#but a combo of autism and trauma makes it hard for both of us to really express those feelings

[anxietytriangles]

I really need to cut contact with my mom. Every time she calls I think “how bad could this conversation be?” and somehow it’s always worse than the last time.

[seeingteacupsindragons]

YuuMori has a lot of villains (it’s, y’know, about the villains). YuuMori has a lot of characters with mental illnesses and neurodivergences.

Most of the time when you see this combo, well. Mental health issues have a pretty strong stigma.  Usually the reason they’re evil. Something’s just wrong with them, and their mental health and inability to fit into society is another sign and symptom of it.

And yet, in YuuMori, we have these characters who call themselves demons, who are actively, intentionally, the villains of their story­—and their mental health issues are not one of their sins. They do not add to their villainy.

So Albert is obsessive-compulsive. Whether it’s OCD or OCPD can be argued, maybe (although I lean toward OCPD, myself), but he is in fact seriously mentally ill, desperate enough because of it to commit murder. Personality disorders especially are hard to treat, in part because they’re so ingrained into a person. Someone with generalized anxiety might see their anxiety as separate from themselves, but personality disorders are harder to distinguish that way—and it’s part of what makes them so easy to demonize, even more than most others.

But Albert’s? Instead of making his mind looked warped and twisted, his very soul seeming wrong, his reasoning makes more sense now than it ever did before. This was a boy desperate for relief from constant discomfort, from the dissonance between how he knew this should be, how he’d been taught things were meant to be, and how they so obviously were. And it’s very obvious that he is suffering from something outside himself. He is not suffering because he is evil and his soul is wrong. He was suffering before he’d done anything wrong at all.

His discomfort was one of the most rawly emotional moments he’s ever had: Albert is usually quite cool and collected, sometimes angry, sometimes smug, but he has typically felt quite distant, even on the rare moments his internal thoughts are shown. His mental health issues, his suicidal ideation, his OCD? Those were not villainous, not cool, not collected, not careful. Those were human and desperate and fragile.

And while autism is not a mental illness, in this case it performs a similar function for William. He and Albert both have brains screaming at them constantly because that’s not right. That’s not Just. That’s not the way things should be. That doesn’t follow the rules. This can bring people with obsessive-compulsion disorder to their knees and claw their own skin open. It can bring autistic people to wordless shutdowns. It brought Albert the brink of suicide and William to murder.

They are in agony. Unless they fix the wrongness. And they have tried, so many ways, to fix it, and so many of those ways have fail.

William’s guilt may also be agony, but he’s choosing between two different forms of torment. And he thinks one helps others. Not much of a decision, that, not for someone with a soul and a heart, someone who burns so hot with love and hate that he has to turn it into something.

William’s depression, his mental illness, the way his brain doesn’t conform to society, his guilt, his understanding of his own misdeeds is so deep and his self-image so wholly negative, compared how virtually every other character in this series, even John, who barely knows him sees him, and especially compared to how the audience who adores him so much they overwhelmingly voted him their favorite character sees him.

We know he knows what he did was horrible. We are confronted with it constantly. And we are inclined to forgive him even when he might not, because we know despite it all, he has a solid moral center, a good core, the moral understanding of right from wrong. His depression is so all-consuming how could he not? Those things cause his depression.

Albert and William are the focal point of the villainy of the story in many ways: the two who started everything. The two who birthed James Moriarty, Lord of Crime. But while Albert and William may have started everything, they are not the only two with mental health issues.

Louis has always been quite stable. Anxious, to be sure, type A, very high strung. But not really mentally ill—everything he was ever anxious about was entirely reasonable (of course, I have an anxiety disorder myself, so my evaluation of that might be off—but still, worried Sherlock might ruin William’s plan, might lead to his death, might ruin something, worrying about William’s death, worrying about Milverton? All entirely reasonable, thank you). Informed by trauma, surely, but not necessarily mentally ill.

Moran, though? Louis’s behavior is informed by trauma, but Moran’s is poisoned by it.  That double-dose PTSD not only from the war, but from his actions in The Final Problem tore him apart, and we saw it tear him apart. His PTSD pushed him into crime the same way William and Albert’s mental health did.

When Moran first gets his character focus, when his personality and character is delved into properly, it’s to show his trauma and mental health issues. His character is deepened, given structure and reasoning and understand, by showing us his mental illness, the way Albert just was in chapter 62. The way William’s has been for several arcs now with his depression.

I find Moran particularly interesting, because he’s not the only character with Shell Shock: John is also a veteran, and has a psychogenic illness from his time at war. When you take those two, loyal bosom friends of William and Sherlock, who are also set to contrast and parallel each other, down to their mental health issues and neurodivergencies, it becomes very apparent how differently the two teams have portrayals of their illness. Of course, John’s not a villain. Sherlock, for all that he can commit horrible acts, is not a villain.

But Sherlock suffers from bouts of listlessness and gloom just as William does—and he hides it even less. He doesn’t quite manifest as traditional depression the way William does—it really reads more like manic depression—but Moran and John’s PTSD doesn’t manifest the same way either. And Moran’s physical disability rooted in something more concretely physical than John’s and his struggle much more debilitating. The way he suffered pushed him to do worse things than John ever felt pushed into.

But suffering, like it did with Albert and William, makes us feel closer to him. It makes them these powerful men who call themselves devils vulnerable.

Human.

[lonelier-version-of-you]

Do you think Henrik ever tried to anglicize his name? Henrik to Henry or something? To fit in? Thought about this after realizing again that Connie & Jac both go exclusively by nicknames. I know it's not the same thing but. you get me?

I've actually always thought the opposite (though it's been a while since I last got to talk about this, so I'm glad to have the opportunity to discuss it again!).

I mean, I could see him having tried to anglicize it as a kid at boarding school. That would make sense to me (*points at what I've written before in my fic, about him being "the awkward, foreign, Jewish boy" in a school full of English Christian kids*). But in his adult life I think he's spent a lot of time using being Swedish as a sort of... shield, I guess. If that makes sense. It's all 'look at me, look at me, I'm from Sweden, we do things differently there, I'm an ~outsider~ in your country, aren't I interesting'.

Like, how he introduced himself to Roxanna at Rigden comes to mind. "Henrik Hanssen. From Sweden. Where we drink, migrate, and pickle things - in no particular order." Interestingly he really pushed the whole Swedish thing when he first turned up at Holby as well, so he seems to play it up more with new people/environments. It seems to be one of the first things he establishes.

I think that's because it's almost a sort of self-protection tactic. Get the whole "I'm foreign" thing out of the way first and then people will assume that he is the way he is because he's from a different country, rather than because of his trauma + undiagnosed autism combo.

Hence why he freaked out as hard as he did when Maja turned up at the hospital in Never Let Me Go. (He doesn't freak out nearly as much in Hanssen/Hemingway in comparison, and that's the episode where he sees her for the first time since abandoning her when she was pregnant 25 years prior!)

I mean, I also think there was an aspect of not wanting people to learn anything about his personal life, but part of it seems to be that he feels like he's being exposed. Like the rest of the staff meeting Maja and realising that she's a perfectly normal person would quickly make his "I'm weird because I'm Swedish" excuse fall apart. Like they'll realise that he's "broken".

To the point they actually have Maja say: "In Sweden, we are far less formal. Unless you're like Henrik, who always was a stickler for the rules - even as a student!" And Henrik looks extremely uncomfortable when she says it.

I think Henrik accepted pretty quickly that he doesn't fit in, so instead he more sort of tries to... not fit in, but in a socially acceptable way? Because, like, if people assume that his behaviour is a cultural thing, then that makes it seem more acceptable, or even cool. And he prefers being seen as a mysterious, fascinating outsider than a weird, broken one.

[adultingautistic]

I was the one who asked if there's a way to tell if you experience sensory sensitivities or if what you experience is just neurotypical.

So for one, a couple days ago, my step-mom's friend's daughter was here. She's 9-years-old and my brother was "jokingly" scaring her and she would keep screaming at the very top of her lungs and I kept plugging my ears because it hurt. My brother made fun of me and said I was being "stupid" for doing that. To this day, I can't comprehend how her screaming didn't hurt his ears. It got to a point where even after she stopped for a while, it felt like my ears were ringing even though they weren't.

Ever since I was younger, I always told people "I have sensitive hearing" but I only told that to people because I don't like loud noises unless I can control it (music). I don't actually know if it's true that my hearing is sensitive or not, but I notice when I'm the only person plugging my ears, it makes me question. If I can avoid loud noises, I always make the choice to do so. When our dogs are barking and yowling a lot, I get irritated and I can't stand it. At school, I always avoided pep assemblies if I could because I always told people my hearing was too sensitive to deal with it. But at the same time, I don't know if I've experienced sensory overload caused by anything other than emotional sensory information, if that makes sense...

I get meltdowns and shutdowns, but I always associated them with stressful emotional moments, but I can't tell if other sensory input like sound or visuals also added to it.

There are textures I hate, like crayons, so through my entire life I have never used crayons if I was given a choice. Certain papers bother me a lot, but I've learned to deal with them. I notice when I'm the only person wearing a coat in cold weather. Textures bother me to a point where I'm glad I have to wear gloves at work because every time I touch something gross, dirty, or something that bothers me, I always end up washing my hands.

But at the same time, I can "deal" with these things ?

I experience same-fooding and I have ADHD and I experience SO many autism symptoms, but it's so hard to know if I am autistic because I have so much trauma and my ADHD is so bad and so is my depression and anxiety that I can't tell if certain things I experience are due to trauma, ADHD, or it actually is autism, but I can say that I watched a video about one person's experience with their autism and I cried because I related so much and my autistic friend says that it believes I might be autistic as well.

Original ask date: September 16th

Hi there!  Thank you so much for putting in the work to describe your sensory experiences more in detail, so I can give you a better answer.

So upon reading this, no, this is not a neurotypical experience.  You observed how neurotypicals respond- they don’t cover their ears.  They don’t wear their coat.  They touch the crayons and they don’t care about the type of paper.  

All of these experiences you listed are sensory sensitivity, to a T.  The fact that you are able to “deal” with it isn’t what makes you neurotypical- a neurotypical person doesn’t have to deal with it, because for them, there is nothing to be dealt with.  So having to deal with it means there is something there that you’re dealing with- and that thing is sensory sensitivity.

Sensory sensitivity is one of the symptoms that overlaps between ADHD and autism.  So it is entirely possible that your sensory-sensitive experiences are caused by your ADHD.

From this scientific study on children with ADHD:

One type of sensory processing problem is sensory over-responsivity or sensory hypersensitivity. That is, individuals respond to sensory stimuli in the way that is faster, longer, or more intense than what is expected. This response can be towards any types of sensory stimuli. Sensory over-responsivity can be considered as an independent diagnosis. For example, a child with tactile sensitivity or defensiveness might be defensive for hair-brushing and/or haircuts because she/he cannot tolerate it easily.

This sounds to me exactly like what you are experiencing.

It makes perfect sense that you would relate to autism experiences in this way, because sensory sensitivity and meltdowns are a very common symptom of autism, and it is one we share with ADHD.  

But at the same time, I don't know if I've experienced sensory overload caused by anything other than emotional sensory information, if that makes sense... That makes total sense, and my question is...what else do you think causes sensory overload?  Emotional sensory information IS sensory overload.  That’s the cause of it.  There are two things that contribute to overload in a brain: emotionally distress, and too much sensory input (such as touching Bad Textures or hearing Bad Sounds, etc.) This is exactly what overload is.

I get meltdowns and shutdowns, but I always associated them with stressful emotional moments, but I can't tell if other sensory input like sound or visuals also added to it. The answer is yes.  Emotional distress and sensory distress compound each other.  This means if you are emotionally upset, your ability to process sensory input is reduced.  Or if you are experiencing sensory distress, then your ability to handle emotions is reduced.  They are both things that “fill the overload tank” in your brain, and a person can get overloaded from either Too Much emotions OR Too Much sensory input OR a combo of both.

None of these experiences are neurotypical.  Both are things experienced by people with ADHD and people with autism.  Both ADHD and autism have a lot in common, and so people with one very often relate to the experiences of people with the other.

You also may have autism as well.  It is very common for people who have one to also have the other.  So if you feel you might have autism too, it can’t hurt to go and get tested for it.  If there are some symptoms you experience that ADHD doesn’t explain, that is an indication you may have autism as well.  But you are most certainly neurodiverse, and it makes perfect sense that you would related to autistic experiences regarding sensory experiences and meltdowns, because those are not neurotypical experiences at all.