Trigger warning: This post does mention suicidality and mental health. However it may give you a fresh lens on what it means to experience feelings of suicidality.
I’ve had many highs and lows as I’ve started to understand myself as autistic over the last year. But this week I had some profound realisations about what my brain can do when it’s allowed to operate in the way it was meant to, and the ways my body reacts when it’s not allowed to operate in the way it needs to. I’d love to hear if any of these resonate with other autistic or allistic people!
1. Drawn what I was trying to say
Sometimes I feel like the English language was not made for Autistic processing or experiences. I can often feel like I'm both in constant translation mode and that my words come out faster than I've processed what I actually mean.
When I draw scenarios, feelings or ideas it offers more nuance around what I'm actually trying to say. It tends to communicate my intentions and experiences more realistically and clearly. And it is far more soothing and reassuring for me than talking.
2. Looked up at an actual visual thought
Sometimes my face does ‘weird’ things that in the past people have been confused or disconcerted by. What this has meant is that I often mask my autistic tendencies so as not to make other people feel uncomfortable, and in turn that limits the way my brain works naturally and makes me worse at conversation/problem-solving/brainstorming etc. In contrast I love working with people like my partner and those I connect with via Collaborative Future because I mask less in conversations. And it meant that as myself and a co-facilitor, Joel, were planning a workshop this week I was able to freely say “one second”, physically look up at the intricate visual thought that was going on in my head and then communicate with more clarity on how we should run an exercise within the session.
3. Asked to be squeezed
I LOVE being squeezed. Not only does it regulate me in times of stress but it also gives me huge waves of sensory euphoria (sometimes I reckon my body enjoys squeezing more than most ‘normal’ people enjoy orgasms). Both my partners now know instinctively how to squeeze my arms when I’m feeling rejected, how to squeeze my body when I’m feeling overwhelmed, how to squeeze my head when I’m all in a muddle and it has absolutely transformed my daily life and my capacity to keep going with things.
4. Made eye contact
For years the stereotype of autistic people not making eye contact stopped me from ever actively exploring autism as an explanation for my experience of the world. However there are two completely opposing situations where I make eye contact regularly. The first is when I’m feeling deeply uncomfortable and like I need to look as “normal” as possible in order to get through a situation and where I need to be hyper aware of people’s facial expressions because I don’t yet know what all of someone’s behaviours/intonation mean. This happened at a kids birthday party this week and I was super overwhelmed by the end of it.
The second is when I’m deeply comfortable with someone and I can get lost in them or lost with them. If I know someone so well (and it can take a good year or so of continuous interaction to get to this point - and continuous questioning of what their facial expressions mean) then I can easily sit and look at them as we talk and enjoy losing the need to think about either of our faces and just hear the words.
5. Talked avidly about the intricacies of Music
One of my most enjoyable and energising moments this week was when my partner asked me how a piece of music would’ve been recorded. I could instantly visualise the recording studio that I used to go in when I was studying Music Technology as a teenager and could imagine all of the layers building up with the piece we were listening too. I also really enjoyed it when he asked me to make a very specific type of playlist for his gym sessions because I could explore a specific genre that I hadn’t been familiar with for a while, along with a direction and purpose that helped me narrow down what songs to include.
Understanding the importance of autistic special interests has been profound for me. There have been whole chunks of my life when I’ve ‘lost’ my special interests because others have seen it as unimportant or because work/relationships/children have taken over but spending a short amount of regular time building my energy & exhilaration in this way can have profoundly positive affects on my brain.
6. Been suicidal
On Monday I was seemingly suicidal. Even though I’m technically the happiest I've ever been. Living in an allistic world with an autistic mind is draining and confusing and has, I now realise, caused me an immense amount of cPTSD as a result. (I recently joked with my partner to share something "normal" and I'll tell them why it's triggering) I also wasn't able manage the signs of impending burnout and overload that were occuring for me so eventually they had to explode out of my skin and brain in a very vocal and physical way.
While someone with allistic communication and "typical" ways of rationalising situations would've seen no reason for feelings of suicidality in this moment, the physical pain and mental burden that I experience at these times can mean the only way of communicating the immenseness and intensity of it is through the idea of death and the act of self-harm.
This may sound strange to some but my partner and I actually concluded with our counsellor that in moments like that I need to be acknowledged (i.e. Yes that’s understandable that you feel that way) and then left to my own devices so that I can be comfortable doing whatever physical stimming I need to do. And in many cases it has been known to pass as rapidly as it came on. In the past this switch has left some people confused: how I can be suicidal one moment, causing them absolute devastation and out enjoying myself the next. It’s because I’m not depressed. I’ve had an intense autistic meltdown where those are the only words that come close to describing what I’m experiencing in that very moment, but once it’s been allowed to be released my body and brain feels liberated.
7. explored hundreds of pasts & futures in 15 minutes
I misheard something my partner said to me this week as a rejection of us and our life together, and as a result my brain spent time rapidly processing everything I’ve ever experienced in the past that was connected to that one sentence, and every possible route through ‘what next’ in order to problem-solve myself out of the situation. I only noticed the sheer amount of experiences and the level of detail that my brain thought through on response to this one sentence because it turned out I’d misheard and we had to go back and redo the conversation in order to unravel the image I’d built up in my head. Now we all do this at an unconscious level. The difference I find with autism (and likely trauma) is that it is happening at a conscious level and I can sometimes feel like I’m literally experiencing all of those past and future scenarios all at once. It was so intense that it rendered me mute. What it made me realise is that part of the reason I probably struggle with some “executive functioning” and social interactions is because the level at which my conscious brain is operating is off the chart. It’s processing so many layers all the time - which is great in some scenarios (like spotting the intricate team dynamics in my work around DEI & organisational culture) and awful at other times when my partner thought we were just going to have a basic conversation.