Either way, I work very hard to prevent situations which lead to episodes of over stimulation and high anxiety. Okay, suppose I should fill in the missing parts here...
As a disclaimer, names will be withheld as its not important who , more the reason as to why I had a full on aspie meltdown last night will be the primary focus and I'm not even sure why it happened. Under normal circumstances, a debate about the meaning of a word should be a no brainer. If Merriam-Webster says it means x, and another dictionary confirms it case closed right? Well, no. Unfortunately this would not be the case. Mind you, it me who's verifying the meaning of the word in question not once, but three times all together getting the same result. Now its not necessarily the debate as to the definition of a word which caused me to meltdown, rather my literal interpretation of the conversation surrounding the debate. The information was flowing too quickly to process it all fast enough to make sense of it. Basically, If the conversation is highly charged, and moving too quick I have difficulty knowing when not to interrupt, therefore causing information to pile up on top of itself so-to-speak. Before long, I'm feeling like someone has inflated a balloon in my chest, my heart rate increases rapidly and speaking gets quicker. Then I'm up on my feet pacing and stimming wildly while at the same time searching for the word---STOP and realizing its stuck somewhere between my brain and mouth.
Finally, I manage to get the words out while digging for an ativan to calm me down. After some pacing and more stimming I finally go to the shower to isolate for a little while and allow things to cool down. Then I do the dishes, apologize to my friend and suddenly things begin to calm down. I make my way under the heaviness of the blankets on my bed-which I only realized recently is something I've always "needed" to sleep soundly. Heavy blankets. For some reason, they make me feel secure, calm and help me to relax.
hopefully this scenario won't happen again as its very unsettling to me. In fact, I'm not even sure until recently that I knew I worked so hard, on a conscious level to avoid these very situations. Of course, reality tells me that it will most likely happen again but maybe next time, I can see it coming and remove myself from the activity which is causing the over stimulation in the first place.
A list of words and their definition as to how they apply to this blog will be included periodically for reference and understanding..
Aspie- a person with aspergers syndrome
Stimming- a repetitive body movement such as hand flapping used as a way to release energy from over stimulation
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