This might sound kinda weird but is becoming super unbalanced when it's too dark to see an autistic thing? I read somewhere that autistic can't feel where they're bodies are and instead have to see where they are if that makes any sense?
Yes!Ā Itās called poor proprioception! I learned that word from this blog, yay!
āProprioception, also called kinesthesia, is the bodyās ability to sense its location, movements, and actions. Itās the reason weāre able to move freely without consciously thinking about our environment.ā
This statement is pretty ableist, because it assumes everyone whoās reading it CAN move freely without consciously thinking about their environment.Ā But people with poor proprioception CANāT.Ā We doĀ have to think consciously about our environment, every time we move, to avoid crashing into things, tripping on things, dropping things, or, as you said, falling over.
When a person has poor proprioception, they cannotĀ āfeelā where their own body is, and so they compensate by looking, and using their eyes to seeĀ where their body is.Ā The example I give is going up a flight of stairs.Ā Normally, when I go up a flight of stairs, I watch my feet.Ā I needĀ to, I need the information from my eyes to tell me whether I have lifted my foot high enough or not.Ā People with normal proprioception do not have to do this.Ā They only have to look at the firstĀ step, to know how high these particular stairs are, and after that they can just feelĀ whether their foot is high enough.
So a person with normal proprioception could walk up a staircase while carrying something that blocks their vision of their feet.Ā I cannot.Ā When I have to do this, what I do is lift my foot slowly, banging my toes higher and higher against the next step until I feel the top of it, and then I take the step.Ā This is compensation that I have learned (painfully) how to do from many years of tripping up stairs and dropping things.
So when itās dark, you can no longer use the compensation tool youāre used to- seeing.Ā Without seeing, you now have to rely solelyĀ on your proprioception, and so it becomes very apparent that itās not up to the task.
