I’m a SUPER FREAK this morning. I am pretty sure my youngest has restless leg syndrome. And he definitely talks, moans, and moves a whole lot in his sleep. Oh, yes…..traveling once again, and so very much reminded of my human condition. This time an eleven hour drive to California with my three boys, ages ten, thirteen, and fourteen…..oh boy! Literally!
Just pulled this writing up from early May 2012. Today, again, having slept in a hotel (sigh) I am dealing with much overload, lack of sleep, exhaustion, and grumpiness. Hope to have a happier disposition tomorrow after a decent night’s sleep. If you see a woman having a meltdown on the side of Highway 5 in California…that would be super freak me!
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On the first day of our trip to the Island of Maui, I was reminded of my over sensitive system. I hadn’t imagined the plane fight would be such an unpleasant experience. I’d forgotten, or more likely, I’d hoped for change.
Many people with Aspergers, if not all, are extremely sensitive. They feel emotions and feelings in great depth. Likewise, their senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell are very acute. Often, a person experiences sensory overload when he or she is outside his everyday environment. In some cases, home or perhaps nature, are the only places that are tolerable to the senses. Outside of the comfort zone, a person with Aspergers can likely feel an overwhelming degree of agitation, pain, and misery. This is one of the reasons I prefer to spend more time at home than in public places. Sensory overload can lead to meltdowns—which are akin to adult tantrums—a screaming out for help, when one does not know how to help one’s self.
In considering sound, where many people can block out background noise and focus without distraction, people with sensory sensitivities hear everything at once. There is no mute button. And there is no making the noise stop, beyond earplugs and escape.
The other senses work the same. Textures irritate. Smells overwhelm and overtake. Sights hurt. And even the taste of air is unpleasant.
It appears there is something about the Asperger’s sensory and processing system that cause people to sense things in the environment in segmented over-exaggerated parts, instead of whole. Instead of looking upon a crowd and seeing a crowd, one looks upon a multitude of bombarding shapes and sizes, each movement as uncomfortable to view as the next.
People with sensory sensitivities are acutely aware of everything happening in their environment and everything seems to be occurring all at once. There isn’t release. What would be a soft unnoticeable hum to one becomes a piercing roar to the other. It is as if someone has turned up the volume of every single sensory organ.
There is no relaxation, only the constant stream of shards—parts of chatter, parts of the ticking clock, parts of the rattling and hum. There are parts of smells, all sorted out and classified, not mingled, not forgotten. There are parts of tastes—the breath, the air, the fragrances, the poisons chemicals. Sights are in parts. Fragmented pieces that attempt to make a whole, but fail. A face not remembered except as shape of wrinkled wide nose and color of dark narrow eyes. Even the mind is in parts, continually breaking down wholes to subsections. Whole to parts is easy. Parts to whole is hard. Nothing is as it appears. Everything is in parts. It is the parts that bring agony, the endless parts that bring with them the impossibility of finding retreat in the whole.
With my sensory sensitivities, the six-hour ride in the airplane to Maui was torturous. No mind control, mantras, visualization, or distractions could stop the parts. And lacking the ability to help myself, sank me into self-blame. I sat in misery wishing to time travel into sweet oblivion. I became depleted, agitated, and depressed. Meltdown was avoided, but angry eyes prevailed.
The worst was the piercing babies’ cries. There were at least ten babies on the plane. There wasn’t a time when one wasn’t screaming.
I did find refuge. I had my words. I could write. I could escape through the process of creating images, feelings, and thoughts into story. Words were my parachute and freedom, a passport away from the screaming shards.
Cry from the Sky
Imploded
Without retreat
Saturated misery
Roots into ear
Vine out
Crumpling, tearing, crackling paper
The rhythmic off beat dance murdering peace
Stop!
Bring silence
Opening cans, clanging carts, annoying repetitive footsteps
Bumping in front, bumping in back
An uninvited rollercoaster
No escape
The babies scream and scream again
Piercing thorns
Constant chatter, whispers, sighs
Conversations bleed into a monster of noise
Roaring engine rattles fury
Even the yawns scream
Squishing and swishing misshapen bodies
Stench
Stale garbage
One hundred meals at once
Beyond window, the fresh and silence beckons
A tease of the unattainable
Aches, irritations, stiffness, icy cold
Suffocating soreness
More bumping, more banging
Nothing is calm
Nothing is motionless
Everything moving
Everything in parts
One broken into a thousand
Question after question
Comment after comment
Trapped in stinging air
Recycled germs everywhere
Breathing in danger
Stop. Shut up. Cease
Release me
Put a cork in the child’s mouth
Put a muzzle on the man
Put a mute light on
STOP MOVING!
Energy spikes, energy flows, energy feeds
Energy spirals, burrows, pangs
Into self
Close eyes
Close noise
Close people
Close the outside
Focus on inside
Focus on calm
And still the babe screams
“Help me!”
Everyday Asperger's 
Brilliant Sam
This is amazing right here
quoting you
“People with sensory sensitivities are acutely aware of everything happening in their environment and everything seems to be occurring all at once. There isn’t release. What would be a soft unnoticeable hum to one becomes a piercing roar to the other. It is as if someone has turned up the volume of every single sensory organ.” Sam
Love xx
Cat
Thanks pretty, sweet Cat….I feel like that right now…going to escape the hotel with my three wild boys, now!!!!! Hugs and love to you, Sunshine 🙂 Sam
🙂 xo Love
Oh dear SS Sam … we will need to conference on this as I am exactly the way you describe… Sensory Sensitivity to the MAX!!! In every single way… very hard to survive in the world with this issue. I just came back from a half day at the university medical center and literally had to shut the florescent lights off in the examining room — overload to my nervous system. Noise — well… we need to talk. You don’t think I may have Aspergers… right? Travel is impossible right now due to the physical limitations… but even prior to that — I had all the issues you discuss…and have highlighted in your brilliant poem.. yes those baby screams!!! Our husbands can chat too I’m sure… Praying you get to relax and enjoy CA ~ going to take your literary work (yesterday’s post) to the beach right now and savor it 🙂 xo
Yes, Skype conference in order…when I get over my fear of skyping…lol…. You are too funny with all these things in common!! hmmmmmmmmmm??? What do you think?? 😉
I hope you loved the beach!!! I just got the book Shades of Gray (Grey?)….eroctica…lol.
You are such a gem in my life. I’m in CA and told my friends about you! Had such a grand time visitng with Stef yesterday. My brain is tired after driving today…hope I made sense. HUGS sea sister ~ Sam 🙂
oh my goodness… my husband just told me about that book YESTERDAY — guess they were talking about it at the twins birthday party (the grown-ups) LOL!! I am so out of the loop. It may be a summer read for me… or may download audio so I can walk with it. Yes – just skyped with a dear hip friend tonight. She’s the only one I do that with, but with sea-sister now – may be a good plan for us.
Hope you had fun today — brought your chapter and left in car — so still will read tomorrow! xxoo Nighty Night Sam!
Oh….I just found out about Shades of Grey last week….my neighbor and I are reading…he he….so unlike me…can’t wait. Hugs to you!!! 🙂
:(((( I understand this so well samtastic…This is not fun and truly awful….I’m so sorry you deal with this:((( sending you healing hugs…muahhh
Hi Sir D. Nice to see you here… so unexpected…he he 😉 It’s okay on many days…just every once in awhile! Yikes…bring me to a cave, please! Loved the healing hugs. Many thanks. And thanks for being you. 🙂 Sam
I despised the plane ride back and forth to Maui – horrid and I was especially destroyed by turbulence! But I hope this will be followed by another post about the peace you found once you got off the plane!! xoxo
If the kids and sensory overload and all of it are not too too much, call me!!!! I will meet you for a nice tea or coffee! Lots of love to you my friend! xo
I’m not writing a follow up post…but you can review my erotic poetry to get a sense of Maui Magic…LOL!!! he he… just kidding.
I wrote myself a note to call you. I think you have my phone # too. Talk soon.
Lots of love to you, too. Sam, like only like a few miles like from you in CA…he he 🙂
Left you my # on FB message! 🙂
When I was teaching, I had one student whom I really liked, but he did have Aspergers, and this made things rough. I learned a lot and we are still friends, but I wish I had read this post back then. You explained it all so very well.
Scott
Thanks Scott… I wasn’t sure how it all came out, but I’m glad it made some sense. Great comment. Much appreciated. 🙂
I understand this just a little. I have a dissociative disorder. Hyper-awareness to my environment is most stressful. At times I feel as though I am carrying a radio telescope and receiver on my back collecting information I can’t possibly process. Your poem expresses it well. Thanks.
Thank you for commenting…..oh, that sounds like it alright…the radio telescope and receiver collecting information. Wishing you days of peace. 🙂 Sam
Oh Sam, I couldn’t have described it better myself! As I read your post I felt it all. Just returning from Las Vegas I feel your pain. Hang in there and I hope that you get a few minutes to yourself! Drive safe.
Thanks so much! I am at my mom’s now. So driving is all done!! Yay! Tired……sleepy…..Yawn!!! Hugs to you. 🙂 Sam
yup, that’s me, too…super freak…super sensitive…{{hugs}} glad to know you made it to CA okay…thanks for sharing this, Sam 🙂 🙂 love it!!!! and sharing it, too 🙂 🙂 happy 4th!!!!
Happy 4th Lovely Lady!! 🙂 Hugs!!!
OMGOSH….How did I miss this post?
You are so right, my “ASD on the bus” poem is similar to your “Cry from the Sky”
We are so very alike aren’t we…I haven’t read the top bit yet, I need to go to bed now.
Love you loads. Me. xxx 🙂 ❤
Just posted new blog with photos. Night Night. :)))
Oh ok, I’m just having a hot chocolate I’ll look at your new post before going to bed. 🙂
PHOTOS is so easy for me….I do love photos. xxx 🙂 ))