People Don’t Understand Sensory Pain

lavender-sprinkles:

A lot of neurotypicals don’t understand how intensely we autistics feel things and how overwhelming sensations can literally be painful for us because there is no other way for our mind to translate it.

People think I’m exaggerating when I say something like “I was touched suddenly on my arm and it felt so bad I immediately wanted to chop it off.”, but I guarantee you that a lot of autistics know just how much truth is in that sentiment. We wouldn’t actually chop our arm off (at least, I hope not!), but sometimes we experience such an extreme level of discomfort that actual harm seems like a favorable option to rid ourselves of it.

There are many things we experience in this world that neurotypicals think are outlandish and made up because they don’t experience it. If I told somebody on the street that we should eradicate all tags from clothing because they are painful and irritating, they would look at me like I had two heads. But many times in my life I have scratched up my skin until I bled because a tag or a badly sewn seam felt like a hot metal poker brushing up against me.

Too often, meltdowns are interpreted as tantrums in autistic kids, and autistic adults who have them are considered immature or unstable. Time and again we have to explain to neurotypicals that we aren’t pitching a fit, and it’s really frustrating because all they can see is us crying and hitting our heads and our outbursts of anger. They don’t see how overwhelmed we are; they can’t hear that incessant beeping in the other room; they don’t know that we’ve had a headache since this morning and medicine didn’t help; they can’t feel the raging anxiety about that one event coming up soon. But telling them that these things are happening doesn’t count as an explanation of the meltdown to them, and sometimes it just gives them a worse idea of us.

Even if neurotypicals don’t enjoy some sensations–bright lights in their eyes, for example–their brain doesn’t interpret it as much more than an annoyance unless it’s at a severe enough level to cause physical damage. But if I’m exposed to bright lights, my eyes will sting and can feel sensitive for days afterward, and I have to wear sunglasses indoors to be able to function normally with the pain.

There are very few sensory pains out there that are a universal experience regardless of neurotype, like nails on a chalkboard, bitter cold, or getting wet when you didn’t want to be. The difference for us is that recovery time after the initial experience (and the following resolution) can take much longer. That screeching chalkboard noise could still be hurting my ears hours later as much as it did when I first heard it.

Everyone experiences sensations differently from person to person, but just because one person says something is cold and another person says it’s hot doesn’t mean that one of them is wrong. People need to start believing us when we tell them that yes, it is that bad for us, without trying to test that fact or prove us wrong. The pain from bad sensations is very real and can be serious enough to cause trauma if we’re continually exposed to painful stimuli against our will.

People need to understand that even if they can’t experience what we go through, there is still truth to the reality of our sensations.

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Ok to Reblog!

Day 21 of Autism Acceptance Month 2018

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