I’m suffering from sensory overload today, an unfortunate byproduct of my anxiety.
Essentially, it’s when it feels like my senses are burned out from being overstimulated, and any input feels intense, threatening and intrusive.
If I can’t alleviate it in time, I lose the will/ability to speak, and even the thought of making words with my mouth makes me cringe.
They’ve installed a fan at my office right behind me because the ac doesn’t work.
The fan is noisy, and I strongly dislike the feeling of uneven gusts of cold winds constantly touching my skin.
It eats at me until it gets to be too much, and I spend my breaks hiding in a bathroom stall.
Is there anything I can do to keep from getting overloaded daily? I don’t have noise cancelling headphones.
I had a fit at my old job when I was told I couldn’t wear my noise cancelling headphones
The distractions in an open plan office are terribly horrific! I sympathise
My sensory overload happened about a week ago when I had too much on my schedule at the weekend, so I just dropped everything and spent 3 days in bed to recover
I had to stop rocking when I lived in a group home because the caretakers said it made me look sicker than I was.
I learned to redirect the energy to my fingers and toes, which are more socially acceptable to move/wiggle.
Maybe I’ll look into getting earplugs. I bet I could hide them under my headset and pretend to be listening to music.
I can’t afford to work less hours, and working from home is not an option yet. But I may look into it if this keeps happening.
I agree. It’s selfish for caretakers to ask us to appear normal so they won’t feel weird watching us stim the way we need to.
If I have enough pent up nervous energy that I need to rock back and forth to release it, despite being fully aware of how it looks, just let me do it.
And don’t get me started on the whole “quiet hands” thing
