We’re All Overstimulated: Will’s Fourth Lesson

While I was putting him to bed, I realized the fourth thing I learned from our son about communication.

Will likes me to lie with him until he falls asleep at night. It’s my favorite time of day, and it’s the best time for two things:

1. Interesting questions from him like, “Daddy, do ducks and the other animals get paid for living in zoos? ‘Cause it’s their job, you know.”
2. Enjoying the stillness.

We don’t have much of that anymore, do we? Stillness.

I mean, we’ve done it to ourselves – with tweets and smart phones and videos and blogs and texts and status updates and automatic notifications.

You don’t think The Matrix has us?

Information’s coming at us like that dollar bill hurricane machine at Chuck E. Cheese.

We’ve just naturally assimilated and adjusted.

It’s not that easy, in fact it can be downright impossible, for persons on the autism spectrum.

Here’s (amazing writer) Kristina DesJardins talking about how overstimulation affects her:

Autistic people as you may have already heard, get overstimulated: the lights, the noises, the movement of people walking all around, etc.

Autistic people hear everything; the pens clicking, someones shoes scruffing on the floor, the voices, the lights actually hum, and even watches…I told my doctor once that her watch sounded like tin when it clicked and she had to hold it up to her ear and couldn’t even hear it.

The psychologist had done a hearing test on me…my hearing from the nerves in brain come as much louder, so someone talking can sound like someone yelling sometimes, as well.

So how does it feel to be autistic when you are overstimulated? It feels like: 20 cologne smells (all people around you are wearing different things, etc. Autistics smell all of it), like hundred of kids running around you asking you questions in different languages, like you’re sitting in a chair that is missing one leg and trying to balance it while all that is going on, and lights flickering…too much, hence why autistics have Meltdowns.

Will’s team worked very hard, very early with him (and us) on de-sensitizing him to many of the things Kris describes. Because we (read: my amazing wife) intervened so early, we were able to work on his much younger, much more (evidently) malleable psyche, but it’s still easy to see the physical manifestations of his overstimulation.

We know.

To see it in the rest of us, though? That’s not quite as easy.

Why?

Because we’ve begun to live in a constant state of overstimulation and need for the next thing.

Indeed, some have argued there are benefits to being in a heightened state of “what’s next?”

But, to be in such a state constantly?

You’re going to melt down.

It’s why I so look forward to every evening there with Will.

No phone. No twitter. No email. No TV. No books. No magazines. No blogs. No texts.

Nothing but interesting questions about jetpacks and penguins and lasers, followed by a white noise machine and time to quiet the buzz in my head.

A time to, as Leo Babauta writes at zenhabits, be still:

Be still.
Just for a moment.
Listen to the world around you. Feel your breath coming in and going out. Listen to your thoughts. See the details of your surroundings.
Be at peace with being still.

In those times, listening to my own thoughts and the white noise, I slow down.

I unbuzz.

I wind down.

I understimulate.

I find peace.

I recharge, and I practice this mindful focus so I can summon it when I need to work on things that matter.

Then, during the day, I check email only three times a day. I have the best virtual receptionist answer my phones. I close twitter. I close Facebook.

When I work, I work violently, but I am at peace.

When was the last time you consciously tried to be still? To disconnect? To find peace?

Will? He has to, or he’ll meltdown.

Newsflash?

So will I.

So will you.

I’m working on building a TED talk for TEDxMU on April 14th. It’s about the communications lessons I’ve learned from my son with autism. I’ve been chronicling the process here on The Daily Blur in the hopes that – by watching me deconstruct the process I’ve gone through many times – you’ll begin to look at public speaking with a little less mystique and anxiety. You can see and read the series here.