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can you get sensory overload from thoughts?

eyeswideopen

Hi,

I have very bad ocd as one of my co-morbidities and with that comes a lot of intrusive thoughts. These thoughts make me stim a lot and hit myself and pull on my hair and I was wondering if this is sensory overload? I am very recently diagnosed so I’m just trying to find out what my feelings mean. But can thoughts cause sensory overload?

  • idk exactly what you mean by intrusive thoughts. for  me, i'm constantly thinking, sometimes i just inundate myself with information, sometimes about my latest interest. i think this can be overstimulating, and to turn my brain off i sometimes self medicate, esp in the evening. i think in the daytime, my thoughts run wild, and in the evening, my brain has trouble stopping. also, how one takes in information can be over stimulating... for me, visual, since i'm on the net or reading a lot. i've only started stimming, and i notice when it is triggered by anxiety. you might need to connect those dots. it might help to figure out your sensitivities, such as light, sound, etc, and mitigate them. sometimes the delight of information inundation lets one just disregard how other senses might be getting slammed. 

    there's a holistic eye technique called the bates method, about 1920. might look at that as a way to calm your visual senses, which will help calm the entire body. it'snot for everyone......

  • I have diagnosed OCD and ASD and can say that from my experience this is definitely the case for me

  • yes, in theory, I mean sensory input and looping thoughts both end up in your head as impulses.  I have not yet seen research that indicates OCD with autism causes results in more or less sensory overloads. 

    Sounds pretty awful.

    My OCD is very very mild, but is just enough to make me thankful I dont have OCD in a major way like you. 

  • YES!! For years on end in some cases... That's why a special interest is a MUST