Sensory Sunday #6

To promote our sensory differences—and by extension a greater understanding of autism—we are asking a weekly question on Sunday about your sensory experience. We are calling it Sensory Sunday. Here is last week’s question:

Sensory Sunday #5

Question

We’re doing a late Sensory Sunday again—on Tuesday. I’ve had so much on my mind that Sensory Sunday slipped my mind. Better late than never, this week’s sensory question is:

What’s one thing about your sensory experience
that you wish you would have known sooner?

My wish

What I wish I had known sooner is that I experience meltdowns and sensory overload in the first place. I mean, I experienced both regularly, but I didn’t know what they were. I didn’t even know I am autistic. All I knew was that while others more or less coped with their sensory reality, I was often agitated. Both because of sensory overload and because of challenges in executive functions.

Had I known why I was agitated and how to diminish it, I likely wouldn’t have judged myself for it. I would have been able to deal with it, and avoid meltdowns if possible.

But most importantly, it wouldn’t have contributed to developing the belief that I am not good enough.

I have explored the idea of internalizing judgments further
in the next post if you want to read/learn more:

Self-judgment

To explore the whole Sensory Sunday series,
have a look at the Sensory Sunday index:

Sensory Sunday series