't always work in which case most of us will go to the extreme idea of how to stop shutdowns or overloads and that is sleep or in people with higher functions some of us have learn to shut down the processing part of our brain so we can see the world around us without having to processing it, although we won't remember what has happened in that bit or what happened through out the day but most of us live with that as msot of us will have an order what was going to happen that day so we can trace our steps, if we can be bothered.
Overloads feel to me like the whole world is going through my head, if i don't know what is going to happen then i just feel like i want to put my head on a table and hide away. It can feel like everything is caving in around me because everything has slowed down. This could be different for others. There is a video The National Autistic Society did which i will link in somewhere...
Shutdowns right this one is tricky to describe if you never had one but i will try my best to describe how it feels to me. To it feels like i am trapped in a mountian of infomation but everytime i move or do anything more informtion gets put on top of me but i can't breathe more and more. This is where my diffenition of friend comes in as they help me through this or they can help me process this. I only have a few friends who can do this and I'm very thankful they are there.
To make things a bit lighter and more colourful I was working today and i got sidetracked a stared drawing in one of the coffee breaks i had. I drawed the Autism Awareness symbol with its little phases or tag lines- i don't know what it is called. If you can't read them they are LOVE, TEACH, HOPE, INSPIRE. I know they are in the wrong order slightly but i can't change it .
To me you can look at it two ways as a person or parent: you can LOVE them for being them. TEACH them about life and how to get through. Install HOPE inthem to live life to the fullest and from there HOPEfully you can INSPIRE them to be the best of them.
Or
There is the the awareness route which you LOVE your community to TEACH the community about autism and how to be understanding towards autism. From there you HOPE people will continue to listen and understand and you INSPIRE more awareness in your community.
Anyway here is a picture of the picture, if found the limt of what photo can put on hopefully you can see the photo through a shortcut (at the top). I think it was just too good to show. ;)
Overloads and shutdowns/Meltdowns
I thought i would talk about what overloads feel like and also what shutdowns feel like aswell. I thought i would firstly explain what overloads and shutdowns are for anyone who isn't ASD litteral.
Overloads are where all the infomation me or anyone with autism has collected through the day but it usally hasn't been processed yet most of this is filtered by your brain if you don't have autism or some learning disabilites. This will usally be everythign you encounter so everything you see including raw light, hear even if it is distance or background noise, feel inculding air touching your skin and taste including everytime you breathe. If you think about it you do alot of this in a day and not relise. So if you overload you feel slow and sluggish as your brain can't take anymore thing in but it has to, it's like force feeding your brain to stay awake and take more things on.
Shutdowns/Meltdowns usally happen if someone is overloading or have overloaded this is where we can't take anymore infomation or don't want to and we stop everything we are processing but no how to shut ourselves off so there are usally three ways someone with autism will go. They will shut them selves off completely, get very angry and bossy- this usally looks like a tantrum that a todler might have at times or they still keep try to keep processing but have to slow everything down to get to a point where they can keep everything stable. Guess which I do? That right number ...3 ! I have done all these somepoint in my life, but i think if i keep going i will eventually pick up the slack although this dosen't always work in which case most of us will go to the extreme idea of how to stop shutdowns or overloads and that is sleep or in people with higher functions some of us have learn to shut down the processing part of our brain so we can see the world around us without having to processing it, although we won't remember what has happened in that bit or what happened through out the day but most of us live with that as msot of us will have an order what was going to happen that day so we can trace our steps, if we can be bothered.
Overloads feel to me like the whole world is going through my head, if i don't know what is going to happen then i just feel like i want to put my head on a table and hide away. It can feel like everything is caving in around me because everything has slowed down. This could be different for others. There is a video The National Autistic Society did which i will link in somewhere...
Shutdowns right this one is tricky to describe if you never had one but i will try my best to describe how it feels to me. To it feels like i am trapped in a mountian of infomation but everytime i move or do anything more informtion gets put on top of me but i can't breathe more and more. This is where my diffenition of friend comes in as they help me through this or they can help me process this. I only have a few friends who can do this and I'm very thankful they are there.
To make things a bit lighter and more colourful I was working today and i got sidetracked a stared drawing in one of the coffee breaks i had. I drawed the Autism Awareness symbol with its little phases or tag lines- i don't know what it is called. If you can't read them they are LOVE, TEACH, HOPE, INSPIRE. I know they are in the wrong order slightly but i can't change it .
To me you can look at it two ways as a person or parent: you can LOVE them for being them. TEACH them about life and how to get through. Install HOPE inthem to live life to the fullest and from there HOPEfully you can INSPIRE them to be the best of them.
Or
There is the the awareness route which you LOVE your community to TEACH the community about autism and how to be understanding towards autism. From there you HOPE people will continue to listen and understand and you INSPIRE more awareness in your community.
Anyway here is a picture of the picture, if found the limt of what photo can put on hopefully you can see the photo through a shortcut (at the top). I think it was just too good to show. ;)