Sensing Too Much

Neuroscientists studying autism have found an overconnectivity of neurons in the brain. It appears that the process of apoptosis, where unnecessary neurons are pruned away as a child grows from infancy into toddlerhood and childhood, does not occur at the usual rate.

Infants come into the world with an abundance of neurons which are gradually pruned away as the child grows. Infants sense the world keenly. They smell everything. They hear every sound. As time passes, the brain prunes away neurons to temper that onslaught of sensory information so that the child can focus on sense-making the information (analyse, evaluate, conclude). Too much sensory information is not just distracting, it can be overwhelming. 

In autistic brains, apoptosis does not proceed at the normal pace. The result is that autistic people often have sensory processing issues. I smell things others cannot smell. Every person's body odour is like a punch in my face. Other autistics experience light as daggers stabbing eyes. When a hawker deliberately drew a slow zig zag on my palm, I felt like vomiting.

In the normal brain, the brain connections between the 5 senses are pruned away. Hence, neurotypical people do not taste sounds, like I do. In the autistic brain, some connections between the 5 senses stay intact. This explains the synaesthesia many autistic people have.

This pruning business also explains the diversity that exists amongst autistic people. Some are touch sensitive. Others are light sensitive. Some see alphabets in colour. Others see numbers as shapes. I happen to experience sound as tastes, and see/feel conceptual family dynamics in 3D ribbon/rope net patterns/textures.

It is almost as if a gardener went into my brain, and instead of pruning according to the normal template, he decided to prune what he wanted, and where he wanted.

Autistic people have access to 2 coping strategies:

(1) Shutdown.

(2) Explode.

For me, it is shutdown. I remember only the first day of my kindergarten. I remember the smells, the sounds and the way the light came into the yard... and where the teachers were standing. The sensory experiences of that day were so overwhelming that my mother beat me severely to make me go to school. I could not escape the sensory onslaught. Hence, I shut down all my senses and became non-responsive thereon. Teachers and family thought I was stupid and slow.

For others, it is meltdown. I see such children in my centre quite often. They speak with their fists and their legs. They often are sent into anger therapy, for their rage issues.

The hawker who drew a zigzag along my palm is lucky that I am a Shutdown Autistic. If I were an Exploding Autistic, I might have thrown my boiling hot tea into his eyes. Others would have seen an over reaction, but if you feel touch with 5 times the sensitivity as others do, then understandably, your reaction would be 5 times worse. No?