Sensory overload. How frozen in shock are you?

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I have an extremely busy lifestyle. Very little downtime. Single mom and working a new job. Sensory overwhelm and physical health getting to me. I move and talk very fast. Everything is rapid. I get professional help but idk if it is enough yet? I am extremely polite and extremely careful in all the words I say. Same with body movement. Actions. Literally everything. I have to do this so people are comfortable with me and accept me “enough”. To the point where I am nowhere at all my real self and people sort of overlook me. Which I actually am really glad they do. One less thing I have to work extra hard for. I am nowhere near authentic. But if they had any idea what my real self was, they would be amazed. But if I falter, even for a brief bit in front of others, I am extremely hard on myself a very long time over it. My very overt kindness stands out. It shines. It makes people secretly admire me but they don’t say it out loud and only show it a little bit. But… stimulation. I have not bought noise cancelling headphones yet. But to 99% of people I encounter, I am a very silent, very electrical (firework like) overstimulated robot.

Ever been frozen in shock almost constantly like me?

Life is messy. Even for neurotypicals. No wonder why us mentally ill and/or disabled folks struggle so much.

" .... to 99% of people I encounter, I am a very silent, very electrical (firework like) overstimulated robot".

This is golden. ^

I can totally relate. I don't / can't mask but the experience of interacting with people causes me the emotional and sensory overload you describe. Everything hurts when I deal with society -- by that I mean emotionally, socially, physically, and sensory-wise. I'm always "in shock" when I leave my protective bubble. Like you, I have ADHD and I can't shut off the hyperawareness or rumination of ... anything. I'm still processing simple stressors from my childhood, which should be long gone from my memory. I've also been a single mother for nearly 25 years and I worked full-time at a demanding career to stay afloat financially. I'm often nonspeaking in public or even with my extended family. I spend a lot of time in silence, or trying to avoid sound. We really do have a lot in common.

All I can recommend is that I did a lot of work with OT for my sensory processing disorder. To be honest, it didn't really help my misophonia, smell-phobia, photophobia, or social phobia, but it did help me to better regulate when I get home to decompress or shut down. It also helps me to understand myself and learn interoceptive awareness (of which I had none).

I just want you to know you aren't alone, and that I'm sorry you're going through the same chronic hell that I am.

I'm not completely sure what you're asking, but I also tend to do the overly kind and polite song and dance without much personality, mostly when I'm just unsure of what else to do, for a variety of reasons. I also have seem to have some kind of instinctual impulse to do that that I can't really control...

...which I kind of really hate. Being overly kind and polite can often be a bad response to a situation, which just adds more [sometimes insurmountable] difficulty to an already difficult situation...

...which yes, can often lead me to being mentally overwhelmed and disabled from handling situations like I want, and my sensory processing issues don't help one bit, though there are a few select sensory situations that can almost completely shut me down.

These days it's mostly just me not being sure of what to do in social situations. My life has been on pause for so long that I don't really have much to talk to most people about, some mental illnesses prevent me from doing many things, and social anxiety now adds such a barrier that everything all together just makes instills in me an overpowering impulse to avoid people and duck out of conversations ASAP.

I do experienced the same overwhelm, but not constantly nor consistently.

Though I don't have a consistent nor specific trigger.
It could be anything at a given moment -- it can be the intense environment, specific stimuli or sensations be it single or multiple, or even just my own body from hormones to whatever I ate hours ago.

Regardless of activity or my own mood even.

Unigborable quantity precedes unignorable intolerance, unignorable intolerance precedes any intensity...

Again, not consistent.

For me to not be overwhelmed in an instant and function in the middle of it feels like walking on some tightrope.
If I stumble or fall by losing some sense of inner equilibrium, I'd get overwhelmed near instantly and everything falls off out of alignment.
And not all tightropes are crossable, nor I always can walk said tightropes at any time.


Though except... I never minded failing or succeeding walking in any tightropes.
I didn't developed the same fear or worry or reaction on any possible cause of sensory overload.
But I'd be frustrated nonetheless if I had fallen in, stuck overwhelmed and confused.

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