Emotional Overflow

The struggle for emotional control is always with me. I try to meet the world on its terms. I need to calm myself to do that. It’s not too bad if I feel OK inside. If I don’t, Oh boy. I find it is a train that rolls so swiftly that even if the engineer tries to stop it, the momentum keeps moving me onward. Once I stop I feel so embarrassed or sorry.

The triggers can be silly to others. Inside, they are serious.

I get nervous. It overflows. I get stressed. It overflows.
It overflows.
Oh man, do I hate that.
I behave the way people expect autistic people to act when I overflow, so they assume I’m not smart or something. Then I stop trying.

Do you see other autistic people do this too? It sounds silly, but it is common. I think it explains the tantrums some kids have. They tantrum from fear, anxiety or stress, but oh how quickly it becomes anger if people try to stop it with “hands down” or “no” or “all done” to a teenager.

The train is stopped by rules and understanding.

4 responses to “Emotional Overflow

  1. Don’t stop trying, Ido, and keep expressing yourself! Writing about your thought processes and your daily struggle just to function “normally” in this world helps us to better understand you and others like you.

  2. Ido, I have a couple of questions. First, what are some ways that you are able to calm yourself when you feel your emotions beginning to bubble up? Second, I was very struck by your comment about being a teenager and still being spoken to like a little boy. It is definitely a common occurrence. I do notice, however, that even some smart teenage boys with autism seek out entertainment (videos, books) that are very young. Do you have any thoughts about that? Possibly topics for future blog posts 🙂

  3. Thanks for the topics. I’ll be in touch too.
    Exercise, walking and cooking shows help me relax.

  4. Dear Ido
    I read your book Ido in Autism Land in fall 2015. That time things were dark, I did not know what to do. I was fighting the school for the right education and right place for my son, at that time he was 6 years old. He was denied for academic skill. We ask the school to teach him 4 letters A,B,C,D and 1 to 5 but they said he was not capable of learning. we pull him from school in last day of October 2017 and we started from scratch to teach letters, numbers, colors and shapes. After 5 weeks we noticed he learn or new his letters and numbers 1 to 10.
    Sooner after that, we figure it out that he was reading too. Our next step was typing, all his therapist disagree with me his mother but regardless I started teaching him typing. Step by step he learn how to type on his IPAD INDPENDENTLY. It took time but within the time period of less than a year his typing became functional. He has a lot of sensory need and some behaviors going on but he type some words. However a miraculous thing happen just in the past 2 to 3 weeks. My son likes only one book with a picture of a water park where we spent our family vacation last summer. He was attached to it, he look at it and go then he come back and look at for months. Then I ask him where he wants for vacation then he type the name of that specific water park. Until that time his typing was not that much conversational but that specific question bring us to life through conversation. typed about events from the age of 15-18 month. He typed who visited us, where his preschool was and everything in detail….. What amaze me was his math skill, we were not at that stage of teaching him multiplication and division with the Ipad yet but he knew his multiplication
    table and division. He scan the page of the book in less than a second and answer the details of the page content. I felt the sad to bee in the quiet world with a bright brain.
    I hope you enjoy reading my post
    thank you
    Magda

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