As Amanda of Ballastexistenz points out, sensory symptoms in autism are often misinterpreted as emotional. The two examples she mentions are overload being labeled anxiety, and shutdown being labeled dissociation. In this post, I will focus on the confusion between overload and anxiety, as I am not familiar enough with dissociation to make a point on that.
I know overload, and I know anxiety. They are not the same. Sometimes, one causes the other, which can run in both directions in my case, but they are not the same. Both may trigger an avoidance reaction, so I can see why people would confuse the two, especially if all they know is anxiety. However, exposure worsens rather than improves overload, so it is quite important to know the difference.
Overload is not a rational or even an emotional process. It is sensory in nature. While my sensory sensitivity may worsen under emotional stress, this is not necessarily the case. Loud noises cause overload no matter what. Certain touches cause overload. This is not an emotional reaction, but a physical sensation. Sometiems, it is as bad as to be painful. Would you keep someone in painful circumstances “so they get used to it”? I h ope you wouldn’t.
Anxiety, for me, can set on without any trigger. I am also anxious in certain specific situations, such as when there is no staff on the ward. Exposure in my case improves anxiety a little bit, but I need to be careful that it doesn’t go too far, cause then my anxiety will spin out of control. Besides, when being in an unsafe situation triggers anxiety, that is very adaptive. And a psych ward with no staff can be an unsafe situation quite a bit.
Fortunately, I have rarely had the experience where overload was confused with anxiety, in the sense that I was said to “fear” loud noises. The most dismissive statement I have gotten is that it is understandable, but not acceptable, for a blind person to be reactive to sound. However, I am well aware that a few behavioral programs incorporate exposure as a “cure” for sensory reactivity, usually with some argument about “anxieties”. I have always considered that rather dehumanizing, because the aversion is not emotional. It’s physical. And a behaviorist who claims to know about autism, should know that.
Thank you so much for this. I’ve had people assume that me not wanting to be in cafeterias with everyone talking and making noise all at once was because of anxiety. It took me ages to find someone that understood why I couldn’t just go in there and be okay.
I never really understood it until recently, why the noise was such a problem for me and why people not understanding that it was a problem was also a huge problem in itself. Frustrating isn’t strong enough of a word for it.