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Sameness and it’s relationship to Sensory-sensitivity in Autism

DeSpereaux

I had a conversation with a parent in the week about how; my proclivity to automatically think negative- thoughts, is related to and aggravated by my dislike of change.

The thought was: An amalgamation of my general CBT experience and my recent research into repetitive-action in autism.  
The parent asked whether the stance I had was based in autism-literature, I couldn’t answer them directly, my only thoughts were my-own-anecdotes and my knowledge of CBT and Autism separate of each other. 

When I used to work in high-stress environments, I used to build my routines around avoidance, and I used to say that my ‘ikegai’ (reason for getting up the morning) was because I needed the toilet.
I used to make and find stability in things that I created to preserve the bottom-line and to reduce anxiety, these safety-behaviours then became a source of stability, to improve my mental-health I had to give up a safety-behaviour and a repetitive-action both.

I was wondering what the community thought of this matter? I have found that the literature is very sparse on this, where it is mentioned, it is clear that the findings are not clear-cut. Perhaps anecdotal-testimonies will illuminate what the literature fails to prove..:)

Parents

  • To further the sensory-sensitivity aspect, sometimes I feel as if I have too many senses to process, or I have too little sense where I feel that I should have it.

    When I was working in high-stress I would sometimes feel numb, and seek to be stimulated by something in order to pay attention, or I would feel too much and seek to reduce stimulation.
    After a while my repeated-stresses turned into routines, that was based on avoiding a stressors, but they would limit my growth and guarantee a constant low-mood.

    For example I had a problem where, I would always be overstimulated by the start of a phone-call, so I would make a script to get through the start of the call so I could guarantee a smooth start. 
    Another example would be that, I always used to be disinterested in work so my mind would wander, so I used to make myself uncomfortable so I was always near overstimulated. 
    Eventually, all of these strategies turned into repetitive and restrictive behaviours, so found it even more difficult to be in a positive mood. I made a routine of negative automatic thought, and even to the point where I always bent a positive into a negative, just to keep up the will to mask.

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  • To further the sensory-sensitivity aspect, sometimes I feel as if I have too many senses to process, or I have too little sense where I feel that I should have it.

    When I was working in high-stress I would sometimes feel numb, and seek to be stimulated by something in order to pay attention, or I would feel too much and seek to reduce stimulation.
    After a while my repeated-stresses turned into routines, that was based on avoiding a stressors, but they would limit my growth and guarantee a constant low-mood.

    For example I had a problem where, I would always be overstimulated by the start of a phone-call, so I would make a script to get through the start of the call so I could guarantee a smooth start. 
    Another example would be that, I always used to be disinterested in work so my mind would wander, so I used to make myself uncomfortable so I was always near overstimulated. 
    Eventually, all of these strategies turned into repetitive and restrictive behaviours, so found it even more difficult to be in a positive mood. I made a routine of negative automatic thought, and even to the point where I always bent a positive into a negative, just to keep up the will to mask.

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