The Unadulting Society

the fridge started making a slightly different humming noise and i had to leave my apartment and sit in my car for an hour. it was just... slightly higher pitched than usual. nobody else could hear the difference. my roommate thought i was insane.

Oh this is my favorite genre of story. Mine: I had a meltdown at a farmers market because someone was cooking onions nearby AND there was a street musician playing acoustic guitar AND the sun was at the exact wrong angle AND a child was crying somewhere AND the combination of smells and sounds and light made me feel like my skin was going to turn inside out. I left my half-purchased produce at the stall and speed-walked to my car and cried for 20 minutes. Over onions and guitar and sun.

@SoftSkyMarin THE COMBINATION. That's what gets me. One thing I can handle. But the onions PLUS the music PLUS the sun PLUS the crying child — that's four different sensory channels all screaming at once.

i cried in a target because they rearranged the whole store. i had a LIST. organized by aisle. and then nothing was where it was supposed to be and i just stood in the middle of the home goods section and sobbed.

I'm newly diagnosed and this thread is SO validating. My whole life I thought I was just dramatic. Last week I had to turn off the TV and sit in silence because the background music in a documentary was "too intense." It was a nature documentary. About penguins. The penguin documentary music was too much for me.

The thing about "ridiculous" overstimulation is that it's never actually about the sock or the hum or the onion. It's about cumulative load. The sock seam was just the final straw on a pile of sensory input that had been building all day. A neurotypical person's brain is filtering out 90% of that input automatically. Our brains aren't filtering — we're getting ALL of it, constantly, and the sock seam is just where the bucket overflows. My contribution: I once had to leave a family dinner because my uncle chews with his mouth open and the sound was echoing off the dining room walls and I was trying so hard to be polite but my entire being was screaming. I "went to the bathroom" and just stood there with my hands over my ears for 10 minutes.

a ceiling fan was clicking. it was a very quiet click. nobody else could hear it. i could not sleep for THREE DAYS because of the click. my landlord thought i was making it up. the maintenance guy finally came and tightened a screw and the click stopped and i wept with relief.

a tag on a shirt. i was at work. i had to go to the bathroom and cut it out with nail scissors i happened to have in my bag. now i carry small scissors everywhere. survival adaptation.

I want to add: the shame spiral AFTER the meltdown is sometimes worse than the meltdown itself. I can handle being overstimulated. What I can't handle is the voice in my head afterward going "you cried over a sock seam. you're 33 years old. what is WRONG with you?" Nothing is wrong with us. Our nervous systems are wired differently. The shame is the part I'm working on.

@noodle_arms The emergency tag scissors!! Yes!! I also have an "overstimulation kit" in my bag: earplugs, sunglasses, a soft stim toy, and scissors for tag emergencies.

I had a meltdown because my partner moved my stuffie. Just... moved it from the bed to the nightstand. But it was in the WRONG spot and it felt WRONG and I couldn't articulate why and I just kept saying "he doesn't go there" while crying. My partner was so confused and I was so embarrassed.

I'm 67 and I've never had language for this before. I thought I was just "high strung" my whole life. The radio in the car is too loud. The tags in clothes. The way wool feels. The overhead lights in department stores. I've been accommodating myself without knowing what it was called — I shop early in the morning, I wear only cotton, I keep my house quiet. Now I know I wasn't being fussy. I was autistic, and nobody told me.

the fridge started making a slightly different humming noise and i had to leave my apartment and sit in my car for an hour. it was just... slightly higher pitched than usual. nobody else could hear the difference. my roommate thought i was insane.

Oh this is my favorite genre of story. Mine: I had a meltdown at a farmers market because someone was cooking onions nearby AND there was a street musician playing acoustic guitar AND the sun was at the exact wrong angle AND a child was crying somewhere AND the combination of smells and sounds and light made me feel like my skin was going to turn inside out. I left my half-purchased produce at the stall and speed-walked to my car and cried for 20 minutes. Over onions and guitar and sun.

@SoftSkyMarin THE COMBINATION. That's what gets me. One thing I can handle. But the onions PLUS the music PLUS the sun PLUS the crying child — that's four different sensory channels all screaming at once.

The sock thing is SO REAL. Sock seams are the devil's handiwork. My worst one: I had a full shutdown in an IKEA because the lighting was too bright AND the arrows on the floor didn't make sense AND my wife wanted to look at EVERY SINGLE showroom AND a kid was running around screaming AND I couldn't find the exit. I sat down on a display couch and just... stopped functioning. For like 45 minutes. In an IKEA. My wife gets it now. She brings me noise-cancelling headphones and we have a "no more than 45 minutes in IKEA" rule.

@tentative_fern Penguin documentary music can be weirdly dramatic though?? I'm with you. 🐧

The thing about "ridiculous" overstimulation is that it's never actually about the sock or the hum or the onion. It's about cumulative load. The sock seam was just the final straw on a pile of sensory input that had been building all day. A neurotypical person's brain is filtering out 90% of that input automatically. Our brains aren't filtering — we're getting ALL of it, constantly, and the sock seam is just where the bucket overflows. My contribution: I once had to leave a family dinner because my uncle chews with his mouth open and the sound was echoing off the dining room walls and I was trying so hard to be polite but my entire being was screaming. I "went to the bathroom" and just stood there with my hands over my ears for 10 minutes.

a ceiling fan was clicking. it was a very quiet click. nobody else could hear it. i could not sleep for THREE DAYS because of the click. my landlord thought i was making it up. the maintenance guy finally came and tightened a screw and the click stopped and i wept with relief.

I want to add: the shame spiral AFTER the meltdown is sometimes worse than the meltdown itself. I can handle being overstimulated. What I can't handle is the voice in my head afterward going "you cried over a sock seam. you're 33 years old. what is WRONG with you?" Nothing is wrong with us. Our nervous systems are wired differently. The shame is the part I'm working on.

@marzipan_dreams The shame spiral is REAL. I've been replaying the sock incident since yesterday. "Why didn't I just put on different socks?" Because in that moment, my brain truly believed there were zero acceptable socks in the entire house. Logic doesn't live there.

i once had to leave a concert i'd paid $80 for because the bass was physically hurting my chest. not metaphorically — like it was actually causing me pain. my friends were like "isn't it supposed to feel like that?" and i was like "i don't think music is supposed to HURT you."

a tag on a shirt. i was at work. i had to go to the bathroom and cut it out with nail scissors i happened to have in my bag. now i carry small scissors everywhere. survival adaptation.

I had a meltdown because my partner moved my stuffie. Just... moved it from the bed to the nightstand. But it was in the WRONG spot and it felt WRONG and I couldn't articulate why and I just kept saying "he doesn't go there" while crying. My partner was so confused and I was so embarrassed.

@crayon_cryptid The "it felt WRONG and I couldn't articulate why" is the subtitle of my autobiography. Objects have homes. The homes are specific. Moving them is a violation. I get it.

@latebloomer_lydia Lydia, every time you post I want to give you a hug. You weren't fussy. You were autistic and nobody told you. That's the title of far too many of our stories.

This thread went from "haha sock seams" to "we are all processing decades of unrecognized sensory trauma" and I'm honestly here for it. Thank you all for sharing. I feel less ridiculous today.

The sock seam solidarity in this thread is healing something in me I didn't know needed healing. 🧦