Autism and meltdowns - what are they and how can you help?
A thread. Please read and share widely. As always, based on my own experiences.
#autism #autistic #Meltdown
Autistic people are stressed. *Very* stressed. Take it from me - our existence is generally peppered with moments of calm on a backdrop of continual tension and intense stress. The reasons for this are complex. /2
Our senses are often way too sensitive, meaning we live assaulted by intense sensory input - sound, vision, smell, touch and so forth. This means our base level stress is always much higher than most folks. /3
We are also usually struggling to make sense of social communication in a way neurotypical people don't need to worry about. Often we have to put actual brainwork into every interaction, as nothing seems to come naturally to us. Even with friends or loved ones. /4
So our glass of stress is very frequently filled to the absolute brim, and it doesn't take very much for us to spill over into a kind of 'post-stress' state, and I guess that's what we call meltdown. /5 #autistic
