23 Mar 2015, 4:19 am
will@rd wrote:
All my life, but especially as an adult, NTs get a big laugh when a sudden noise occurs and I jump. Grown man jumping at noises, what a scaredy-cat. No - what an autistic - what they don't understand is that too many sensory receptors make events like that physically painful for me. That loud unexpected bang, was just a noise to them, but it felt like a Taser shock to me. If somebody were to walk up at random intervals, day and night, and zap the sheeyit out of them with a cattle prod, do you think after a day or two, they would feel traumatized - not just by the shocks, but by the ANTICIPATION of the next one? 
My own dad does that to me regularly. Comes into the room when I'm absorbed in something, hurls a pillow at me unexpectedly (a hard little couch pillow, not a fluffy bed pillow), and laughs or reacts with mild scorn when I yelp, saying, come on, that didn't REALLY hurt, did it?
No, it's not so much that it HURT (though once in a while, it sort of does), as that it scared the crap out of me and was incredibly jarring, sometimes to the point of being infuriating. (Especially if I was reading or writing something, I HATE being jarred out of such thoughts.)
He's been doing this for years--he obviously realizes by now what sort of reaction it will get, so I can only assume he finds my startle reaction amusing in some way. I don't understand why he sometimes gets scornful or even angry if I react with fear or anger myself, though; it's almost like he hopes I'll grow out of it. (He used to tease me and then, when I got upset, tell me not to take it seriously, that he was only doing it to toughen me up. Never worked.)
He's a Vietnam war veteran.
23 Mar 2015, 5:19 am
23 Mar 2015, 10:20 am
23 Mar 2015, 5:38 pm
Raleigh wrote:
I'm pretty much immune to sudden loud noises and having things thrown at me. This is probably due to working in disability support. I've had people suddenly scream in my ear or face, body slam me, throw chairs or threaten me with knives and those kind of things don't usually faze me at all. I actually find it less stressful to have someone throw a chair at me than to have a conversation with them.
It's only unexpected physical touch that makes me jump like I've been tasered. Most people respect my personal space but a few people think it's hilarious to do something like sneak up behind me and poke me in the kidneys, which will instantly snap me into a quivering mess. A light contact of someone's skin against my skin will have me furiously brushing off the touch which seems curiously stuck to me. It's usually some kind of unwanted physical contact that triggers a meltdown.
It's only unexpected physical touch that makes me jump like I've been tasered. Most people respect my personal space but a few people think it's hilarious to do something like sneak up behind me and poke me in the kidneys, which will instantly snap me into a quivering mess. A light contact of someone's skin against my skin will have me furiously brushing off the touch which seems curiously stuck to me. It's usually some kind of unwanted physical contact that triggers a meltdown.
I'm fortunate to not be in many situations where people would touch me unexpectedly (what you've gone through would be utter torment to me ;_; ), though like you I get that feeling, when someone touches me, that the touch is "stuck" to me somehow.
A friend of my mother's rubbed me on the back of the neck when we met in a store once and I was rubbing at my neck for the entire rest of the day...it felt like I'd been branded or something.
No pain or anything, just...like this semi-permanent mark I feel I need to scrub off. Even when I shake hands...such a weird feeling. Just thinking about having been touched in the past makes my skin crawl a bit. My former psychologist made some sort of odd attempt to work past this (at least, I think maybe that's what she was doing?) by hugging me on my way out from sessions and I never got used to it, never really hugged her back, it just felt so invasive. Not sure why she would do that after all, that seems strange for a therapist to do. This was probably part of the reason the psychiatrist wondered about a past trauma history, but aside from having a poor memory for much of my childhood (I remember parts of Head Start, but have almost zero recollection of kindergarten through second grade) I have no signs of one.It's kind of frustrating because part of me would love to be hugged more often (my parents are very physically undemonstrative--hugs are abnormal in this house), but whenever people do it I go as stiff as a board and feel "contaminated" for quite a while afterwards. A close friend unexpectedly hugged me way back in elementary school (before my social anxiety really started to develop) and when I stiffened up she let me go and said, "You're not a very huggy person, are you?"
Well, mentally I'm a huggy person, but physically I'm not.
24 Mar 2015, 5:19 am
pirateowl76 wrote:
My former psychologist made some sort of odd attempt to work past this (at least, I think maybe that's what she was doing?) by hugging me on my way out from sessions and I never got used to it, never really hugged her back, it just felt so invasive. Not sure why she would do that after all, that seems strange for a therapist to do.
WTF? That seems way past creepy. I don't wonder that she's your former psychologist.
24 Mar 2015, 6:02 am
