My last post was about people terrorising the neighbourhood with their noise. And I was really, really upset about the acoustic irradiation caused by this specific guy.

Maybe I have written it “with gut instinct” (in German: “out of the belly”, figurative speech).

Let me explain, what is so annoying, so gruelling. It is about sensory impacts and sensory overload.

There are different sensory “impacts” which strike my head. Meaning: Those impacts are not just disturbing or distracting – they spark something off inside my head.

The clatter from the kitchen in a Cafe for example, the pipe and piercing (and of course ongoing) laughter of people next table, the guy who does not stop rattling with his spoon. And my neighbour, the backyard terrorist who shows no scruples to fire up his disk saw at 8:30 a.m. On Sundays. This all strikes at me, hits my “shields” and takes energy.*

Sometimes it drives me crazy, cause I am no longer able to think straight!

 

This video is quite helpful to gain an impression, I think:

 

A bus, train, a crowded school hall, a cafe filled to overflowing – certain (well, I do not know whether this is correct or not:) “sensorially charged situations” or conditions are impacts and make a bad hair day even worse.

In a nutshell: the sensory impacts are draining my shields. Some impacts I can deal with (at least I think so). Later e.g. at home I realise how gruelling a situation really was.

But I have come to get it about right: I am able to evade an overcharging situation just in time – even if I have to totter out of a Café, I can manage that.

 

And it is important for kids and teenagers with Aspergers to learn this lesson: That they are free to leave, if there is something (or someone) “too much” for them.

Then hopefully it will work fine in adult age too.

 

 

*It was all due to Star Trek TNG that I found this analogy, thus becaming able to describe what is going on – way before I was acquainted with Aspergers. And now I am able to explain what is happening to me in certain situations.