Nonverbal is when the cognitive effort required to form words into sentences is too much to bear. Conversation is effortful even for neurotypicals at the best of times. Have you ever had a thrilling 3 hour conversation about philosophy with a friend and felt exhausted afterwards? For autistic people, the baseline effort is higher, and complicating factors are worse . Which topics are a minefield? What are the other person’s triggers? What idioms don’t mean what they seem to mean? How much introspection do I need to do to answer a simple ‘how are you’? Why does everything sound so loud? Do I have to answer questions right now? What’s the answer? How do I find out???
When I’m having a meltdown, there is nothing left in the tank that I can remove without compromising my ability to do things like “exist in the presence of light bulbs” or “not be upset by the fact I have hair”. I can either go to the effort of finding answers for my girlfriend when I’m exhausted, or I can just barely manage to not want to kill myself to escape the pressures of existence. Because every second of my life, the task of being okay with existing in the real world does take effort. Not much, but sometimes it’s the only thing I have energy left to do. Sometimes I don’t have the energy to do it.
Because every second of my life, the task of being okay with existing in the real world does take effort.
That’s rough. Is it possible to change the environment in some way so it bothers you less? I don’t know anything about being autistic, but I used to live in a big city, eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore, homeless tents next to upmarket fashion shops, bus drivers avoiding bus stops like the plague, the endless NPC tech demo ass crowds, the costs, the grey, the awful public transport, thugs, lads, beckys, chavs, tourists etc etc. I used to feel exhausted just literally being outside, any small thing would ruin my day utterly and completely and I would retreat to sleep, dreaming of watching it burn. Now I live elsewhere, and I’m much happier overall.
It got better when I moved from the suburbs to the city, but it’s never going to be perfect. I like to focus on the parts I can control. I can’t make the landlord install better sound insulation in the apartment walls, that’s unreasonable. It should be a reasonable ask, but it isn’t. But I can control how many questions my girlfriend asks when I’m having a meltdown.
Nonverbal is when the cognitive effort required to form words into sentences is too much to bear. Conversation is effortful even for neurotypicals at the best of times. Have you ever had a thrilling 3 hour conversation about philosophy with a friend and felt exhausted afterwards? For autistic people, the baseline effort is higher, and complicating factors are worse . Which topics are a minefield? What are the other person’s triggers? What idioms don’t mean what they seem to mean? How much introspection do I need to do to answer a simple ‘how are you’? Why does everything sound so loud? Do I have to answer questions right now? What’s the answer? How do I find out???
When I’m having a meltdown, there is nothing left in the tank that I can remove without compromising my ability to do things like “exist in the presence of light bulbs” or “not be upset by the fact I have hair”. I can either go to the effort of finding answers for my girlfriend when I’m exhausted, or I can just barely manage to not want to kill myself to escape the pressures of existence. Because every second of my life, the task of being okay with existing in the real world does take effort. Not much, but sometimes it’s the only thing I have energy left to do. Sometimes I don’t have the energy to do it.
That’s rough. Is it possible to change the environment in some way so it bothers you less? I don’t know anything about being autistic, but I used to live in a big city, eventually I couldn’t stand it anymore, homeless tents next to upmarket fashion shops, bus drivers avoiding bus stops like the plague, the endless NPC tech demo ass crowds, the costs, the grey, the awful public transport, thugs, lads, beckys, chavs, tourists etc etc. I used to feel exhausted just literally being outside, any small thing would ruin my day utterly and completely and I would retreat to sleep, dreaming of watching it burn. Now I live elsewhere, and I’m much happier overall.
It got better when I moved from the suburbs to the city, but it’s never going to be perfect. I like to focus on the parts I can control. I can’t make the landlord install better sound insulation in the apartment walls, that’s unreasonable. It should be a reasonable ask, but it isn’t. But I can control how many questions my girlfriend asks when I’m having a meltdown.