lunarjunimo

[lunarjunimo]

someone said in a story on their instagram, she is also autistic, but she said:

"its actually insane that the biggest disabling thing about autism, something we ALL experience, is sensitivity to sensory stimuli, understimulation and overstimulation."

is that true that we ALL have a sensitivity to those things?

but also a stupid question, its probably been asked before but i have missed it, what is sensory stimuli? and how does it show up as a sensitivity? if that second question even makes sense, like how do you know you are sensitive to it?

Oh, I love this question.

So, the short answer is: no, not all autistics have difficulties with sensory input. However, it is so common that it is part of the autism criteria.

Now, the explanation:

I'll link the full criteria at the end of this, but to keep this simple, sensory issues are a part of Criteria B of the autism assessment.

Criteria B requires 2 out of 4 to be there. The 4 possible criteria are:

Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech.

Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior.

Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus.*

Hyper- or hypo-reactivity to sensory input or unusual interest in sensory aspects of the environment.

I meet all 4 criteria. Some autistics meet only 2 or 3.

* I hate the use of "abnormal" in this criterion, but I kept the wording exact.

Now, what is sensory stimuli?

Basically, anything that interacts with your senses.

Food cooking, lights, the sound of the TV, your clothing on your skin etc. These are all sensory input.

Everyone has a threshold of sensory sensitivity. But, autistics often have an extremely low threshold for this. So, whilst an allistic (non-autistic) can watch TV, and handle the sound of the microwave beeping, an autistic may be unable to handle those two sounds co-occurring.

Those with hypersensitivity often describe it as a physical pain.

There is also sensory hyposensitivity, where the autistic person struggles to get enough input from a specific sense and they will try more extreme activities to try to get stimulation.

Many Autistics experience both of these states for different reasons.

This is where stimming comes into play. Stimming lets us drown out unwanted stimulation or add stimulation.

Feel free to ask me more!

[lunarjunimo]

Close to the Void ✨ gifs made by me :)

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Destiny 2 Gifs [34/∞] - “Happy Dawning Guardians”.

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Destiny 2 Gifs [88/∞] - Everything

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sleep comes in waves

twitter/ insta/ store

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AIAT, AIAT, AIAT

Who else loved Season of the Witch? Need more Eris!

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♥️🤭 *gigglin* 🥹

Rhulk brings some very special flowers

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Just finished collecting the starcats from this season... The one staring at the Traveler looks a bit different from the others Is this a different starcat breed?

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I love Saint-14's reaction lmao, the cutest 🤭

I just wanted to make a silly Destiny 2 doodle with Nimbus 

Pls do not feed pigeons french fries! Even Saint-14 disapproves!

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2021 2024

Re-drawn my old 2021 Drifter sketch.

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yep i can confirm, i am both at the same time, pastel goth bunny

Art by @valbunnn

[lunarjunimo]