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Forming a hypothesis post diagnosis- an observational life- the five senses.

Breadpud

I'm wondering if adults in later life here can understand this:

I've had six months to frame my life from an AS perspective now. Doing this is not new though, I've been coming to terms with my differences for a few years now. Disappointments and setbacks can now be framed as just my being my traits and not being 'fear of failure', laziness or just plain not articulate enough.

I've always been on the edge of things. Never creating or taking part but just using my senses through life. I realize now my senses have played a big role in my life to give me comfort and wellbeing.

Music since an early age is such an important part of my life and always will be.

Recent interest in colour and form makes watching art house and world cinema an essential part of my life now and like music, feeds wellbeing. Abstract art is beginning to be interesting too when I'd never been into art before.

Food has always been a difficult sense to grasp. But I'm finally forming a comfortable formula of textures.

Smells (like everyone can relate I know- even NTs) smell is evocative but I can get wound-up and spend a lot of time exploring how I feel if there are two or more smells that are mixing together that don't work together. 

Touch. I can be fascinated with textures. I will think a long time about something that I enjoyed touching- or I didn't enjoy. It hard to articulate why this will take up a lot of my time- and like smell, can take up a stupid amount of my time.

So its all kind of odd when I hypothesis that my life has been an 'observational' role. Not leaving my mark in any way- and being ok with that. I'm almost saying that in some cosmic sense, my AS is deliberate and this was my role when I was born. I'm a work in progress though I suppose- almost selfish as I don't give back or participate.

Parents

  • Hi

    I received my formal diagnosis at the age of 37.

    I can really relate to this..... 

    I think that understanding sensory processing unlocks a lot of the 'symptoms' of Autism and gives us the understanding needed to mindfully self-regulate. Understanding not just my sensitivities but also my ability to discriminate sensory information has really helped me to understand the way I process the world. For example:

    • I have poor interoceptive awareness (I do not feel the physiological indicators that I am becoming anxious) which impacts on my emotional awareness and regulation. Only sensing emotions when they have become some big I am moments away from a meltdown or shutdown. 
    • I have hyper sensitivity to vestibular input and hate to be off balance or have my head tipped in any direction. This sensitivity increases my arousal/anxiety level, setting it at a higher baseline than most NTs before we even start with the other stuff.
    • I have poor proprioception which amongst other things has had an impact on my ability to control facial expressions and mirror that of others in early development... Thus I have difficulties with communication of emotion. My constant state of not sensing the feedback from my joints and muscles contributes to my difficulties with my sense of self.

    Things that help include:

    Increasing my proprioceptive input... Climbing and yoga.

    Giving my self time to do focused visual activities.... Drawing

    And I use music to quieten my mind.

    Great topic to bring up thanks....

  • in reply to Beefree

    Hello beefree,

    thank you for responding. I'll be looking into this more I think where I've never put so much though into what I'm inputting. And as you do, find activities to explore them. On my list of to do's 2020 :)

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