Hello,
As per the title, I’m just super tired of being overstimulated and I don’t quite know how to help myself to either prevent/reduce the effects in the future. I accept that not everyday is gonna be a good day and there will of course be days where I will get overstimulated and crash. I guess I’m ok with that. I can only ride those waves right? However, I sometimes feel that the ways I go about reducing/preventing overstimulation makes me distance myself from my friends -even though they are literally right in front of me! I really treasure these friends I have now because this is the first friend group I have been a part of ever and I would never want to ruin this dynamic I have with them. They too have autism. It’s really difficult for me to juggle being present for my friends and also to try and bury my dislike and stress towards stimuli. It just sucks the life force away from me and is just not a nice experience or feeling.
To give a short example story, I had my college’s end of year show last night. It was a really nice occasion to see everyone’s work on display with tutors, craftsmen and businessmen joining students in viewing work. It was just a lovely evening.
obviously, I went to this with my 2 parents. We took the same usual route I go on to get to college - mainly because that is the most efficient route and so I don’t get lost. As daft as it sounds, if I don’t use the same route which I’ve been shown by someone else before, I get pretty disoriented and lost. Because my 2 parents with me, I couldn’t wear my noise cancelling headphones which made things pretty difficult for me on the journey in, all the overlapping noise and the humming from the compressors on the ac units on the train and platform were simply stress inducing. I made it to college but it took a lot of effort to try and bury my discomfort so I don’t spoil the evening for my parents whilst secretly stimming on the way.
I met up with my friends and we went around viewing both our work and other people’s work in the college. It was super nice. What topped it off was the crowd, because there were so many people packed into such a tight space, it was incredibly stressful and even harder to try and bury my discomfort. My friends could see I was visibly distressed as I normally begin to cross arms and start rubbing/scratching my outer wrist which I try to resist doing. When I get like this I require such strong input - normally pain based - to the point I have to stop myself before I do myself harm or get my friends to hold something I care about ransom so I stop. Some of my friends were also finding it overwhelming, so shortly after the welcoming speeches we headed outside and waited for the crowds to die down and came back a bit later.
After a while we went home, the journey was a lot quieter which was good. But I felt absolutely horrible. Probably the worst I’ve ever felt. I can only describe this feeling as a fuse being burst or a short circuit. I had no energy to do anything except sleep. It was challenging to try and appear more spritely for my parents on the way back while they were talking about the show. I’m even more concerned about my friends, whether I’ve just spoilt the evening for them or whether I’ve ruined my friendships with them.
Then when I did wanna go and rest, which was 40 minutes after I got home, the “after-stress” set in. I probably laid on the floor of my bedroom for 3 hours listening to loud music/listening to my comfort show in the dark trying to calm down and go to sleep as I was almost wired? I was very stressed out over what happened despite the cause not being there?
I don’t know anymore, there is just so many variables it’s just overwhelming. I feel pretty terrible incase I’ve ruined anything for my parents or friends.
Do any of you lovely wise people have any advice?
