March 2024. The last few months have been extremely painful and intense. I am learning so much about how my brain works in therapy but it's leaving me exposed to some extremely painful memories and intense emotions that have been hidden away since early childhood. It's hard to deal with. Some days it feels like I'm never going to heal and I feel distressed. That's when I use crisis support.
I thought I'd be ashamed to admit I need crisis support. Now I wish I'd asked for this help sooner.
I thought about how far I have come in the last year. And it's actually a lot further than I imagined possible. I've gone from only feeling through my senses because overwhelm left me in a non-speaking frozen state, to starting to use words to describe what's going on inside.
Many Autistic people are ‘bottom up’ thinkers. It simply means that we absorb sensory details and then summarise what we learn from our experiences, using our own words. It uses all of our brain and makes it light up in total delight when the balance of stimulation is right, but overwhelming when too much.
Non-autistic brains tend to be 'top-down' processors. It means that they tend to interpret what they see through the lens of what they already know and filter out things that seem irrelevant so they are not overwhelmed with unnecessary details. A whole sense, such as sound or smells, might not even register in the brain.
The autistic brain tends to absorb rich details from all the senses all at once, making our brains light up in absolute delight.
Image generated using AI technology.
Many autistic people express emotions in atypical ways. For many years I have felt overwhelming emotion but didn't realise this is what it was. I didn't know how to describe what I was feeling or where it had come from. It always seemed random and unexpected.
I've been labelled all sorts of things because of these emotions: fragile, sensitive, intense, manipulative, avoider, low-self esteem. None of these have accurately described how I actually feel: frightened, hunted, drowning, shamed, traumatised.
I feel like I have come a long way since writing this poem almost a year ago. Back then, I was only just beginning to recognise and describe the physical sensations of feeling emotionally overwhelmed.
Poetry is helping me explore words to describe my journey into a world of emotions as I begin to navigate them for the first time in 45 years.
I am bottom up
Feeling with my body
Stimming as reaction
A physical enactment
To express my stress
To communicate distress
You are top down
Feeling with your words
Of emotional reaction
A verbal enactment
To express your stress
To communicate distress
I am bottom up
Hoping you notice
My movements describe
The turmoil inside
To express my stress
To communicate distress
You are top down
Sharing with others
Your words describe
The feelings inside
To express your stress
To communicate distress
I am bottom up
No words, just movement
Pacing up and down
My expression of frown
To express my stress
To communicate distress
You are top down
Your facial movement
And words combine
With your body and mind
To express your stress
To communicate distress
I am bottom up
My stimming soothes
Satisfaction in my action
To calm my reaction
To relieve my stress
To reduce my distress
You are top down
Relating soothes
Narrating your mood
To calm your emotion
To relieve your stress
To reduce your distress
Thankfully, I am also learning that I can use my bottom up creativity to make my brain light up in positive ways that bring me joy and healing.
Absorbing all the intricate details of a leaf as the summer light shines through its veins brings an energy that is almost spiritual. It's certainly healing. The feel of a tree's bark on my finger tips makes me feel connected to something bigger than me. I can feel nature's vibration.
Learn more about autistic brains here:
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