I’ve been struggling with that a lot recently. As a child I’d always left family gatherings to play on my own and in school I’ve always stimmed without knowing what that was to stay afloat. I didn’t know what sensory overload is but somehow managed to avoid it for the most part of my life.

Recently our company has grown a lot and a lot more people are at the office so we’ve done a lot of mixed meetings where part was there in person and the rest through a video system with speakers and that setup fucked me up completely.

I’ve left one of those meetings before to join through my notebook because i couldn’t handle it anymore and asked our team for barrier free stuff for help. They didn’t find anything they could do but i remembered that i kept drawing/doodling in school so i tried doing that during an especially harsh one of those meetings and it kind of worked and calmed me enough to survive the meeting. There were even people talking over each other which especially fucks me up and i still survived thanks to doodling 💜

Me definitely! I can’t handle loud spaces, especially social gatherings where there is chatter echoing throughout the room. I get so overloaded I have to leave and find quiet spaces to calm down.

I’ve been discovering positive and negative sensory overload. When my girl slowly scratches my scalp, I get the best positive sensory overload. Mid-sentence, I’ll just stop abruptly if she starts.