Autistic Adult Struggling With Tone of Voice - Coping Strategies Help

NAS61861 said:

Hello Everyone,

Hello NAS61861,

NAS61861 said:

I was diagnosed last year with Adult Autism - High Functioning.

I was diagnosed as such in 2015 myself ~ a bit late but none the less and the all the more; welcome to the officially diagnosed extent of things!

NAS61861 said:

I'm sure many of you may experience this in your lives but I am struggling to cope with people's tones when they speak to me, especially my partner. I am finding it extremely difficult to comprehend the way a simple question is being asked, ie How do you spell something, and not taking offence at the tone of the question. I'm taking it very personal and feel put down or put in my place like a little child.

Does anyone know of any coping strategies to help in this regard?

Yes.

.

In Transactional Analysis (or TA for those who work with or are familiar with it) as a psychological treatment model, there are traumatically fragmented aspects of our personality that are referred to as ego-states, as develop during childhood as behavioural adaptations that were first learnt in the mimicked sense from our parents and guardians ~ whilst being psychologically disassociated due to having been overwhelmed by anxiety or fear.

.

These ego-states consist of behavioural reproductions of what we experienced as children and are therefore referred to as Child ego-states (in TA), then the adapted ego-states that we experienced with and behaviourally mimicked from our parents and guardians are thence referred to as Parent ego-states (as being parental roles essentially), and Adult ego-states consist of our presence of mind in the here and now ~ either in terms of being driven by the Child and Parent ego-states (when therapy is most required), or in terms of being in charge of the Child and Parent ego-states (when therapy is least or no longer required).

.

Hence then in terms of being driven by ego-states rather than in charge of them; there is in TA the PAC model:

(P) Parent ego-state involving behaviours, thoughts and feelings copied from parents or parent figures

.

(A) Adult ego-state involving behaviours, thoughts and feelings that are direct responses to the here-and-now

.

(C) Child ego-state involving behaviours, thoughts and feelings replayed from childhood.

When therefore our Adult here-and-now sense of things is being driven by either or both our Child and (adapted child) Parent ego-states, our original childhood development vitalisation has been behaviourally obstructed ~ and otherwise incorporated as behaviourally prevents us from meeting our original needs, and hence we become increasingly frustrated and hypertensive.

.

In order to work through the behavioural adaptations that obstructed our original vitalisations, it of course rather useful to know the character of them as Behavioural Drivers, which are as follows:

1.) To Be Perfect

.

2.) To Be Strong

.

3.) To Try Hard

.

4.) To Please (others)

.

5.) To Hurry Up

Now most people have by percentage a mix of drivers ~ but one or more may play through more distinctly in particular situations.

.

Each driver though will precede entering into a particular PAC ego-state, and in order to get out of them and back into a driver free Adult state of mind again ~ gentle and deep pelvic breathing where the nose (and mouth) is imagined as being in the centre of the chest, and the lungs are imagined as being in the pelvis, with each inhalation pulling your feet to the floor, and each exhalation rooting your feet into the earth, is rather useful.

.

If you happen to be walking whilst doing the gentle and deep pelvic breathing exercise, imagining also that the earth is a treadmill rolling under your feet ~ helps further strengthen your Adult sense of presence in the here and now.

.

The heart and pelvis centred gentle and deep breathing technique is recommended in that each traumatic disassociation (during and since childhood) disempowered the heart involving compassion (leaving us upset in a ‘Wounded’ Child ego-state) and empowered the pelvis involving aggression (leaving us angry (offended) in a ‘Critical’ Parent ego-state).

.

With the heart link wounded or damaged, the pelvic link (involving instinctual or habitual reflexes) takes over the head link and we sense things historically rather than experientially as they are in the present.

NAS61861 said:

Any help would be much appreciated.

If this ‘help’ is particularly appreciated regarding the Transactional Analysis stuff, there is a book titled TA Today ~ A New Introduction to Transactional Analysis ~ Second Edition ~ [by] Ian Stewart and Van Joines ~ if you fancy learning all about it, or else just becoming more your own therapist, what with either possibly the lack of availability, the waiting lists or the prices and all that.

.

Or else here follows an eight page PDF link “Transactional Theory: The Basics ~ Carol Solomon PhD”.

Thank you for this very detailed and complex response and explanation.

I’m curious about that breathing technique you’ve described. I can see how useful it could be, and I’ve used breathing techniques for grounding and becoming body-centred/aware. Could you direct me to where that particular exercise came from please?

Something I struggle with in relation to breathing strategies is that when I focus on my breath and how I’m breathing, I find I almost get anxious or start to hyper-ventilate. I was once told I have arhythmical breathing, and it may be down to that - but I’m now also wondering if the arhythmical breathing could be an autism related challenge. Do you perhaps have any insight related to arhythmia?

thank you 

Thank you for this very detailed and complex response and explanation.

I’m curious about that breathing technique you’ve described. I can see how useful it could be, and I’ve used breathing techniques for grounding and becoming body-centred/aware. Could you direct me to where that particular exercise came from please?

Something I struggle with in relation to breathing strategies is that when I focus on my breath and how I’m breathing, I find I almost get anxious or start to hyper-ventilate. I was once told I have arhythmical breathing, and it may be down to that - but I’m now also wondering if the arhythmical breathing could be an autism related challenge. Do you perhaps have any insight related to arhythmia?

thank you 

Chameleon said:

Thank you for this very detailed and complex response and explanation.

I am glad it was appreciated. :-)

Chameleon said:

I’m curious about that breathing technique you’ve described. I can see how useful it could be, and I’ve used breathing techniques for grounding and becoming body-centred/aware. Could you direct me to where that particular exercise came from please?

It comes from all over the world in terms of every ancient culture breathing that way ~ as being then grounded upon the earth and harmonised with nature.

·

I first got into it (practically) when I started going along to an American Indian and Tibetan-Mongolian tonal chanting group using singing bowls back in 1994, and learnt the breathing technique through which to work my chants and synaesthesia more effectively. I became friends with the instructor who trained me up and left me in charge of the group when they moved away.

·

As a result I used to meet up with various shamanic drumming circle and didgeridoo types who also used the technique to work and play what some of the didge’ players called [Aboriginal] Dreamtime (or others call the Collective Unconscious according to the psychologist Jung), and I mentored a Free Dive competitor (as dives as deep as possible without an oxygen tank) who had studied it with a well renowned Yogi a few years previously (and needed some of the tech stuff explaining involving the plains of embodiment, and how to avoid the plain of disembodiment of course). It was all birds of a mystical / metaphysical feather flocking together sort of thing.

·

I had heard a fair bit about Yogic breathing prior to the aforementioned so maybe check things out from that perspective, what with the Yoga thing being rather well known as a meditative practice.

·

As a warning though ~ so many people keep teaching Yogic breathing (and anatomy and physiology) incorrectly by describing the diaphragm as if it were a ‘muscle’ to breath with, rather than in fact it just being a ‘facia’, as which in the diaphragm’s case ~ is a band of connective tissue (primarily consisting of collagen) that fastens, stabilizes, encloses and separates the muscles and internal organs of the lower and upper torso. It is like people are looking at one part of an operating system and attributing all the functionality of that system that one part. Using the diaphragm directly to breath with can actually do damage to it in terms of distending it, or otherwise is just guaranteed to cause increasingly lower oxygenation and progressively higher asphyxiation!?!

·

Here though is link I found to heart centred breathing techniques that may in part at least answer your question:

https://www.northatlanticbooks.com/blog/6-essential-heart-centered-breathing-exercises-to-treat-anxiety/

Chameleon said:

Something I struggle with in relation to breathing strategies is that when I focus on my breath and how I’m breathing, I find I almost get anxious or start to hyper-ventilate.

Well in terms of focusing on getting into conscious, mindful or attentive breathing ~ it involves starting something new, which is anxiety triggering for many autistic people given our propensity for catastrophic ideation (negative thinking) and executive function disorders (spontaneous planning or adaptation problems), as more usually we are only really comfortable with things once we know what is practically involved and how we ourselves actually deal with them.

·

In addition to being anxious about engaging in new activities, there also are the unconscious and subconscious states of experiential awareness (as mentioned previously in my post above) that in some respects we may never have been associated with ~ such as those locked away in the proverbial darkness of our unconscious (that should not be sought out and must only be dealt with if they come to be dealt with), and the historical backlog of our traumatically disassociated experiences as are stored in our subconscious (as our historical shadows or old ghosts) ~ which of course your preconscious body-mind relationship was registering or does register for you with a sense of anxiety and hyper-ventilation (as recollections).

·

Keep in mind that the unconscious as our proverbial darkness can involve more aggression and is referred in psychology as the Id, and in theological and general terms is the Beast, and is the inspiration for all nightmares and horror stories about being hunted and killed ~ or haunted and possessed. The function of the Id or Beast is to at least threaten others to protect ourselves or at most kill others in order to survive ourselves or protect those near and dear to us, as being therefore a defence.

·

If though we have over time mimicked others in terms of attacking or harming ourselves, what with being bullied and all that, the Id or Beast may not only defend us from others but may attack us too in our dreams and through our feelings and thoughts. For those as such afflicted ~ learning how to deal with the anxious shadows prepares us for the terrifying aspects of the darkness, as the Id or Beast only gets triggered when we are in pain or in any sense short of breath or getting asphyxiated. So as we learn to reintegrate ourselves we learn as such to tame the beast sort of thing.

·

In a sense it may be that your body-mind relationship was reminding you then that you left these experiences behind for a good reason, and you may as such be returning for that good reason, i.e., to heal yourself or recover your selves. Obviously therapy is optional but if circumstances dictate knowledge is the means to recovery and all that involving self empowerment.

·

Due to having nominal (or anomic) aphasia and continually forgetting names, I took the opportunity to see if a Yoga practitioner might know the name of the breathing technique, but they said it was advanced stuff they were not familiar with in terms of the nomenclature. I did though ask about the anxious breathing thing and they recommended that you try perhaps the following technique either seated or laying down:

Yoga Three Part Breath

(This instructor here has got spot-on perfect breathing technique, in that her shoulders stay level and do not raise with inhalations or fall with exhalations ~ as is the case with anxious diaphragmatic breathers.)

·

And if the anxiety and hyper-ventilation thing keeps kicking off ~ they said give this technique a go:

Gain Clarity with this Simple Yoga Breathing Exercise

If you still get anxious though, you may need a mentor to distract you from the anxiety and guide and reassure you possibly. It can help for instance to have some rather pleasant music on the go whilst learning the practice or perhaps even give tonal chanting a go ~ as the breath work is more externally orientated with the vocalisations, so you can come to ‘tones’ (normally terms) with your breathing and anxieties a lot easier possibly.

Chameleon said:

I was once told I have arhythmical breathing, and it may be down to that - but I’m now also wondering if the arhythmical breathing could be an autism related challenge.

This could well be the case, being that we on the spectrum are much more instinctively integrated through our personality embodiments ~ involving the Freeze, Flight, Hide and Fight reflex being our neurological body-mind set ~ hence our tendency to be habitually set in our ways with much more focused sensibilities (even if they are flitting about with ADHD).

·

With then ego-states being compulsively driven fragmentations of our developmental experiences, reliving them in habituated sequences as different and disparate metabolic rates of anxiety ~ breathing arrhythmia might very much as such be expected.

Chameleon said:

Do you perhaps have any insight related to arhythmia?

Well providing (if you have them) the hypochondriac ego-states are safely tucked up in their hospital beds and contentedly dreaming of having caught the latest diseases or developed the rarest conditions, make sure that heart arrhythmia does not as a condition apply to you via the following link:

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/heart-arrhythmia/symptoms-causes/syc-20350668

Aside from arrhythmia of the heart, another consideration could be from the long term health sense of things physiologically ~ given that the anxiety / hypertension thing with autism involves increased stress hormones, sweating and mineral and tissue salt deficiency. Dehydration results being that tissue-salts hold water in the cellular organisations of the body, which of course has quite a bearing on electromagnetic impulses through the nervous and organ systems of the body ~ as therefore effects the heart beat and breathing rhythms. I mean if cells are appropriately hydrated, they will be elastic and conductive enough to carry charges and effect movement accordingly.

·

Maybe if dehydration is relevant ~ try ‘Pink Mountain’ Pink Himalayan Salt for the mineral side of things food prep’ wise available from most health food shops, and one of the full combination range versions of tissue-salts such as from the Schuessler brand at Holland and Barret, maybe. Or perhaps if you happen to live near a salty mineral spring such as Bath, Droitwich, Glastonbury, Leamington Spa, Upwich or similar, take some empty bottles and use the water as a mouth wash as the tissue salts get readily absorbed through the gums.

·

If though the gentle and deep breathing exercise is more as an autistic challenge for you to complete, and you are ready to begin reintegrating those experientially disassociated anxieties and hyperventilations ensconced away in the subconscious ~ start with small steps and tread carefully, and, most importantly, compassionately.

·

Perhaps practice doing one inhalation and exhalation at a time using regular intervals on a daily or weekly basis, so that you can progressively acclimatise and adjust to dealing with those anxious ego-states without overwhelming yourself ~ keeping in mind also that pelvic floor breathing is natural and provides about sixty percent more oxygen than breathing diaphragmatically.

·

When doing breath work avoid heavy lifting with hefty breaths ~ the lighter the better to begin with especially with sixty percent more oxygenation involved! Getting light-headedly dizzy whilst anxious can be ameliorative but there is rather a difference between getting oxygen tipsy and oxygen drunk, and the latter with anxiety and hyperventilation could just make things worse for you.

·

If breath work is not at first or even at all relevant for you, you might find another TA book perhaps useful by way of analytical process work in terms of, ‘Homecoming: Reclaiming and Healing Your Inner Child’ [by] John Bradshaw:

Using a wealth of practical techniques, informative case histories and unique questionnaires, John Bradshaw demonstrates how your wounded inner child may be causing you pain. You'll learn to gradually, safely, go back to reclaim and nurture that inner child - and literally help yourself grow up again. Homecoming shows you how to:

Validate your inner child through meditations and affirmations
Give your child permission to break destructive family roles and rules
Adopt new rules allowing pleasure and honest self-expression
Deal with anger and difficult relationships
Pay attention to your innermost purpose and desires...and find new joy and energy in living.

Or another analytical work involving relationship issues of having more Child to Parent or Parent to Child interactions with loved ones etcetera, rather than balanced Adult to Adult interactions, maybe check out ‘Partnering: A New Kind of Relationship’ [by] Hal Stone and Sidra L. Stone:

Famed therapists Hal and Sidra Stone show readers how to turn their relationships into true "joint ventures" - ones in which partners balance their need for relationship with their need for individuality, relinquish judgment and criticism, improve their decision-making and communication abilities, celebrate their sensuality and sexuality, and include children in their lives without sacrificing their own relationship. The Stones' greatest contribution has been revealing the many selves that make up our personalities. In this book, they show how those selves impact our relationships, and they offer both general concepts and specific tips that will help couples of all kinds succeed.

Chameleon said:

thank you

My pleasure.