Meditation

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What you're describing sounds like a common issue for people and probably has nothing to do with your diagnosis. Your yoga teacher is probably teaching a different style of meditation, especially if you're being told to control your breathing. There's nothing wrong with that if you're doing that style but you should know what you're doing and know what advice is relevant to it since styles of meditation exist for different purposes and don't always mix well. If what you were taught is called mindfulness it's probably based on vipassana meditation where you wouldn't tend to control your breathing, at least not with any effort most of the time. I'd suggest you read books or find teachers in the same style you're doing or if you want you can ask your therapist if switching to what your yoga teacher teaches would be ok.

I couldn't meditate until I did hypnotherapy. I had thought hypnotherapy wouldn't work for me because of my stupidly busy mind but it turns out I'm a natural somnambulist which is the type of person stage hypnotists look for I sink down to esdiale state with ease and I have to say I love it. It's an amazing state and my Hypnotherapist sometimes has to shock me into coming back because I don't want to leave it. Anyway, back on topic, since the hypno I find dropping into meditation easy. It's like now I know the path is there, finding and following it just makes sense.

Everyone I know wants me to get on the meditation band-wagon. Basically, people who do it are almost religious in their witnessing of it. I get how when you're excited to find something that works for you, you want to share the joy. But what I don't appreciate is when I say that I kind of meditate already NOBODY BELIEVES ME. That's infuriating to have an experience invalidated. Because I don't have an INTENTIONAL practice, because I don't carve out space, use the right vocabulary, utilize some proven techniques: bells, bowls, breath count, chanting, humming ohm, etc., then what I do can't possibly be valid.

Now, granted, I haven't committed to a practice, but I have been exposed to it in many places. And I didn't like it. Distracting. And I especially didn't like the self-congratulatory smug culture surrounding it. It doesn't make sense to me to have to join others to be guided through it, for instance. My life does not have space to make it a daily ritual.

If the meditation you've tried hasn't worked, others will say you are doing it wrong. Then they will describe how the practice forces one to confront the chaos of an unquiet mind and just be, and how that frees you to live more fully. But I already know this. It really doesn't need to be explained to me. Again and again. What bugs me about all these introductions are how many words are used to describe how to get to non-thinking.

To this I say my whole life is practice. All my waking life is surrounded by the external chaos of this intense world that overwhelms the autistic person. Throughout the day, instead of calming an unquiet mind, I am calming intense world. Throughout the day, I am checking out of intense world and just being; allowing myself to silently be me. While sometimes there is unquiet mind, most of the time there is only relief and silence. It is my belief that where I go every day, many times a day, is the same place those who meditate seek, and because it is so intrinsic to my survival I'm especially skilled at getting there without all the scaffolding everyone else is so enamored with. My mother called it losing your head or head in the clouds. I've been losing my head since before I could talk.

So I disappear often. I un-follow conversations. I check-out. I decompress. I zone out. I am catatonic. Some might mistake it for a little seizure. I am not having an argument in my head (those wake me up in the middle of the night) or having chaotic thoughts. I am having no thoughts. I am just stepping aside and letting the intense world do its thing while I just be. It's just peaceful. I think this should meet whoever's criteria for what counts as meditative practice.

The sticking point seems to be around intention. And to that I say I do this on an as-need basis, wherever I am, however long is needed. Intention seems to me to be a privilege. When you're autistic and the world is a combat zone, it's more pragmatic than that. Neither do I seek nirvana. For one, I don't believe in that and two, I'm just happy to get through each day. And those two concepts actually complement each other very well I think.

I think people with autism need something more convenient than scheduled intentional meditation. I mean, yoga clothes, mandalas to look at, and singing bowls are all cool and everything, but they don't help when you're at a stressful party or surrounded by a cacophony of annoying voices or in the middle of a meeting...

Being "mindful" feels forced and is counter-productive to me. It's like going on a diet and then only thinking about food. Turning the world off at will seems like a much more powerful tool to me.

Wow! I somehow didn't see that there were any relies to my post! Those are all some great ideas!! ! And I am glad to know that it is challenging in the beginning for many of you too! Makes me feel less like it's just me!!

What specific audio recordings are applied for meditation?

I've meditated to Tibetan bells, and subtle chanting. A CD by Stephen Halpern 'Deep Theta' is a favorite.

This resonates very strongly with me. It is what I have done more or less unconsciously most of my life. I sometimes think of it as being a second removed from the surface of the world. I just stay slightly behind things in an unfocused state where the hustle and bustle doesn't quite penetrate. I do it when waiting to pay in a line, I do it in the school playground when picking my kids up from school, I do it in crowded airports or when I am walking down the street. It means I can effectively zone out a lot of the world and just go to this deliciously empty head space where I am in my own zone, most things are slightly blurred, sounds is slightly muffled and I am just behind everything in a far more comfortable way.

I also do a lot of things on auto-pilot. It is easy for me to clean the house, do menial work, cook and do chores when I am on auto-pilot. I might find myself in the middle of things but my head is somewhere totally different. That is why this type of work is great for me as I never have to be fully present in it so it is effectively down-time.

I find getting pulled out of this when I am not ready again and again by being requested to return to the moment is akin to pain for me. I need at least some part of the day to be in this zone to be able to function and be fully present for other parts of the day. I worry what is going to happen next year when I return to work and have to live surrounded by people and interacting with people for most of the day.

However, I often feel that as long as I have little slots of time when I can enter this "zone" that can go a really long way and I also become more and more effective at going back and forth between being present at the surface or sinking below into meditative emptiness. For example, something really simple like standing waiting for the popcorn to pop for the kids and watching the kernels heat up and just then watching them pop around and feeling the heat as they bounce about or waiting for the kettle to boil and feeling the steam rise up against my face, or even waiting at a crossing and letting another car go, all these tiny little moments once established as quiet moments can be really effective for me and allow me to gather myself together and be ready again to be back at the surface. I have become really good at utilising every moment of time and putting it to use in letting myself recharge.

One of the hardest thing for me is trying to get my husband to understand that having periods undisurbed by him and the children, however short, like when I clean up after dinner are essential to my mental health. Being interrupted and pulled out of the zone is torture. I think it is hard for people to understand how important this is as it doesn't look like I am actively meditating - so it appears fine to just interrupt me. I recognise exactly what you mean when you say that nobody believes you and how invalidating this is.

I have given birth 3 times each time I was able to do so with no intervention and no pain relief and with my first daughter I even managed to get to a place where I felt no pain whatsoever. Then you get people who practice hypno-birthing for their whole pregnancy. I didn't do any of that. I just did what I always do. No scaffolding needed.

It is interesting because since I found out about autism (my daughter was diagnosed and I myself consider I might be autistic) I have had a period where it has been harder for me than before to just be in the zone as I have been hyper-aware of all my coping strategies and even being aware of the fact that it is a coping strategy makes it harder to utilise unconsciously. It is simply something I have become intrinsically able to achieve without thinking, as you say, just part and parcel of dealing with the world and it has always been largely unintentional.

That is really interesting. I only saw a hypnotherapist once and after that i self hypnotised, so maybe that is why I find it easy to drop into meditation.