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lazyflower
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23 Dec 2016, 5:40 pm

Whenever I walk in public, nature or big open spaces, I get such a weird and uncomfortable feeling. It's hard to describe but it's almost like a dizziness combined with a headache, as well as a sort of "detached from reality"-feeling. The more sounds, people and things are around me, the worse this feeling get. I don't know if I've always felt this way, but I've noticed it more in the past years or so. It seems to get worse too, which sucks. The thing is that I don't know if this feeling is a part of aspergers/asd or not. I sometimes worry if I have an actual medical problem related to my brain, or if it's simply another mental problem. I just know that I get very uncomfortable whenever I'm outside or if there's a lot of people and sensory input around me. It's like I view the world in a sort of blurry/unreal way. Also, this feeling makes me feel drained and tired. Often when I come home from someplace, my head just needs to rest.

Have anyone felt like this, or am I the only one? It's really bugging me, so I wonder if there's anything to do about it or if it's just something I have to live with.



Last edited by lazyflower on 23 Dec 2016, 5:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.

kraftiekortie
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23 Dec 2016, 5:42 pm

A lot of people with autism describe things similar to you.

It's possibly something along sensory lines.



r.steiner4
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23 Dec 2016, 7:53 pm

I can super relate to this. This the feeling I get usually before the anxiety hits. I have started to use it as some kind of a warning system when I need to begin to focus to stay calm. It feels like a weird kind of disassociation as if my brain is telling me "This is way to much, I'm out!" lol



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23 Dec 2016, 9:28 pm

I've definitely gotten the "detached feeling". Places like offices and stores where there's a lot of motion, noise and/or bright lights most of my senses get sorta "diffuse". I think of it like an auto-protect mode; rejecting the extra input.



ArielsSong
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24 Dec 2016, 2:08 am

It sounds like you're possibly experiencing a shutdown? Might be worth looking into that.



PurpleOctober
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24 Dec 2016, 2:29 am

This happens to me. Whenever I go anywhere without someone I know that is not my job, I constantly wear noise isolating over-ear headphones plugged into loud music on my phone. The music is super loud (which would sound odd to anyone else, I think, except for me it's almost like light/deep pressure, I can't hear it right if it's quiet, even though my hearing is good), and the voluntary, "positive" sensory input cancels out a decent amount of the involuntary outside input, so I don't get overloaded as quickly and I don't shut down as often.


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Joe90
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24 Dec 2016, 3:25 am

I don't experience sensory overstimulation, but I do suffer severe social anxiety, moreso if I'm on my own. I feel like everybody's staring at me, and that I look so weird that I shouldn't be there, even though rationally I know I don't look any different to anyone else. But I still FEEL singled out, and I think everybody's focused on me.
In crowded shopping malls I feel a different sort of anxiety. I don't feel stared at so much, but people tend to walk into you, stop dead in front of you, and just get in the way, and it makes me feel angry and impatient.


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Kiprobalhato
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24 Dec 2016, 4:04 am

are you accustomed to small/indoor spaces? (as in, you spend the majority of your time in such places)

i'm assuming, that may have something to do with it...


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24 Dec 2016, 4:22 am

Occasionally I have gotten where I would be in environment and it would feel like I was dreaming because it was all new and because I hadn't been there in a while and there was a lot of change. When I was with my first boyfriend I seemed to be splitting from reality because I would have no memories of arriving somewhere. I would just find myself in places so one time I found myself in Wal-Mart and I wondered when I got there and why I was there and then I remembered I was there to get more cat food. It just felt like I was on the highway and then the next thing I know, I am in the store. Depression does that and he was making me depressed and my mom says he would have destroyed me if we stayed together. I was already getting ruined because I was acting deaf and people had to shout at me to get my attention and call my name several times before I noticed they were talking to me and their voices sounded gibberish so I needed to have them keep repeating themselves. It was like I was going deaf but that is what loud bass did to my ears. Then all this went away when I dumped him. But that helped me understand why some people with depression can't keep a job. I was lucky I didn't get fired but my boss knew it was the boyfriend and she was hoping I would get smart and leave him. She could tell I left him when I started to do better at work again and I quit acting deaf and asking people over and over to repeat themselves. But no sensory over stimulation either.


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EzraS
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24 Dec 2016, 9:27 am

Happens to me fairly often, which sucks because I love taking walks. Sometimes it leads to a panic attack. In my case it's called depersonalization disorder. Which seems to be a common comorbid of autism.

http://www.webmd.com/mental-health/depe ... l-health#1



ZombieBrideXD
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24 Dec 2016, 10:21 am

Yes! I never knew how to describe it either. It gets annoying.


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