What is autistic sensory overload?
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- Опубліковано 4 лют 2025
- Well, here's what sensory overload is to me, and how it affects my life.
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I actually got a hearing test about 25 years ago because I thought I was going deaf. They told me my hearing was super good...better than most people in fact. I then figured that people must really mumble and was unable to understand my difficulty.
That didn't make sense either. Finally many years later I have carefully self diagnosed my autism. This makes total sense and only helps confirm the diagnosis. Thanks. Well described.
You know another place this is difficult is attending plays. I have a really hard time hearing the actors or words of songs in musicals.
I bet so many people have thought they were going deaf, because there isnt the depth of knowledge about autism stuff..
I found your channel some time ago when I was desperately looking for experiences with autism. I am a 58-year-old Dutch novelist (not a famous one unfortunately, or fortunately maybe also) and communications professional and, like you, discovered at a very late age that I have autism. To be precise: a three months ago. I am now also diagnosed. And as you say: everything is falling into place, all the puzzle pieces are falling together. The meltdowns, the burnouts. And also what you say in this video: autistic sensory overload. I hate parties and crowded gatherings. And I always thought I wasn't that 'social'. But that's not true. All those conversations I have to follow all become a cacophony that drives me crazy. Only now do I understand how it works. Personally, I also have a sensitivity to music. Music is never background noise for me. So in a restaurant, when an album is on repeat or Muzak is played that annoys me and I also have to follow all the conversations around me, I go berserk. Thanks, thanks for your videos that are so enlightening but at the same time made with self-deprecation and humour. You are a beautiful human being.
Thanks so much for this
I have friends with autism and this is a nice clear description of how they see things and why I find them waiting for me outside Birmingham New St Station and not inside as they should be.
On the flip side I find that people browsing is very entertaining. If there is no direct conversation to pay attemtion to, the buzz of other people can fun. Especially on vacation at cafes outside where noises are not as oppressive.
I can sit and just watch for hours all the little personal stories playing out. And because of our sensory abilities nothing escapes attention.
You explain sensory overload so well. I only, just recently, figured out I'm autistic at 67! But at points in my life thought why am i like this, why did i react that way, do i have Aspergers or am i autistic or something? What led me down the self diagnosis rabbithole was that I had a nasty reaction to a sudden loud noise then i got grumpy and nasty to the old man who caused the loud noise with his car alarm. Then i proceeded to yell at him for setting off his car alarm after he had parked too close to my car which i was squeezing myself between while getting supplies out of the rear hatch. I was smack right in front of his car gathering up my things and he hit his remote without looking at his car, causing the horn to do a loud double beep. I literally jumped, startled and almost fell as there was no room to regain my footing because my calves were against his cars license plate he parked that close. I angrily said to him didnt you see me standing there right in front of your car?!! He said No! His wife came to his defense saying all he did was innocently hit the remote, which she shows me the buttons and how it works. Like he was just innocently setting the car's alarm. He wasnt looking and never saw me. He was in his late eightiesxid say. Maybe too old to drive anymore!. He also didnt see how he parked too damn close to my bumper leaving me no leg room to remove my art supplies for a class i was to attend apparently with his wife whom he drove there to drop her off for the same class. Well after me reacting angrily and scolding these two on the street upon learning I'd have to sit with her for the same art class i thought i'm too upset to do that! I new id keep mouthing off complaining about her husbands lousy parking skills that id be disrupting the class, draw negatjve attention to myself and decided to skip the class and go home. Later at home i thought why did i react so strongly? Ive always been so sensitive to things. Loud unexpected noises. Noisy places. Bright lights. Flourescent lights. And off i went on an investigative journey online matching up my personality traits to traits displayed by those with Aspergers or ASD. Searching online reading article after article, consulting the DSM, taking the tests, watching video after video, listening to psychologists, listening to other adults who learned their diagnosis at a later adult stage and then watching videos of childrens behavior and figured it out saying oh yeah, i acted like that. I did the stimming behaviors. Ive learned to mask to fit in. Sh*t, im autistic. Been that way all my life. Thats what my problem is.
There's a good chance I wouldn't have noticed your nails, or I might have. I definitely noticed now since watching the other video first - lol. They are neither here or there. The sensory issue is most certainly an issue. I am becoming more aware of my sensory issues and how often I actually get distracted in so many ways. Content creators that do, not only the nails, but the hair, clothing, face make up and sometimes stuff in the background have too much going on for me to finish viewing their video sometimes. That's why I like the internet, I can quit without them knowing or offending them. Anyway, keep doing what you are doing, its all good in my book. 👏👏
So nicely explained. I have an extreme overload reaction to driving that prevents me to be able to do it. For years I've heard the comments "You'll get used to it". I'm still waiting.
I’m glad you mentioned the focusing on the mouth, I’ve done this all my life, I also sometimes have a “delayed processing response, due to not hearing them, like you mention believing it’s your hearing. Good job.
I love your humor in describing the hardships of sensory overload! I too carry ear-plugs with me at all times. The trouble with wearing them is that when I take them out, my ears kindly heightened their sensitivity to sound, so I might still be able to hear in spite of sudden less input. That makes for half an hour of an extremely noisy world when I take them out - even if rarely anything is happening.
Aaah yes, totally get that
I LOVE THIS VIDEO!!!! PLEASE DO MORE STUFF LIKE THIS!!!! you explained this so so well i hope more allistic people understand a little better if they watch this
Thanks so much!
Man i have respect for you. I have a anxiety disorder and know sensory overload when i am really stressed out. Its awful. Having it all the time must be a real challenge. Thanks for sharing your experience so openly
Love the sarcastic humour and yes I subscribed. This is definitely me too wrt auditory overload! As a child, swimming lessons were the worst because the pool room was loud and echoey and I was extremely nearsighted but couldn't wear my glasses to see people's faces and tell who was speaking. As an adult, I find loud dark restaurants to be horribly exhausting (I will literally start falling asleep) because of the din and the poor visibility - which, again, I think has to do with not being able to see who is speaking/not being able to lip read. My hearing is fine, afaik, but I don't do well with excessive or multiple sounds at once.
spicy peanut butter sandwiches.. that sounds genius.
Also, thank you for making this video. It perfectly describes the way I react to having my sense bombarded. I've had an autism diagnosis for a few years and have many friends on the spectrum, and I understood what sensory overload was enough to explain it to somebody else, but it took hearing somebody plainly explaining to me for my brain to actually click and go "uhh yeah, you've literally put up with this same thing for over 2 decades now.."
Thank you for all your posts on the subject.
I was diagnosed in my early 50:s and am now 65. I was aware of my problems long before, but did not understand it was autism, but thought they where all differnet problems.
I find that some of my autistic problems seem to have goten a bit relieved when others (sensory overload and very physically reaction to sudden noises, like a very strong reflection reaction to sudden noises) has goten worse with the years.
Amen brother Amen! I suffer from autistic sensory overload too. All kinds of strategies to cope, depending on the situation.
Thanks Mat for your informative video,my wife is autistic and one of my daughters both got their diagnosis in the last few years!😊😅❤
hope you're all doing ok with it
I've known I'm probably autistic for about twenty years but I failed to get a diagnosis in lock down. I definitely have an auditory processing delay and it makes things very difficult for me at work. I'm fairly sure my hearing is fine (I'm a musician). Thanks for talking about it.
Very well explained, I usually get told off for "not listening" as if Its something I can control easily and it always feels very unfair. I might have to send this video to people who don't quite understand what I mean when I talk about sensory overload.
It isn't easy to isolate the one conversation that I'm engaged in and to ignore all the rest especially when there is loud music playing but with a lot of effort at times I can manage. In movies with overlapping dialogue, I tend to keep track as best I can with everything.
Yes, I absolutely also suffer this way
I don't really leave comments on YT. Maybe ~2 over the years. But I would like to take a moment to express my gratitude for your videos. As a 45 year old who was recently diagnosed with ASD your videos have been invaluable in helping explain my diagnosis with my family. I really hope you continue to make this type of content and that life finds you well. Cheers!
aww thanks so much for that
I like "I don't have an existential crisis when it happens anymore, I just go somewhere quiet" (paraphrase)
Life changing, hey?
Fantastic video as always. I was a student nurse (near graduation) till physical injury halted that and yet I still did not make the connection when an audiologist told me my hearing was fine and I must have an audio processing disorder. The brain is an odd thing.
Oï ! Thanks for the video ! I do think that there is something really interesting about the 'depth of field' in the perceptions of some different types of neurodivergent people. I prefer saying depth of field because, if you frame these particular types of perception as an inability to focus, then you might be missing out on the fact that it also corresponds to an ability to hold different objects in focus at once. Now of course the sensory intensity of those perceptions can become overwhelming, but there are also times when it is the most beautiful thing. And I find myself somehow regretting that so few people can feel the beauty of perceptions that are much less filtered. It is more difficult to make sense of them, but also it means you will see things that other people will miss, because their brain has already decided what part of the shot was important even before they saw it.
oooh I really like depth of field as a way of describing this
I work in retail merchandising in many different grocery stores. I never understood why I was always so irritable at the end of my day. But now I know it's because I spent sooooo much mental energy trying to ignore all the sounds/smells. (store radio, customers, forklifts, beeping noises, etc)
Oh that sucks - it must be exhausting
Very interesting. I haven't had an autism diagnosis made on me (it's a spectrum so we're all on there somewhere I suppose) but I couldn't count the number of hours I've spent in crowds at social events putting huge effort in to pretending I could hear and hoping that my arsenal of neutral responses was enough to not appear rude or ignorant about whatever was being said when, for me, it was just a big wall of noise. In later life, and now on my own, the expectation on me to weather these stressful situations has gone as I've increasingly given myself permission to absent myself from them; the relief is visceral.
Spot on with the description! The meds I've been prescribed helps a lot with this issue, though. Wish I had it years ago.
I do enjoy breaking the law on occasion ... but i also do like the way you present things so wonderfully. :)
On a side note: I did have my hearing checked out multiple times due to the difficulties you described here. It did not help being attested a very good hearing on each occasion, without being provided any further alternatives for the reason of why I might have these problems then... Therefore, I very much appreciate you speaking out on these thing!
I hear that same sort of thing from my wife, and children. My children are both diagnosed, and my wife is not. I want to tell you how much I appreciate these videos.
thank you very much
I see myself in what you’re saying. I have autism myself and hearing you talking about it makes me feel very comfortable. I know when i need a quiet place its just sometimes not possible to find one and that is hard for me.
These days we choose restaurants etc., from the sound levels at the place. And I know how much time I can manage before losing it. 1 hour in a very noisy environment, 2ish hours when it's less busy but then I'll be napping when I get home.
Excellent of you to share all this. The overload happens to me as well. My late diagnosis ADHD has many similarities to autism, I probably have a bit of that as well. There’s big overlap for some. And I agree hot sauce is great in peanut butter sandwiches, marmite is too. But possibly not for all 😅
yeah big overlap between ADHD and autism. Marmite on peanut butter scares me, but maybe I should be brave and try it. lol
Thanks for this vid especially. I am 53 today with ought a diagnosis and a lot of misdiagnosis. Been trying to explain this one aspect of overload to various people. No one even though I have struggled all of my life they and the idiot doctors i have dealt with more than a dozen times they still gaslight me and tell me i am okay...Thanks again now i can show people this and say yes us old gits also have this Spectrum Disorder thing. Sorry my panic and adhd is acting up bad today so i feel like i am not making any sense. Any way thanks from Portland , Oregon had to repaste this because i was on the wrong youtube account...thanks again for making these vids.
Hey portland! Thanks for that - and it makes complete sense - you're all good! Big love from Southend, england
Beautifully explained thank you.
Appreciate your take on this. Very close to how I've described it to people before, I can "kind of" track 2-3 conversations for keywords. The moment I get involved in a conversation myself, it tends to be subdued significantly. I will take being mildly annoying to my coworkers over some day accidentally blurting out an impolite request for silence.
Droning/continuous/consistently repetitive noises don't really bother me regardless of intensity (rear seats of an MD-80 series aircraft is the ultimate example, with the added benefit of being effectively deaf for the entire flight - I was able to tune out a screaming baby on an airplane for the first time in my life), but complex or irregular sounds like human speech, dogs barking and power tools/construction... but only if they're perceived as real. Familiarity, low fidelity reproduction, and often just the knowledge that the sound (as from a television) doesn't have a "real" source all tend to make them less distracting.
tangential note: Also recently learned the expression "my head's a shed" - never met an analogy that fit the case so perfectly (just such disorganized thought from years of failing to commit to regular introspection). A shed I can clean and organize. Possibly I had somewhat lost a sense of how to 'clean' a human mind. I find when i've done that sort of clearing out of the shed, there's more room to ingest random junk from conversations around the office and it just stresses me out less.
yes to all of that! I quite often have background ambient noise on when I'm working - but as soon as there's voices, the spell is broken haha
Interesting, something just clicked for me. Lately it seems like I'm having these realizations all the time that something I thought was just my own idiosyncrasy is probably an autistic trait.
I don't have the "hearing all conversations" issue at all... when I'm entirely sober. On the few occasions when I do drink, it's often at a restaurant or party or similar where there are multiple conversations going on. And what happens? The very first effect I notice from alcohol is that I start progressively losing my ability to "tune in" to different conversations. By the time I have reached the beginnings of tipsy, it's gone entirely. Thankfully by that point I'm also typically relaxed enough that I don't worry about looking like a weirdo if I have to cup my hands behind my ears to focus on someone.
I'm now taking the fact that my "conversation tuner" is so easily disrupted as evidence that while it may be appear to function normally, it's hanging on by a thread, with just barely enough brain capacity dedicated to it and nothing to spare. I also wonder if my "normal" is actually normal at all, or if other people perhaps have tuning that goes beyond what I can imagine.
Sometimes I wish I could borrow a neurotypical brain for a day or two and see what it's like.
These videos are more help to me than the NHS( Apparently I am not special or suffering enough to warrant a diagnosis).
Marmite works well with peanut butter as well, but hot sauce sounds good too!
Going to have to try marmite AND hot sauce now
So true
Try adding Asian chili pastes to peanut butter sandwiches. They're a richer flavour than most hot sauces.
Oh I feel your pain……I really do. Thank you.
I like your explanation of sensory overload , thank you
thanks for watching!
It is interesting how everybody is different - I cannot bear the sensation of nail polish on my finger nails!
Your experience is so similar to my own, I just don't think I'm as funny while explaining it!
Thanks for thinking I'm funny! :)
Very useful. Thank you Mat.
Glad it was helpful!
Oh wow this is me
When I'm in a group setting I'm not distracted by other people talking, I get distracted by reflections of light everywhere.. Changes of colour around the room, differences in colours and textures of other people's clothing.. I'll be scanning and looking at all that instead of trying to focus on what's being said to me.. Is that the same as what you just said? I was looking at the background of your video and looking at the style of spectacles you are wearing - I did listen to what you said (on the second playing of your vudeo) this is where videos are easier than live conversations.. I can rewind a video to hear what I missed but when its live, I can't do that.. I can't ask people to say what they said all over again.. So sometimes I just wont go to somewhere busy with all those distractions.. Texting is easier because I can reread a text and I can ask the person who texted me to elaborate on certain things said..
Does any of that make any sense or was it all gibberish?
I would love to know which hot sauce you put with peanut butter, would like to try😊
I honestly don't know how you're always so well-dressed. I know it is down to preparation and wanting to put effort into the craft of your videos, but I'm still amazed that you're able to so consistently pull it off in a world where newscasters and sports commenters are literally dressed by professionals and come out looking like crap.
You should also try hot sauce on a baloney sandwich.
haha thanks so much! Dressing well makes me feel like grown up!
welocome to the world of ASD.... it must be even more difficult in your line of work. i have done presentations and entertained friends where i have found it difficult
Oddly, performing is where I feel the most comfortable. It's the rest of life that throws up challenges haha!
Hi Mat, I don't remember that time you were talking with me at a bar, it must have been too overwhelming for me to remember 😀 Next time, let's go somewhere quiet. Do you know any peaceful parks? 🌳🌼🐦
Yes, so recognizable! And how about input to one sense influencing other senses? Bright lights or not having my glasses on makes it hard to hear.
Also, yes to hotsauce peanutbutter sandwiches!
Oooh yes, that makes sense too
3:21 No sense getting too hung up on the what-ifs
❤ спасибо, пойду куплю себе шумоизоляционные наушники!
А как ещё вы справляетесь с сенсорными перегрузками, ведь вы выступаете на сцене , много людей, свет, музыка, как вы потом восстанавливается?
Простите, я пишу на русском, с надеждой ,что Ютуб переведет 😊
The translation that I got from UA-cam made perfect sense to me. 😃
I wonder the same thing about being a performer. But it's probably a very predictable environment and structure. I'm not a performer, but in everyday life it definitely feels different when I can control how sensory stimuli happen. It's different than having to endure stimuli that I didn't cause.
fascinating, and yes, thats exactly right - performing is one of the places where i feel the safest
Story of my life, lol! 👽
😘🥰💖🌈🦄✌️
Oh, yes.
Also, worse if other people speak another language and you tey to find out which one it is and whether you can understand it. On the train when you try to read and others chatter or worse watching something on their phone on full blast ... is the worst
Also, yes. Cholula hot sauce on all the things....
YES. Specifically, cholula lime!
I have autism, diagnosed at 55. Why are your nails black?
They're actually dark plum by Dior. I paint them. Because I'm glamorous! lol
xD
Why are his finger nails black?
They're actually a dark plum by Dior. And...because that's the colour I chose to paint them.. :)
@@MatRicardo What a strange world we live in. Each to their own, but not something I find appealing to look at. In fact I find it quite annoying and distracting in an overly sensitive sort of way. So please accept my apologies as I have to go and unsubscribe now, largely in part to me not being able to get over this irritating aesthetic oddity and my brain just keeps screaming NO at me very loudly and repeatedly when I see this overly needy attention seeking stuff. Best of luck to you though :-)
@@PhilGregory101 I'm so sorry that a fleeting couple of glimpses of my painted nails in one video means you feel you have to subscribe to my entire channel. I'm curious - do you also react so strongly to women with painted nails? If so, then the world must be an unbearable place for you, and you have my sympathies.
@@PhilGregory101 What an odious person you are Phil. I don’t think the lovely gentleman eruditely explaining something those of us on the spectrum struggle with is attention seeking by feeling secure in his gender expression to wear what he likes. Yes, I am sure the cabaret performer doesn’t get his fill of attention at work, he must paint his nails for that. Not because he likes the colour.
“Each to their own” but I withhold the right to slam you to cover up for my own insecure masculinity.
You’ll hate me Phil with my hair in its colour that changes by the season, all horrible bright pastel colours too. Or how about the fact that I am a gay man and regularly partake of a bit of that nasty Class A… fashion.
There is one person attention seeking in this comment thread but it isn’t me and it most certainly is not Matt.
Bore on man, you shan’t be missed, nor shall your views from 20 years ago.
@@MatRicardo I’m terribly sorry you’re getting it in the neck from an insecure little man. I would just like to say, after Phil so kindly pointed them out, I love the polish colour Matt. Is it Black Plum 981? Just took a look at a swatch and it’s stunning x