What does a sensory overload/meltdown feel like to you?

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alobaby
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23 May 2016, 11:30 pm

I was wondering what those felt like for other people.

For me, suddenly everything that is touching me, even the ground and my clothes, become a sensory issue and just feel bad and overwhelming. If anyone touches me I want to cry and sometimes it feels like my body is encased in a skin-tight plastic bag and it's also covering my mouth so I feel as if I can't breathe.



mikeman7918
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24 May 2016, 12:20 am

To me a sensory overload feels like brightness, touch, and especially sound is turned up in intensity and every small sound (even the sound of my breathing and in rare cases my heart beat) is painful. I usually respond by humming and covering my ears to block out the sound and rocking back and forth to give me something else to focus on and calm me down a bit. It gets worse with anxiety and it causes anxiety so that feedback loop causes it to get worse until I go somewhere quiet. It is only ever a problem when I'm stressed, but I tend to mentally freak out about a lot of things so it still happens rather often. I am usually doing well enough to talk to people and get on with my life again after being alone in a dark quiet room for an hour or two.


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AnaHitori
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24 May 2016, 8:42 pm

It feels like everything and everyone is trying to attack me, and I have to get away immediately to protect myself.


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Kuraudo777
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26 May 2016, 1:25 pm

^It's like that for me a bit, too, although mine also involve the feeling of being trapped or being unable to breathe [especially if there's perfume or smoke around or loud noises].


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26 May 2016, 2:08 pm

AnaHitori wrote:
It feels like everything and everyone is trying to attack me, and I have to get away immediately to protect myself.

That's pretty close to me.
Kuraudo777 wrote:
^It's like that for me a bit, too, although mine also involve the feeling of being trapped or being unable to breathe [especially if there's perfume or smoke around or loud noises].

How did you manage to get my reaction down to the letter?!?!? 8O


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26 May 2016, 5:46 pm

^I also have a primal fear of being unable to breathe, so it's extra stressful. Often during my meltdowns I look like this: :| but inside my head I'm screaming and wanting to break my own bones or bite people [other times I feel like kissing them, and I have no idea why!]


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