#but i don't wanna go into full emotional shutdown either

[warrenwaskilledbyadeer]

Now normally I'd be feeling like a complete failure because of how a bunch of my Halloween plans blew up in my face and I got depressed about it and didn't finish my costume but now I've been invited to a Halloween party on Halloween and don't have time to finish my costume, but when you're already so overwhelmed you've gone numb it doesn't change your mood at all!!!

[purlturtle]

I reblogged this earlier already, but I wanna add something:

Those people (including yourself if you've internalized this) who tell you that you "just need to get over it," "just ignore it," and/or "just need to get used to it"?

Ignore them.

Basically what is happening here is that your brain, like a CPU, is running at (or over!) absolute capacity. This is not a sustainable state.

Remember this, please:

THIS IS NOT A SUSTAINABLE STATE.

Do not remain in this state longer than absolutely necessary. Do not tell yourself, or let others tell you, to ignore it for longer than absolutely necessary. Finish whatever you're doing, and then GTFO to somewhere calmer, quieter, where you can recuperate.

Just like if your computer's CPU was overheating, you want to shut down/slow down the demands on your brain as soon as you can, so that the "critical heat indicators" (i.e. your feeling of overwhelm) can go down to a more manageable baseline.

This might take a while.

I had an episode of complete and utter overwhelm in October, to the point where opening my work mailbox was making me cry - other symptoms included EVERYTHING feeling like a demand I couldn't meet, even taking care of my kitties; wanting to strangle neighbors cutting their hedges with power tools; wanting to curl into a ball and roll somewhere in a dark place until everyone went away who wanted anything from me. The slightest setback to ANYTHING made me break down in tears. I wanted to throw things, bite things, tear things apart with my bare hands when they didn't work, even when me handling the thing wrong was the reason why they didn't work. I had a hair trigger on my temper, and it was so hard to keep from yelling incoherently at the tiniest little thing (including my kitties). And then to add on to that, I felt like shit because that wasn't me? I wasn't like that? Why was I like that?!

I had come to this point because I had ignored my feeling of overwhelm for too long, and like they say, when you don't schedule maintenance for your system, your system will schedule maintenance for you. I had gone from overwhelm to shutdown.

Even now, months later, in which I have dialled down everything I could possibly dial down, I am not back to full capacity. And frankly I might not ever be, because what I saw as full capacity was based on me ignoring when I was overwhelmed.

You can't train yourself to get less sensitive to these things, either. A bright sun will always be too bright; too loud noises will always be too loud; an emotional leech will always make you feel shitty. LIke I said above, please start ignoring "just get used to it" and similar advice. It doesn't work, and forcing yourself down that path will only lead to disappointment and frustration with yourself for failing to achieve something that was impossible to begin with. So please don't.

What you can train is recognizing how it feels when you get close to overwhelm, and to remove what overwhelms you/remove yourself from the overwhelming situation. What you can do is order your life, to the extent that you have a say in these things, to accommodate your need for quiet and calm. What you can do is find trusted friends and allies who can help you recognize when you're (close to) being overwhelmed, and who can help remove the overwhelming thing, or remove you from the situation.

By doing those things, your "critical heat indicators" will drop, slowly but surely, and your brain can start recuperating. And it might seem that, for example, that too loud noise will suddenly not be too loud anymore - but that isn't because the noise got quieter, NOR because you "got used to it", but because your brain isn't at its limit any longer, and thus has an easier time filtering or processing that noise. I don't feel like yelling at my kitties anymore either, even though they're the same kitties who pull the same shit like a few months ago.

Spicy-brained friends, I would like to propose an update to the very useful ‘if you hate everyone, eat, if everyone hates you, sleep, and if you hate yourself, shower’ mantra to live by

Have you suddenly become a petty, hateful little gremlin who thinks people should face the firing squad for (checks notes) leaving teabags on the counter, breathing loudly, or daring to exist in the same space as you? Perhaps mundane and reasonable requests like ‘hey, we agreed to hang out now, let’s hang out’ make you want to scream and move to a yurt in the woods.

You. Are. Overstimulated.

People talk a lot about being overstimulated, and the physical/mental effects of it. What I haven’t seen is people talking about what it does emotionally, and it took me an embarassingly long time to link up those nitpicky, resentful emotions with the state of overstimulation/meltdown/shutdown.

These feelings do not mean that you’re a bad person! They probably aren’t how you actually feel about the people around you. They probably do mean that your nervous system is at its absolute limit and any request/demand/stimulus is Too Much and taking you into fight or flight territory.

Go lie down in a dark room for an hour, or find somewhere safe and familiar to stim for a bit. If it’s happening a lot, schedule yourself regular low-stimulation shutdown time

Signed: someone who moved in with their nearest and dearest only to have a massive crisis of faith about Suddenly Hating All of Them. I don’t hate them, it’s just overstimulating living with people. If I can spare anyone else a similar 9 months of suspecting that they may actually be a bit of a shit person, then this post is worth it!

[stebens]

i wanna start by saying i'm not being antagonistic or trying to be mean, i really just wanna know. what steven universe characters do you headcannon as autistic? i really like your take on things and just your blog in general so i'm sorry if this is annoying or upsetting. you don't have to answer this if you don't want to (like i won't be upset or spam you with asks) have a great day ❤️

You’re not being antagonistic! Don’t worry!! I love talking about my autistic headcanons.

(I’ll forego explaining Steven since he’s so widely headcanon’d as autistic/ADHD, there’s already multiple posts out there about him.)

Click below to experience REAL AUTISM HOURS

Pearl

- She has a routine, and changes in that routine can cause her to meltdown and cry.- She is VERY expressive with her hands and often uses them to stim!- She love love loves to infodump and is always eager to teach, i.e. swordfighting, gem stuff, etc.- She doesn’t really get jokes or sarcasm very often.- She either keeps a plain facial expression or a wildly emotional facial expression and there is little to no in-between.

Garnet

- In Season 1, she struck me as semiverbal, and I like to imagine she was even nonverbal when Steven was a toddler. But now that she’s grown and opened up to her friends, I think she can even go hyperverbal sometimes!- Meat Beat Mania is the Ultimate Stim and Hyperfocus- She doesn’t always know what facial expression she’s making so it gets stuck in a smile, frown, scowl, etc. sometimes so Steven paps her face to un-stuck it.

Amethyst

- LOV THE CRONCH. Eating is the best stim. That’s why she eats such weird shit.- The mess in her room is an Organized Mess. Don’t touch it. Everything in there is important to her and she’ll know the minute something goes missing from her room.- She shuts down whenever she’s overwhelmed. Bother her too much while she’s like this, and the shutdown will turn meltdown.- Heavily uses sarcasm but doesn’t always get it when others do.

Ruby + The Squad

- Minor inconvenience = MELTDOWN- “Sorry what? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of my brain running at 200mph”- Ruby focuses on one thing at a time. She has a hard time dealing with multiple problems, so she only deals in ones. It can be difficult getting her attention when she’s got her mind on something.- Doc can count, but has difficulties processing numbers. She usually has a suspicion when she counted wrong, but if someone tells her she’s right, she’ll believe them.- Navy has an indoor voice because everything is Too Loud. Quiet places make her happy, which is why she immediately loved Earth.- Army stims by FLEXING and PUNCHING THINGS. She’s also more likely to shutdown rather than meltdown. She’s angery 24/7 but if something overwhelms her she’ll go full nonverbal and hide away from everyone and everything.- Leggy has the most trouble processing new information, which is why she seems to be “lagging” behind the others. She’ll get better at it though!- Eyeball is very set on her missions and goals. That’s her routine. If she can’t accomplish them, she gets really angry and depressed. This shows in her behavior in ‘Bubbled’.

Sapphire

- Hyperempathetic, even if it doesn’t show. She feels what her loved ones are feeling. Even when she’s not fused with Ruby, she shares her feelings, i.e. her anger in Keystone Motel.- Her infodumps aren’t the typical “super excited, talking really fast” infodumps. They’re slow and passionate like she’s telling a fairytale, and everyone loves to listen to them.- She stims with her hair A LOT. Brushing her bangs, combing her fingers through the lengths, etc. She loves when other people play with her hair too.

Rose / Pink Diamond

- She has the biggest, BIGGEST special interest in Earth. For the thousands of years from her “shattering” to Steven’s birth, she spent every moment loving humans and the Earth and learning as much about them as she could.- She reformed with a dress because it’s fun to stim with! Twirling and bouncing and everything. Her old outfit was so uncomfortable sensory wise. Now she doesn’t have to deal with puffy sleeves or shoes anymore!- She doesn’t know what’s going on most of the time and that’s okay.