The room was large, a concrete block walled room with minimal furnishing. Groups of people scattered around chatting, a movie playing with volume reasonably loud. Babies and toddlers at play and at war with each other. Many conversations flow. Many people engaged in their conversations and clearly enjoying the social interactions they are having.
Some sit alone, doing jigsaw puzzles or engaging in colouring in pictures, seemingly oblivious to the echo chamber experience that is currently my life.
Strands of conversations bounce around and pass in and out of my conscious thoughts, lines from the film do the same, a person talks to me in the midst of it and it is nigh impossible to comprehend what they are wanting to communicate to me. The squeals of babies cause 
pain to my head as they pierce through my ears and seem to reverberate around my skull.
It’s like being assaulted by sound echoing in every direction with constantly changing velocity around my head, my brain, my consciousness. It is a real physical pain. It may sound strange but it really is like a physical thing, just as maintaining eye contact strangely causes physical pain.
It’s like an echo chamber in a sense, yet a true echo is far more predictable. One of my most favourite places in the world is a little place in Katoomba NSW Australia called echo point. It is a lookout at the iconic Australian landmark of The Three Sisters. Hear you can confidently shout out a word and experience it predictably come back to you, hence the name of the place. You stand overlooking the picturesque Megalong Valley, it is a perfect bowl to create this effect. Even with many people partaking in the experience it is not like the experience of being in a crowded room, a busy café or restaurant. It is far easier being in that real echo place.
Many times over my life I have indulged in yelling Cooeee over that valley and enjoying the experience of it bouncing back to me. The experience of being in this room however is not one of enjoyment but of pain, of frustration, of developing overload and testing of my ability to not respond inappropriately to the sensory input that assaults me.
I know that oftentimes I do respond inappropriately to these situations. I allow myself to get to a point of not being able to bear it any longer resulting in a small explosion of frustration. Unfortunately what is an expression of frustration to me is experienced by others as an experience of aggression and anger. It is never meant to be such, yet that is how it is experienced by others.
I do believe that myself, and probably others too, as autistics could do better and managing the rising storm within us in these situations. It is a terrible feeling which compounds on the already difficult situation to see that you have evoked fear and loathing in others after you respond out of overwhelm.
I don’t pretend to know the answer to this but I feel that perhaps it is a two-pronged response that is needed. We autistics need to continue to communicate the difficulties experienced and the likely responses they will result in. The second prong of the response is that accommodation and understanding by others needs to improve.
For as long as autistics and others are snickered upon for wearing of ear defenders and ear plugs and headphones, for as long as autistics feel that others believe they should just suck it up and deal with it and just tune it out we will continue to have this issue. I as an autistic need non autistics to hear and understand that sensory overload such as this is not just a mild annoyance, it is a very difficult and impacting and often debilitating experience.
Personally the experience is debilitating in that I temporarily lose, or at least have great difficulty, accessing my spoken language to effectively communicate the difficulties I am experiencing. I think it is in overcoming this difficulty that is in large part a major contributor to my explosive response.
I wonder what your thoughts are on this…
Please comment, like, and share…
Another beautiful exposition. Thank you for sharing.
The human brain can only take so much information in at one time. I have uncovered in my research that the sensory motor cortex of the brain, as well as all of the input nerves from the sensory organs
lack well-formed inhibitory synapse feedback routes. On top of this, during neurodevelopment, different
parts of the brain with different functions can be cross-wired during development, causing the sensorimotor cortex appears to be interpreting input signals (information) as action signals (to move). I apologize for the use of the term ‘cross-wiring’ but it really is the best description: we are all wired during development. This only effects a percentage of autistics, but many must be working harder than the rest of us to not react.
I was once in a museum visit on sensory overload; there were 12 televisions playing, radios tuned to different stations, fans whirring at odd angles; the walls were different colors and had unmatched, disorganized hangings. The furniture did not match, and there was furniture from different rooms, all arranged together (kitchen, living room), etc. The challenge was to see how long one could sit in one spot. I did not last long; it was total sensory overload. I was surprised at the emotion that experince aroused in me. Perhaps you can guess? I felt anger. Beyond frustration. I believe the reaction is normal, it is the input and the processing that can be helped by limiting confusion and noise. Perhaps an website that presents sensory overload would be useful to help educate the public?
We know a great deal more about autism than most people are aware. Perhaps the most important of these is that it costs nothing to be kind and considerate to those with the autism experience. Being direct, straightforward helps; keeping rooms elegantly arranged, and clear of clutter no doubt helps, too. There is nothing wrong with routine, it is one way for life to be organized. It’s really about respecting their preferences, and never confusing them with controlling behaviors.
I am not autistic nor have I ever met someone that is so I don’t know from experience what kind of overload you experience but I can relate from a different point of rference. I am an empath, I feel what everyone around me is feeling. It took me a long time to learn how to separate my emothions form everyone elses so I can protect myself a little but some days it’s physically painful If I am in a situation that I can’t just walk away from it’s torture.
I used to think I was broken somehow but not anymore because we all brought something to this lifetime that makes us unique and that is a beautiful thing. The issue is the people that think there is something wrong with us. I wish those people could take a turn being an empath for a day or autistic for a day or any other way they think is broken. Perhaps they would learn compassion and unconditional love.
I’ve found that people who have known me only when i’ve been in command of myself changed their attitude to me when due to overload I ‘ fell apart” and could not function as i previously had done… it seemed that they thought they had been cheated… or that I’d been pretending to be intelligent and articulate…
Somehow I took on a feeling of “Guilt” or was it “Shame” for being inarticulate and the sensory chaos continued driving me out of that space and I knew not why… it wasn’t the first time and not the last .. I didn’t know I was autistic, just that it was difficult to appear to be as others and I always was found to be ” a fraud”… I dreaded the time when I would be found out to be “not normal” and rejected .
Now, diagnosed and accepting my autism I still dread the sensory overload that passes for ambience in the mainstream world… it is difficult to find places that I can enjoy being in and participate in the external world.
When people become excited about the prospect of attending this or that venue I feel conspicuous in my lack of enthusiasm and polite refusal of an invitation. “kill joy” “stick in the mud” “partypooper” are expressions that come to mind that I”ve heard others use to describe those who don’t join in.. a dismissive sentiment.