Published on 12, July, 2020
I've decided to try and explore Autism from a "How it works" or perhaps "Systems analyisis" perspective.
I hope that perhaps between us we can codify a set of insights that will eb genrally helpful to the wider community.
Going to start with sound sensitivity, because it's a sense I've used and explored a lot as a hi-fi buff and as a babysitter for a screaming sibling so I have a little bit of insght I believe.
Here's what I think I know:
In me, (I believe I'm AUDD) processing sound seems to require an amount of mental bandwidth and attention that I do not always have availalble. When I am committed to whatever is in front of me, using all my focus, I generally miss the first part of the conversation. As a kid I had my ears syringed a lot because they thought I was "a bit deaf"
In my teens I discovered that combining hyperfocus with listening, really listening, to a piece of music bought me rich rewards whilst passing teh time in a way that did not bring down trouble on my head, BUT there was a downside. I really don't like having my listening sessions interrrupted, so I had to pick my time and place.
Then I discovered that I cannot drive and talk very well at the same time. And when things get busy in the driivng experience (fog, or other complications) I tend to turn off the music first. If I'm speeding excessively, there will be no music...
I believe certain sounds "trigger" an abrupt requirement for "processing power" in some way and it's literally an unpleasant experience for us, and curiously enough, the louder the sound, the more call for "processing time" which I experience (with a slamming door fro example as an actual "Shock to the system".
I provide an example from my personal life today which clearly ilustrates where my Autism made me an "unpleasant person to be around" as a result of this process.
I was minding my own business, when I was tasked with feeding a cat. I enter the living room to do this focussed on getting to the food without tripping over the little bugger who both demands and impedes the process at the same time. (it's the way he's wired, I have to cope) and he's making repetitve noise at me, when there's a really substantial sounding clattering noise from my G/F's part of the room. I completely overreact, furiously demanding to know "What the *** was that" at the top of my voice. She kindly explains it was her new mobile phone and I switch gears then to being concerned about her poor phone and I pick it up for her and inspect it for damage quickly. The noise it made really sounded like it should have broken, but thankfully it did not.
Unexpected sounds with a sharp rise time command a "fight or flight" reflex in me, which instantly overwhelms my reason until I have identified the nature of the sound.
Conversation then places a burden on me which temporarily makes my I.Q. plummet into the eighties. I'm only skipping away on the edge of the I.Q. bellcurve if I don't actually have to discuss things whilst I do them.
When I get up in the morning, I find that my brain, like my muscles is quite low performing, and EVERYTHING is difficult for a while for about an hour. I've noticed this is a feature also in my ND kid and my father.
Ear defenders seem to give me more bandwidth and because they roll off the "sharper rise times" very well are pretty good for me to wear, and improve my demeanor no end when performing tasks, but I keep forgetting this!
Now, does anyone out there relate to any of this and can you expand on it and ideally strategies I can follow to react less to such sounds?
Makes sense to me! Especially where you find a demand for processing means you feel your iq drops. I've heard using the ear plugs that block a certain amount of sound can help this.
On other thing though , adrenaline response in all humans diverts all power to essential functions to speed those up, so in some circumstances it might be that kicking in, on a pm course years ago the phrase "panic makes you stupid" was used when describing that fight or flight mode reducing cognitive ability.
I'll throw in my thoughts on how we process things generally, not just sounds but I think they all follow a similar pattern...
I work in IT and often relate to how tech works, essentially it follows certain natural and mathematical laws that we all must follow, our brains are computers.
The way I see things is that our autism means each area that processes anything does more work as it's processing more intensely. Due to us being more sensitive to input or that we also process things in more detail this overhead all adds up. Also, the layer of processing we add by masking, always double checking what we think or say is an extra overhead.
End result is we use more processing power, to which there is a limit at any one time. so we start to "queue" thoughts or focus on priority thoughts when we're maxed out. This also means we use more energy so are more tired, fatigued etc. generally finding that everything seems to take more effort for us than it would for NT people.