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#autism #stimming #anxiety
Probably a thread.
My partner just opened up to me about the fact that my stimming while talking about emotional or stressful subjects has caused her trauma.
Background: I was dx’d with ASD last year, at 41yo. I used to drink to mask and cope. 1/
Probably a thread.
My partner just opened up to me about the fact that my stimming while talking about emotional or stressful subjects has caused her trauma.
Background: I was dx’d with ASD last year, at 41yo. I used to drink to mask and cope. 1/
I drank regularly/often for about 18 years, but it got pretty heavy in the last few years of drinking. I quit drinking completely over three years ago, and I have no desire to drink again. Drinking helped me pass as a goofy NT, but probably amplified my meltdowns. 2/
Even if I hadn’t drank much of anything, my meltdowns were attributed to the drinking rather than what led to the meltdown. Well, when I am anxious I become less “fidgety” type stim guy and more “kinetic”—I move my body, legs, and arms a whole lot. 3/
Eye contact goes to 0 and my voice regulation disappears. My ability to form coherent thoughts and words dissolves. A 6’ 5” undiagnosed autistic adult male, with all of my movements and loud voice, I seem quite intimidating. Although I have *never* once laid a hand on a person 4/
If I try not to move my body in uncomfortable conversations, or simply when distressed, I go into complete meltdown fast. Well, years of this has caused my partner some serious trauma, and she is afraid to talk to me most of the time. 5/
She has *just* realized that the stimming helps me regulate (probably the late night google research last night), but has admitted that it scares her when I start to move around and get loud because she associates it specifically with an imminent meltdown. 6/
Add to this that nearly any conversation has potential to trigger my self regulation movements because nearly everything beyond casual conversation causes me anxiety, typically because I am already all used up from my day of trying to keep my shit together in public and work 7/
Life is fucking hard. Especially when simply being a living and breathing human comes with anxiety that doesn’t leave my body more than a few moments a day. It’s also a hard pill to swallow that “healthy” autistic coping mechanisms, ie stimming, cause trauma to loved ones. 8/
I didn’t have much of a point to this other than simply sharing for the sake of sharing. Maybe some day I’ll have a cohesive and interesting thread on this stuff that doesn’t just sound like carping, but the words are still not ready to come out with eloquence. 9/9
