I don’t know If you’ll answer, but do you or anyone else know the best noise cancelling headphones or ear defenders for like a concert; and ones that aren’t incredibly high priced. Also any ideas of things to do to keep from having a panic attack and/or sensory overload?
Can I please ask everyone to not submit (as opposed to asking) questions when I have the askbox closed? (In other words, please don’t use the fact that I have submissions open as a way to circumnavigate the closed askbox.) It’s not fair on everyone who is patiently waiting for the askbox to open, and it’s also not fair on those who have been waiting a long time for me to heal so I can answer those waiting asks. When I do close the askbox, it’s because I’m in a situation where I need to limit the questions coming in to tackle those that are waiting, and folks who submit questions instead make this difficult.
Thank you very much, everyone, for your understanding on this point.
Headphones and Ear Defenders:
On the first point, I’ll ask for folks to reblog or reply on this post if they have any suggestions. You might also like to check out our category tag on headphones and ear defenders for various posts and discussions on the topic. I still don’t have a set of either that I would personally recommend for you, so I think that might be your best resource.
Panic Attack / Sensory Overload:
This is a difficult question to answer generally. I’m acutely aware, myself, of how general answers seldom suit my specific needs as a walking tangle of diagnostic labels, and I rather doubt that there’s an answer I can give that will work for your situation better than truths you already know. Additionally, the situation, circumstance and location often massively impacts what tools you have and how you can or should employ them.
So I’m actually going to ask you questions, because you already have coping strategies. You just might not fully realise them, or you might think that a coping strategy results in a more drastic easing of your experience when in fact it often just allows you to survive it. Sometimes it’s only skin-of-your-teeth survival. Sometimes it’s just the difference of being able to walk away from the situation and melting down instead of melting down then and there. I know we want tools that help drastically minimise or even erase the misery of panic or overload, but the honest appraisal is that these things don’t stop or erase panic or overload. They just help. I am saner and happier accepting that, as much as I’d sell my soul to not experience either.
I also absolutely and unequivocally advocate for avoiding things that overload, if possible. Avoiding overload is much simpler than dealing with overload once it’s triggered, and if it’s something that can be avoided, that’s one fewer concern!
1. What triggers your sensory overload and/or panic? Be general at first. List anything that comes to mind. Then try to break it down and find any smaller elements. Sit at the end of the day for a minute or two and think about how you felt at various times and what you think might have caused it. Keep on doing this. Even when you think you know, check in afterwards! Over time, you’ll be building up a list, and that list gives you information. It is much harder to decide how to handle a trigger, especially ahead of time, if you don’t know what your triggers are, so I don’t recommend skipping this point.
(Some panic triggers just can’t and shouldn’t be avoided, in which case finding ways to experience it more easily is better, but some might be.)
2. Which of those triggers can you reasonably avoid? If you can avoid this thing and it causes no harm to you or the people around you, do it.
3. Which of these triggers can you minimize or lessen? It might be that some of these things can be lessened, too. Can you ask (or have someone else ask) your neighbour to turn down their music? Can you ask your housemate to spray their perfume outside? Can you cut the tags out of your clothes? Can you go to the shops at a time when there’s less people shopping?
4. What does your overload feel like? Recognising what we feel, physically and emotionally, is difficult for many ND folks, especially we autistics. But if you can, over time, put together a list of experiences and sensations, especially with regards to early warning signs, you’ll have more warning about when an overload is coming, what it feels like when it does and what you might do about it. For example, knowing overload is coming and stepping away from the situation while you can still communicate to others that it’s happening, for example, is important if you lose all communication ability.
5. What does overload or panic take from you? What abilities do you lose? Wrist a list of these, too, as this will impact how you handle the situation. If you cannot read a list of response ideas on your phone when overloaded, for example, then having a list of approaches won’t be helpful to you. If you can’t communicate at all, having someone ask you unrelated questions as a distraction technique won’t work.
6. What worsens your overload? List these things, especially items that don’t quite trigger it but don’t make it easier to experience. You don’t want these things to happen when the world is already too much for you, and this means you can more knowingly avoid these things if possible. For example, someone touching me doesn’t trigger my sensory overload, but being touched will ratchet up said overload when I am overloaded, so touching belongs on my list.
7. What sensations can you tolerate ordinarily but not when you’re overloaded or panicked? Can you replace it with something always tolerable? I’ll give an example: if you can tolerate the touch of your quilt when not-overwhelmed but can’t bear it when overwhelmed, get rid of it and replace it with something you can always tolerate. Make your room, your bag, your clothing, your things, your personal spaces, as tolerable/pleasing for you as possible, no matter your state. This gives you somewhere safe and comfortable to be; this makes it easier to recover from overload. You don’t want to be out shopping and have to deal with screaming children plus the devil tags on your clothing. This is just an act of self-care, the act of making your environment, as much as you can modify it, suitable for you all the time.
8. What positive sensations make you feel connected to your body? It doesn’t have to make you feel amazing. List anything even a little positive. I’m talking about stimming as a coping mechanism - a means of delivering positive sensory input. It does help, in various ways, with overwhelm. List everything you can think of. Keep adding to it. Keep a feel-good list or journal! Do what society tells you not to do: touch clothing in a store, pick up objects on a shelf, listen to things, look at colours. Neurotypical adults are taught to shut off so much positive sensory input along with the negative, but since we can’t do that and have to live in the world they made for us, we need to embrace our feeling-things-too-much powers by finding positive sensations.
(Stimming categories include smell, weight/pressure, touch/texture, taste, movement/manipulation, sound and colour/visual movement. Most of us will have a category to which we react more strongly over others, and most of us will have a category to which we respond little, not at all or negatively. There are toys on this blog corresponding to all these categories, toys all of us here use when panicked and overloaded. There’s also a wide variety of blogs and games, especially for visual stimming, so this category is easily accessed via phone. If you don’t have a stim toy kit already, check out this post on stim toy categories.)
9. Are there any similarities between your listed positive sensations? Have you listed a lot of things that suggest touch-seeking behaviour, for example, or have you listed a lot of movement-intensive toys, or experiences relating to sound? Is your list pushing you towards one of the above stim toy categories? This is important for building your kit or choosing which of your toys or stimmy items to keep in your bag or on your person, as you want the most effective toys/items within easy reach.
(I will say that not all toys are suitable for public use, so that’s something to keep in mind, too. If you like a lot of visual stimulation, for example, I’d ask you to consider not using toys with flashing lights as your public go-to calming stim, as flashing lights can trigger seizure and sensory overwhelm in others. Since most of us in panic or overload cannot ask if others are bothered by this, we need to choose a non-flashing toy.)
10. Which of these listed positive experience/stim categories can best relax you? This ties in to making sure as many of your things are still accessible to you when overloaded, as “positive” may still not mean “calming” in a high emotional state. (I love metal, for example, but when I am very wound up any kind of sound isn’t calming for me.) Experiment here, if needed. Try different things and categories from your list to find out what works best. The more you think about this, though, the more likely it is one of these things will pop into your mind when you need it.
11. What sensory or non-sensory experience distracts you? Is this something you can employ or have others employ when you’re panicked or overloaded? For example, whenever I went into shutdown, my psychologist would ask me a question about gender, activism or feminism, because she figured out that getting me into analytical mode got me out of shutdown much more quickly than standing back and waiting. Do you have that one song that always makes you happy? Do you have a topic or special interest? Do you need to get away from people altogether and hide in a quiet space? Do you want to try breathing exercises or meditation? Again, list!
12. How can you employ these experiences? You’ve got your lists and you have some ideas as to what might help you, so now you need to make it accessible. Put the calming music on your phone, tuck a Tangle in your pocket, cut off devil tags, keep a spinner in your bag. Is there a particular way you mean to use any items on your list? Make sure these things are planned out and as accessible as possible, as it’s no good having a list, thinking about a solution you wish to try and then not having it to hand when you’re out and sensory overload strikes.
13. Are there external supports you can put in place for when you’re panicked or overloaded? Do you have a friend or family member you can trust, someone to whom you can to indicate--in whichever form of communication is easiest, be it by sign or text message or AAC--as to when you’re struggling, knowing they can support you? Do you need them to remind you to step outside, slow your breathing or reach for a stim toy? Or can you set messages on your phone? Can you keep a list of steps to follow on your phone or in your pocket? Is there a way you can help yourself reach for one of those distractions or positive, calming sensory experiences?
I’ll be honest: this is a lot of work. You need to be an explorer, willing to try and experiment knowing you might only find little pieces of ease here and there. An awful lot of things others use and discuss may not work for you, which does put the onus of experimentation and discovery on your shoulders. That’s hard and scary and a lot unfair, but I don’t know any other way.
