for 11 years, two serious conditions went undetected in my twins: celiac (did not feel abdominal pain) and eosinophilic esophagitis (no throat pain). so if your doc asks if you are feeling pain, always, always, remind them: "my body does not process pain"-- or something along those lines
I have a sensory processing disorder along with my ASD, but trauma from birth of not being diagnosed nor having a family that 'accepted' my sensorial differences... I just shut off all feeling in my body as a toddler. I'm in my 40s now and am really trying to connect them back again. I struggle with hunger, i have no idea what it feels like, I keep getting it confused with nausea. At home these days Im a bit better recognising i need to use the bathroom but in public - with people and their eye contact and conversational style demands - its always been a survival tactic to just switch off all feeling again. I'd go 14 hours at work without a bathroom or food break. I'd come home with the shakes and in tears - no idea what was going on. It's so much bigger than NT's or medical professional think.
I’ve had that all my life I was trained to ignore myself & throughout life - my work reinforced this modality of my feelings & needs don’t matter. Other things are more important. LoL .. I’m doing better now that I stay home most often. I can “ feel” & “ hear “ myself when I’m by myself. ~ It just takes a little practice. 🐇
Same here. My family still don’t seem to buy it. My mum used call me a wimp all the time for saying that shoes hurt or the bath water was too hot or clothes to scratchy or shopping centre too busy, bright and loud!
I’m 4 days into my journey…after being misdiagnosed with depression, then bipolar, then BPD, then complex PTSD…someone signposted me last Saturday…I cannot believe it and yet with every video of yours I watch it’s like someone has given me my instruction manual 37 years late!!! My mind is blown. Honestly this is life changing…and I actually feel I’m slowly finding the validation in life I could never find. I am so glad I found you, thank you so much for doing this. x
I’ve been misdiagnosed a few times, but I do have bpd. However, bpd often appears comorbid with autism. Which makes sense, because I was abused for never knowing how to “walk on eggshells the right way”, and I could never predict my caretakers emotions. Because I wasn’t taken care of and my autism wasn’t addressed, I accumulated a lot of trauma, which manifested as bpd. I’m currently researching the gender gap in autism diagnoses and bpd diagnoses and how they’re related. I think bpd or the not as pervasive but similar cptsd are natural reactions to trauma stemming from being an autistic child in a cruel, neglectful, neurotypical world. I think as autism is accepted we will see less bpd diagnoses in general, and a happier population
I have similar story… I love these videos. I have to be careful with this matter but I feel like RUclips diagnosed me much better than all the specialists who always found anxiety depression and Tourette in me. Nothing worked for me, later turned out that Tourette was wrong diagnosis but nothing followed. I was always a weirdo that nobody understood and I asked myself million times the question “what’s wrong with me” and I also get this question from other people including my closest ones.
I learned about interception a few years ago and it has changed my life! I now make a point to eat, drink, go to the washroom, sleep - and right away I could see the difference in how I handle the day. I no longer have the fear of thinking for an instant that I might be dying. My heart hasn't forgotten to beat where I need to cough to reset. And now that I know body sensations are tied to emotion I don't fear them and I roll with it. I still don't understand but I no longer freak out. I'm happier and I smile more. It has eased my anxiety.
Something I've experienced is conflicting feelings like feeling hot and sweating while shivering and having goose bumps. Or eating a lot and feeling extremely full but then at the same time feeling very hungry. Sometime I will have a strong urge to go to the bathroom but when I go nothing/very little comes out. Is it just me?
For me, it has a lot to do with my blood sugar. Hot and sweaty while shivering with goose bumps is usually from crashing blood sugar or fever for me. And since I don't notice when I need to eat, it happens often. And I'm sick a lot, so fevers are common for me, too. I wonder if that might be part of what you guys are feeling.
Also, the strong urge to go to the bathroom but little comes out is usually because I have a urinary tract infection. And for people who tend to ignore the need to pee, UTIs are common. Same with constipation. We ignore the need long enough to make it difficult to go.
Feeling hungry is the bodies response to something missing. If it's not energy, it's micro-nutrients, e.g. minerals or vitamins. Temperature regulation is also tied into the whole nutrient balance, a healthy body can generally regulate temperature very well up to a certain point. It can also be trained to make the thermic comfort zone (what feels right and not too cold/hot) larger but that's a bit off topic. I don't know a whole lot about the bathroom urge, but just from the other two it'd be a good idea to get your bloodwork done and maybe make some changes to your diet if necessary. All that said, it's perfectly normal for circulation not being 100% on top of things all the time, it's when stuff like that happens very frequently that it might be a good idea to get it checked.
Hmmm... I don't feel hungry when I should, which mean I can get into low-blood-sugar fog - and when I finally eat, I may eat too much. Exercise helps. Also, very high pain threshold which means I'm careless and I get minor injuries... one of my kids inherited this, which caused problems with doctors who accused me of ignoring her ear infections - but she wouldn't act bothered or start crying until after it was already bad - but I finally found a doctor who understood about high pain threshold thing. Thank you, Paul.
Thank you to the Patreons who voted for this video. I finally know another reason why my life has been so off kilter for a lot of decades. As it happened back in the 80s I was living in the same beach city as a pair of somewhat whacked out MIT graduates who were into life extension research, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. I ran across them and recognized Durk from descriptions. I struck up an acquaintence. At one point one of them mentioned body awareness in the context to their um strange predeliction to see a new pill, ingest it, and ask their bodies what it does. That level of body awareness astonished me. It is beyond me. After I'd had a bout of pneumonia a doctor gave me a vitamin injection. A few days later, "Do you feel any different?" "Uh, no, just the same old same old body." He was VERY surprised. But that's always been my general reaction to "how do you feel?" "OK," and drop it. With doctors I have to take a conscious inventory and even then miss things. That's almost up to , "You mean you don't notice your missing index finger?" "Oh, yeah, forgot about that." That's the new normal so I don't think about it. (I do have all my fingers. I hope you get the drift, though.) I keep thinking "This aspergers thing, it can't be me! I like clutter too much." Your videos keep asking me things like, "You REALLY think so? Is clutter your chief stim?" {o.o}
@@laurac2783 Please allow me to step out of line here a bit. As I near the end of my 8th decade I figure, "Why bother to make it formal?" Recognizing it, however, has clarified some of my oddities; and I've been able to work on workarounds - and um er ah expand my "instascript" catalog for dealing with other people. The best new script is "STFU". I tend to try to control conversations with other people with a barrage of words. "STFU" seems to work better in situations I'm beginning to recognize. (And careful about where I put things? Um, my balance system is partially out of order. So that's automatic. {^_-}) At the start of your fifth decade you are in a splendid point, compared to me, to partially rebuild your life to get more satisfaction out of it. I understand there is a lot of understanding these days and much more useful help for learning how to adapt to your peculiarities. Why not get some of that help while it can do some good for you? {^_^}
can clutter be a stim? or wanting to stack things that don't meed to be stacked,or shouldn't be, (like jars in a pantry)? or placing large items on top of cabinets, or large pans, dishes on top shelf in refrigerator when there are empty cabinets and lower shelves they will fit in? my husband does this and I'm wondering if it could be a stim, an ocd thing, or both. he also leaves drawers and cabinets open. I'm the opposite and like things in order. Quite the comical pair, if you think about it 😂
I'm definitely excited to see this video, I have poor interoception with difficulty knowing when to eat or drink water and will go the whole day without eating and will need to be reminded and also won't feel most pain that much.
@@nancyzehr3679 Sure is, gonna have to structure better eating habits. Modern day food is poison in my opinion. It’s hard when you got fast food chains, restaurants, etc. everywhere which is tempting. Examine what you put inside your body 🥷🏼
Definitely a really central part of my autistic experience. My tendency in my body is under-reactive, reflexively ignoring pain, and disconnected. I've put myself in worse situations because of it and that's been something to emotionally process. I'm currently in a reasonably successful process of reconnecting back to my body. The signals are at least there for me so I can tune into them more and build up that connection and feedback. Of course that's not a simple and easy thing because often our bodies are storing trauma so reconnecting means addressing that and that has to be in the right way and the right time to be safe. I do things like regular scanning, paying close attention, trying things out and seeing how they feel, being really mindful in my body and then playing around with things like yoga, active physical meditations, breath exercises, trauma release exercises etc. It's not a steady progression, I have ups and downs, but it's all learning. For me it's homecoming and quite emotional. I have to say it's pretty surreal to be a fully grown adult and realise you have a lot to learn about something that is so fundamental. The lack of social validation growing up is a huge, huge issue. Rewriting all that in my understanding of myself is a big job. I follow my intuition a lot through it all. As a parent I validate my kids and their feelings really strongly, guide them to tuning in and trusting their instincts. I think a lot of us growing up in prior decades did not get that validation, all the more for those of us who are autistic and had atypical feelings.
Recently self-diagnosed with Asperger's at the age of 51, and living with C-PTSD for 40 years. Didn't recognise until recently why I had managed to deeply repress so many of my emotions. I went for counselling at the age of 20 and she asked to describe/draw how I was feeling and where it was located in my body. I had no clue what she was talking about, so I made it up. I also couldn't connect with any of the trauma and didn't cry for 30 years. It took a long while to recover from the breakdown I had (everything started to unravel from 2014 when I started using EFT as a coaching tool) and now I feel much more calm on the whole, but still tend to ignore hunger, thirst, emotions unless I specifically tune in. In many ways, the lack of sensitivity was a great survival tool, whilst the breakdown I had, tuning in, being sensitive and totally hypervigilant, brought my life to a complete standstill. So now I am trying to get the balance right - tuning in to my emotions enough to know whether something is right or wrong for me, and tuning out enough to actually get through the day without folding again. Getting there.
I was diagnosed at age 50 (7 years ago) How have employment and relationships been for you? They’ve often been a train wreck for me. Now long term single and self employed but that also brings difficulty, generating sufficient income all on your own isn’t easy.
@@MsDamosmum I had more energy to mask when I was younger, but basically spent most of my life in burnout in evenings and weekends. Worked in an office for long stretches. Codependent in relationships due to the trauma and was in two four year relationships with very safe partners. Single at 28 and messed around ever since. Now moving into self employment and getting help to get the confidence and focus I need after being out of solid work for nine years. I have done enough work on myself to be ready for a fresh start - just becoming very aware of where my mental energy gets depleted and very serious about putting boundaries in place. I've also made a couple of NT friends online and have been upfront on how I change when I get tired - to the point that they helpfully point out where I am reading things the wrong way. Finally recognising there were things I couldn't change and seeing the reason for the way my life turned out was both a relief and a bit of a shock. Learning how to unmask with people who have known me all my life is probably the hardest thing, but then so many people have also gone through really big shifts over the past couple of years, so perhaps it's not as big as I think. Wishing you all the best. We've had enough challenges trying to fit into the world, now perhaps, it's our time to stand out... 🤗💫
@@MsDamosmum when I thought I was ready to get back to work, I went onto benefits, and after a while realised the business I wanted to create, so I signed up to a New Enterprise Scheme. Total disaster. Got no assistance. Was then referred to a different program by my work adviser and my phone referral took place two days after I took the ASD50 online test. They messed up the first referral so I had to start all over again. My work advisor then changed....to someone who is Autistic (!!!!). Total miracle. He is helping me to stand up for myself, referred me a second time and encourages me to ask for what I need. So many things I've tolerated thinking I ought to be trying harder. It's a slow process trying not to change the way I function, but finally seeing the wood for the trees. I am hoping they will be able to find an appropriate service/business group through one of the charities. I go down rabbit holes researching...
Hey! I went and studied Buddhist martial arts to develop and cultivate my own interoception. Worked for me. Heck, it works for others too as it is basic developmental training for those arts. I can feel synovial fluid and the pressure of it between my joints now; I now have pressure sensors there!
This is a really important topic for me. Because of the lack of sensation when I need to go to the toilet and the disgust of our school toilets back then, part of my internals changed shape and makes it even more difficult to sense because it's stretched. I'm often in one of two modes, either "don't need to go" or "if I don't go within 5min imma shit my pants". Add nervous bowel syndrome and I'm almost always too late to meetings. Similar with hunger. I either don't need food or I'm in a extrem low sugar state, where I get aggressive, dizzy and sweaty. As mentioned in the video I time my food intake and it's mostly every 5h. This makes it difficult to include other people in my routine, because their day/food rythm is different. Also not being able to interpret you own emotions makes questions like "how are you" really frustrating, because nobody likes to hear "I don't know".
all of these things are tough, especially the 'poop problem.' my son's doc said the bowel can become stretched over time from chronic constipation which could possibly cause complications. he prescribed miralax which my son discontinued after reading about problems which can occur from taking it. he currently takes 2-triple fiber capsules and a flaxseed oil gel cap each day which work as well as the miralax did. in addition , i found a water bottle marked in 8oz sections with the time to drink each section. unfortunately , it did not help bc he is a deep thinker and did not notice the bottle sitting at his desk. the brand name is Cactaki and it would probably be helpful to others
@@mdj864 Thank you, for the insight. Yes, I experienced the stretching and it complicates things, but it's possible to mitigate that somewhat by doing pelvic floor training. I've also taken all sorts of stuff, but non really helped. The drinking problem is a matter of habbit. In an alcoholic context it would be bad, but the reach for the bottle needs to be second only to breathing. I don't even recognize it anymore. Also a bottle with built-in straw helps a lot, since you don't need to angle your head and keep reading/watching something. I noticed that a lot of headaches were just a lack of water. Improves the QoL quite a bit.
@@OperationDarkside thanks, I wasn't aware there were pelvic floor exercises for it also the suggestion of a bottle with straw is a good idea- my son is in online college and has to try and pry his brain from entering code to drink water (just about impossible), but a straw will definitely help
I thought I was the only one who goes without peeing all day until I'm about to piss myself ahhahah Same with drinking. I learned that headache means I should have drunk sth. My drinking & going to the toilet was so off that I had a kidney stone at 19yo. Kind of luckily I get a slight stinging sensation in my kidneys now whenever I'm late with peeing. Still I'd advise you not to wait for a kidney stone. Terrible pain.
This video could not have come at a better time! I have been struggling with IBS for a few years now and finding it very difficult to manage and the pain being overwhelming for long periods of time without anything helping. In the last year I have been slowly coming to the conclusion that I might be autistic, awaiting a diagnosis now officially but I am confident to self diagnose now after watching this channel. I was just coming to the conclusion that I have alexithymia and this is what has made it so hard to manage and explains a lot of thing about my past retrospectively! The thing I didn't know that now makes things make even more sense is that I could be oversensitive as well and when honing in on the pain for long periods to struggle to identify if different things were helping I think I was experiencing it more than the average person was. I have even had times while high where I accidentally got 'locked onto' the pain and it became everything, it was really scary. Now I think if I can practice the things suggested here it could help a lot with my recovery. The ironic thing is that it's only through this experience that I became I aware I was autistic in the first place! This channel is a gift, thank you so much!
I am both extremes. I can be hypersensitive at times. And yet injure myself severely and not be aware of what is wrong. I certainly can't explain what is happening.
Same. I'm extremely sensitive to all the clasic things. And yet I remember many times looking down at an injury thinking, "That should hurt." While I'm in constant pain from unseen things that the drs can't seem to diagnose.
Hehe.. I did not know that my arm was broken until a doctor looking for something else in an x-ray pointed it out. "I don't see anything wrong with your elbows, but you broke your arm here a few months ago." Mom always worried about my elbows.
I think I'm a combination of both things. Or maybe because I'm so sensitive....I try to block some things out. Oh wow, now being told just do it....I soooo relate to that....made me feel so despairing. Thank you so much for this video!
I'm definitely on the over-sensitive side. With a disconnect. Borrowing a metaphor from The Wheel Of Time: My self is inside a void, focusing on a "flame" and everything else is outside. I am still very much aware of it, overly so even, but I can "ignore" it. I am feeling my own heartbeat and blood circulation right now and am aware of the general state of my body due to my emotions. My problem lies in the regulation itself. I'm mostly fine with food, water and toilet, unless I'm focused on something. However. I never learned how to actually regulate my emotions. I can grab and describe them. Even give them their "proper" names most of the times because I have invested time into learning to do that. Nothing beyond that though. My history with emotions has been very not good though. I used to express my emotions freely as a child. Because that was how I regulated them. Until I was intensely bullied for how easy it was to "tease" me into crying. Which led to me suppressing them for most of my life afterwards. Until everything broke down due to pain I couldn't suppress and I had to deal with every emotion I had bottled up for decades throwing me left and right at random. Which mostly resulted in me sitting those short fits out because I didn't know anything better than allowing myself to feel them. It was an immense relief when I was able to cry at my father's passing. Now I don't suppress them anymore. I feel them on the inside, but expressing them is still extremely difficult. Or tackling the sources of anxiety and stress. It's a real struggle because I want to do things, but often end up paralyzed thanks to the clash my opposing emotions.
Omg, I love the Wheel of Time series! I once said that to a roommate and they thought I was lying and like... pretending I'd read it. 😅🙃 But which Aes Sedai color would you join?!
@@SarahTimmartworldwide Without a second thought: Brown. I live to breathe knowledge. White might be worth considering depending on how future-focused the research the Browns do actually is. A lot of what we see is digging up lost knowledge and keeping it. But I guess even the Blue has its appeal, as I am sometimes tempted to become a biology and history teacher to queer the record of some things. Although that might just go back around to Brown, now that I think on it.
@nestrior7733 Yess! Omg, I loooved the Brown characters too, able to find the tombs that revealed so much of the Dragon mythology, Aiel, Dark One, etc... Ahhh! But yeah, I could see Moraine's frustration with her Blue drive for more immediate justice rather than the long game of digging through history. Those were such formative books for me. If we could all go on quests. & what an amazing quest to reQueer history... I love Alok's work with revealing the colonial history of gender policing. So good.
Thank you so much for yet another validating and informative video! I thought that my lack of hunger signals was due to years of Anorexia relapses and remittances. I did realise that I struggle so much to answer a question like "How are you?". I don't know how I am! I never know how I really feel!! Alexythmia is strong in me. Lol I'm extremely perceptive of other people's emotional states and I take on their emotions, especially difficult emotions. It's rough.
I was diagnosed with Autism late into adulthood. Making changes in life is especially difficult which has made all of my progress slow in a world that moves very fast. Your videos are very helpful.
This was so helpful to me. Thank you! I didn't realize that I have issues with this until watching this video. But I definitely do! For example, I often don't know that I'm hungry until my cats are jumping on me telling me that my blood sugar is crashing and that I need to eat. And I often have very little sense of when I am ready to sleep. Both can be very problematic! And I am just now realizing that I am probably missing many more signals from my body as well. Thank you for pointing this out! Now I know to do something about it. Either learn to feel things better, or set reminders to tell me to do the things that I need to do.
Wow! I have just had several revelations all at once. I have struggled connecting with my body, the associated functions and emotions for most of my life (only recognised through reflection with my counsellor and initiated by your videos after my diagnosis). My ability to recognise, understand and adapt my daily routine to cope is only just coming into focus with external help. From not being able to recognize when to take in food and water (causing ketoacidosis in some extreme cases), to being in an intense emotional state without being able to see it or describe it and having to rely on feedback from those around me. This feedback usually comes out of leftfield and can actually destroy me in the moment as I grapple with the consequences... As for someone asking me how do I feel, it takes all of my powers to even contemplate what that means. Thank you for opening some doors for me.
Thank you! I have known what many health problems were before the doctor. I've done more research on things I have gone through and ways to handle myself when I'm feeling too much going on inside. That happens to me a lot. Having an overload of sensations of pain, numbness, random other feelings... All at the same time can cause a near meltdown. I do like a "body scan") everyday (I have an illness that affects my whole body - so it's a good tool for me!) to make sure everything feels okay and that nothing seems wrong. Some days I can't remember to do that. I have alarms set telling me to eat and go to the bathroom and hydrated because I just forget. I am also time blind so that really doesn't help. Everyone tells me how amazing it is that I'm very self aware and I know what's best. However, because I say "hey doc, I'm feeling this specific way in this specific spot, they tell me I wouldn't have that specific of a pain to be described that well." I found a doctor who believes me now and I'm getting the help I need. Good luck everyone and Paul, thank for the great video! Will share it!
Time blind. That's a really cool way of phrasing that. I thought that is just a personal foible, crappy gauge of time passing. Causes a lot of issues with appointments, schedules & being mindful of other people's time, as well as meal times or when I last ate or drank.
I was only diagnosed last year at the age of 25 and I love watching your videos, you were one of the first autistic RUclipsrs I found and you’ve helped me put words to my so many of my experiences :) I’ve struggled with debilitating stomach issues for years cause I don’t experience hunger until I’m absolutely starving and in pain. It’s crazy how like all my issues come back to autism lol, thanks for this video! It’s nice knowing I’m not alone and there are things I can do to improve this issue!
Your content are most helpful for me and my autism spectrum son. 🌞 You really give fundamental knowlege, not like most " autistic" youtubers, who, for me, seems are just attention seeking people, and not real autism , they are not giving real help or information. 🤷 Thanks for your great work! ❤️
Thank U Paul 🐇 I am working on connecting w. my body & emotions. I am slowly learning how to connect, identify & interpret my feelings: And finally to verbally express them. It’s been a long journey- to here …. 🐫…..
I was diagnosed last year at 48. When I was 7 I had a massive bladder infection. The Dr said I just didn't want to stop playing to go the the bathroom. I said I didn't know I had to go. He said I was lying. I often don't remember to eat, but I try like you to just make sure I eat in a day whether I feel hungry or not. Honestly, this made me cry. So many times growing up I was accused of lying about things I "couldn't be" feeling or even at times hearing inner workings, like pulse. I don't go to many large gatherings because it's like having a magnet pulling on my senses/emotions. I've waited hours in the car when I was convinced to go to high energy parties. All this time I thought I was crazy, or at least mistaken, that I was "feeling" others emotional states, even after diagnosis. Thank you for these videos. The Executive Function video also helped me a lot.
Thank you for this video! I found out only recently that I am autistic (I am a 56 years old woman fom Brussels , Belgium ). After all the realisations that this implies I feel pretty exhausted and one thing that downs on me is the unbelievable amount of stuff that I have to learn now. I basically have to relearn everything. I am a psychotherapist so I know that thanks to neuroplasticity the brain is flexible. Everyone who possesses a brain can learn new stuff and can literally hack their brain with purpose and practice which is good news. But so far I find myself having to hack my brain into so many new behaviours that I am a nanosecond away from melting down at every single moment of my life. I hope very much that… that too shall pass … And that I can find some stability at some point because right now it’s utter chaos.
Thank you for creating this video! I’ve been listening to a podcast by Divergent Conversations, and they mentioned Interception in their Autism series. Then I watch this video and you clearly explained this concept to me in a way that’s so easy to understand. I do struggle with interception and I have for many years. I often don’t know how I feel til I’ve reached a meltdown and I don’t respond to my body needs til they’re screaming at me. Yet I can’t leave the house or sleep without going to the toilet first. I chuckled when you said you eat to a schedule to make sure you eat! Just today I ended up sleeping late (cuz I didn’t get enough sleep) and it’s completely thrown off my schedule, so I ate breakfast at 11am and lunch at 1pm 🙈
I've never had a normal appetite. If other people aren't around and I don't have an established routine, I can go without eating for days at a time. I usually remember to eat because 1) someone else is eating 2) I have a splitting headache or 3) because I'm getting irritable. This becomes a huge problem when I'm home alone or if (when) I'm anxious, stressed, or depressed.
Thankfully I eat on a schedule, so I rarely mess up there. But I definitely let myself get dehydrated and let myself go to long without a bathroom break if I'm not on my usual schedule.
Very interesting. When I feel something in my body, I only can say "I don't feel well" and become very anxious because it's difficult for me to believe or feel that there are things (organs, muscles...) in my belly. I see it like a big empty bag.. I don't feel thirst. Even with a bottle of water in front of me, I see it but it's not related with thirst. I know I have to go to the toilet only if I'm in the bathroom. And don't always made the difference between hunger and satiety, and I feel nauseous frequently, which is a real phobia. Sometimes when I don't feel well because of an emotion, I feel as if my arms are full of water.. It took me a long time to make the connection. So there are a lot of things in my body I don't feel, understand. Inside body is a very strange place.
My heart goes out to you--I can only imagine how challenging it must be. I am fascinated, understanding the sensory perceptions of others, it helps me know how to communicate and be sensitive to how they experience the world. one of my autistic twins is good at describing his perceptions to me, the other is not--because he isn't aware of a lot of his perceptions and therefore can't explain them. but knowing this about him is helpful for both of us.
Omg im that nervous and difficult patient who is overly in tune with my body and go for extra checks/followups until i feel I’ve been heard or healed. Often I find mistakes or things that doctors have overlooked. It freaks me out when theyre in such a rush to get all their patients in in a day and rush past my needs/concerns. They’re overworked but they also aren’t the ones in our bodies experiencing what we feel
Thank you so much for this video! You choose the very right words and examples to explain how it feels to be us. I have a lot of problems trying to translate what goes through my brain in an effective way, and knowing how to say it out loud is really important, not only for therapy but also for simpathy when talking to neurotypicals. I was recently diagnosed in the spectrum and I went through you channel. It feels so good to know I'm not alone in this, and that I can learn from other's experiences to seek out for a better "mainstreaming". The diagnosis sets you free but that freedom brings you a feeling that you're lost, and founding a community has helped me re-encounter and respect myself the way I am. Thank you.
I'm an NT with enormous empathy and would be very sensitive to what you go through. my kids are autists so i have a good understanding of what its like. I think a lot of NTs are jerks bc they have zero empathy and come across as being superior. ive had doctors and teachers who treated me and my kids like garbage which makes me think that a majority of the people we deem as neurotypical. have underlying conditions. hang in there and know that i for one do care
@@mdj864 yes yes a lot of people we deem neurotypical have underlying conditions.. Is not NT kind of dummy ? an statistical average For my part i distinguish between people who are closed down in a fixed dogmatic knowledge and want absolutely to deny their own issues, who judge to hide their fear and refusal, to ignore themselves finally. and the ones who want to discover new things, who open themselves, look at life, at people, at animals, listening, wondering, changing their views, accepting their ignorance.. Ironically four members of my family labelling me rudely "crazy” and considering themselves "normal” are (my revenge i diagnose them back 🧐) Two of them Borderline as a form of cPTSD, easily offending insulting others. Cruel, blunt. The third, a sister, typically Asperger's (like her father) She calls that proudly "being scientific", blunt in behavior, loud voice. The fourth a brother is Asperger's, the overlogical mind not getting the people and masking. I have turned the spike back.. they won't know. Do not deserve it. May they die ignorant.
This is part of why I’ve found somatic therapy to be very useful. It works directly with how your body reacts and feels, and helps to regulate it to let built up stress out before it causes long term damage. I’ve found it helps be in being better at tuning in to what my body is doing, and then to be able to regulate the sensations, and choose better how to react to them too. It helps me be less sensitive to stimulation from the outside and to get over the built up anxiety more quickly. It has also helps me be able to understand my internal signals better so I can leave a situation before meltdown hits more often, or to help with remembering to eat, use the bathroom, etc. before it gets to be urgent.
I almost died of a very severe pancreatis 3 years ago. My belly was aching since months, but I didn't take it seriously (in fact, I had lots of liver stones) until one of this stones attacked my pancreas. Long story short, I survive but now, I'm so afraid of not feeling internal things enough. Have regular body check-ups, folks !
this was so helpful! my therapist has been asking me to stop and notice how my body is feeling and this helped me understand why that's important and why it's something I have issues with doing naturally
Wow, wow, wow! This is so insightful and helpful, thank you! I know both traits, hyper in me and hypo in my partner and both descriptions are fitting so well. 😘
Hi Paul, thank you for your support to the community! I enjoy your way of looking at things and proffesional take as well on subjects. I could not find a video about grief on your channel. I would be very gratefull to hear your take on this. About how autistic people generally deal with this and what helps. Have a nice day!
People think I have an overly low opinion of people ... but you would too if you had amazing hearing and can catch all the snide things people say under their breath and see the lies written on their faces :p
This is really useful to know. I have 5 year old son with autism who struggles with toilet, sleep and not knowing when his hungry. His dr confirmed what you mentioned about lacking body awareness and information processing. Thank you.
This explains SOOOOOO much!! On my journey to an official diagnoses but I know I have autism by all the research. this is another piece of the puzzle! Thank you so much for this precious inside!
Saving this video for later. TW: disordered eating I’m terrible at “listening” to my body. In the past I’ve gotten so focused on whatever I’m doing that I’ve relied on gum to stave off hunger. For awhile, years, I thought I might have an eating disorder and thus became obsessed with psychology but more specifically EDs. Not the healthiest interest to say the least. Eating, for some reason, always feels like such a chore… probably because I haven’t figured out how to meal plan + I hate the feeling of grease/raw meat. Doesn’t help that I only like one or two meals/snacks at a time & that cooking can feel like an insurmountable task when I’m depressed. But I’ve found a way around (most) of those issues. Soups (and stews) Easy, I can set it aside to cook for a long time, and I get to avoid a lot of gross sensory stuff. I’m excited, too, because it’s such an easy way to make vegetables less crunchy + taste way better! Thank you for your channel
I honestly don’t feel hunger, I just get to a point where I feel dizzy & I know I need to eat/drink. But on the flip side, I am hyper aware of feelings within my body. Any pain, discomfort, etc I feel really strongly & it makes me anxious. And yeah, what you said at the end. I’m always trying to push down my emotions because it’s not acceptable to be upset for any reason, but the next thing I know 1 tiny thing happens & I’m having a meltdown. It is really difficult to deal with
Needing to go to the toilet makes me feel overwhelmed. I'm told I'm not hydrated enough, yet it only makes me need to pee more often. Then I have less time to focus on more important things. Constipation is also painful.
I learned recently that bowel issues like IBS are a common co - morbidity for people with ASD. I was shocked when I found out some people sh*t once, twice, three times in a day. I was like - what? No way. I don't do #2s for a week yet don't feel like I'm full of sh*t. Its OK if you laugh about me being full of sh*t most of the time, because I laugh about that too 😂
@@sixthsenseamelia4695 that sucks. at least you have a sense of humor about it! 😂 my son has had the same problem bc he can't tell when he's thirsty and is dehydrated most of the time. he takes a fiber capsule and a flaxseed oil capsule daily which seems to help.
@@sixthsenseamelia4695 I've struggled between constipation and accidents. Someone mentioned protective underwear but I am not sure how to process the idea.
I recently think I had an autistic meltdown, I was unable to control my behavior and went into a conversation that was as if it was forced out of me, I was over stimulated , by the music, and all the noises produced by all the people around me , afterwards I was in a hyper sensitive state I've been looking into autism and so much of the information associated with it fits me extremely well I am practically convinced I'm autistic at this point . Every video I watch from this guy is extremely relatable .
I'm sure I'm autistic and the more I watch Paul's videos, the more confirmation I have. I'm very talented, intelligent, with a phenomenal memory (mostly for useless facts), but I can relate to so much in this video. I've injured myself badly several times (twice resulting in hospital operations), yet I felt no pain. I don't know if I'm hot or cold. I can wear a jumper in sweltering heat, or a t-shirt in freezing weather. I don't know when I'm hungry or thirsty. What I'm most frustrated about (I do know I'm frustrated) is that after dating a lady for four years, I moved in with her. We saw her parents most weekends and went on holiday with them every year, so her parents knew me well. Her mum was a GP and knew all of the above about me, yet never hinted that I might be on the spectrum. My anxiety was sky-high throughout the relationship, yet I thought it was 'normal' to feel the way I did. I lived with my girlfriend for over 4 years before she dumped me. My anxiety caused by autism has ultimately resulted in me being homeless for a year, being in a job that I hate and single. I so wish I had realised I was on the spectrum years ago - my life would be so much different now.
Sitting here listening and crying because I never thought about this before but it makes so much sense of my experiences...like not knowing I'm hungry until I get a headache from not eating, unaware I had a UTI for months because I had no pain at all, feeling very very anxious with no idea why, when my clothes were uncomfortable (unaware that was causing it), and frustrated that I was anxious "for no reason". The thought that I might have autism or SPD never even crossed my mind until two weeks ago when I started seeing a psychologist for therapy and she suggested it, and I'm both really sad that if that's the issue, I'll never be normal (have always worked really, really hard to hide my "quirks"), and also relieved that there's an explanation. :(
Thank you for this video Paul. Finally diagnosed recently and a number of things you have spoken about here resonate with me. Alexithymia was identified in my report so definitely something I need to focus on too. Too many goals! 😂
How do you handle telling doctors about things when you know they're going to try to invalidate you? Have any diagnosed Autistic people here also been diagnosed with Central Sensitivity? I have a solid memory of getting my hearing checked when I was little and the doctor telling my Mom I was mistaken when I continued to raise my hand, to say I could still hear the sounds in the headphones. He claimed I must have just been guessing well because I couldn't still hear it, even though clearly there's no benefit of a child continuing about a hearing exam.
Hi Lisa, not sure what is Central Sensitivity, but throughout my life I went through many "dis-validating" feed-backs from doctors, so I believe I know what you talking about... When I was a kid (since I remember), I had severe migraines, just as reaction to sun, smells and others... At some point, my mom took me to doctor, they have done various investigations, checked my hearing,, my eyesight, X-rated my skull... and in the end they just told my mom I am making it up to pull attention, cause I am completely ok... It was similar with other of my sensation issues... In around 20y I ended up at "functional diagnostics" department for general investigation, and I was told my body is "neuro-labile" 🤔 ... And... tbh... I was actually by quite some doctors even told I am "hypochondriac", mainly when I tried to find some help for my all-life digestion issues ... and by my psychiatrist (I am being cured for anxiety and panic disorder) I was already labeled by many things ... starting with histrionic disorder, ending with Borderline personality disorder... At some point I just slowly started evading doctors as much as possible... Only thanks to the fact that my sons are ND (the younger one got diagnosed with Asperger) I finally found out what's the matter... Wish you good luck and sending love :) ❤
CrystallineSoll I appreciate hearing your experience. I also stopped seeing physicians after feeling like they treated me like a hypochondriac, because my Mom was always treated that way by people. I fortunately have only had one be rude to me. A hematologist was blatantly rude to me and started the visit by saying "you don't have cancer, let me tell you the statistics.." I explained I just was there because the doctor wanted me to have labs done over strange bruising, leg pain and head aches. I guess he thought it was unnecessary for a person my age to get some of the tests the doctor requested? Either way I did end up having a positive ana test, some vitamin deficiencies and such. He made sure to tell me my ANA score didn't matter at all and acted like a bully. I imagine maybe some people get out of control and might fear cancer enough to ask for the tests the doctor ordered but it was mostly blood clot screening related. I just was treated like a hypochondriac over what the doctor asked him to do. I stopped looking for answers once I was diagnosed with central Sensitization because it seemed to explain some of it, but I definitely feel there's much more too it. I relate heavily to the experiences of diagnosed Autistic people and hope to find out if it's the information I'm missing. Either way, I'm thankful to find that others feel similarly. It helps take the sting out of the hits thrown by less understanding or cruel people.
They gave me a similar exam in school. First in class. I couldn't get it right. The nurse accused me of simulating making me even more nervous. She threw out all of us out because I was allegedly disrespecting her. My classmates where angry with me that we where forced to go play for 2h instead of getting the exam.😂 Still preyed on my mind as I didn't understand why I couldn't get the test right.
This seems similar to what I experience. If there is a loud unexpected sound, it ‘echoes’ in my head and I hear it repeating on a continuing loop for several minutes afterward. My extreme sensitivity to sound makes it very difficult living with others, both for me *and* for them! I started using earplugs/noise-canceling headphones/industrial ear-protectors years before I realized I might be autistic.
I could hear my pet gerbils squeaking (so cute), when the books said it was out of the range of adult human hearing. I was pretty chuffed with my supersonic hearing for once, mostly it's a nuisance!
An atypical sensory profile probably explains why I'm not keen on loud noises, but set the equalizer to play rhe bass as loud as possible. I guess I just like the low end.
Yes! I was in incredible pain once and Instead of the ER I was trying to see my psychiatrist😳! It turned out I had some big kidney stones! By the way I don't drink soda or coffee😉
Hi. Thanks for this. I am 75 and have always had problems with this, but never had a name for it. I'm a hot person; when I get up on a freezing day, it takes my body hours to realise I'm supposed to be wearing warm clothes. Sometimes I go for days without remembering to eat. I get all kinds of strange feelings about other people: I see colours, feel textures, hear sounds and so on when I get near them. . For years I used this talent to help patientst, as I was a naturopath and homoeopath (by associating these sensations with parts of their bodies). This is the most positive use for interception I've come across. By the way, I am afraid of everything. I feel like something is about to happen with the neurotypicals. There is a certain instability about them. Maybe they are about to experience loveliness! Ho ho.
This is a great video, thanks! I learned from a YoSamdySam video that I have very low interoception, and it's been very interesting to work out what the implications are for my life. For example, I use MyFitnessPal to eat the right amount as I don't experience "hunger", just "bored mouth". I've also tried drink reminder apps so I don't shrivel up like a raisin. And I recently learned that I've been experiencing migraines for around twenty-five years...
I’m hypersensitive and tune into other peoples energy and emotions. As a result I often think something is wrong with me, and it makes life very difficult at times.
I once read or heard (don't remember) that you can only feel your heartbeat when something is (very) wrong. HYPOCHONDRIAC PANIC! I feel it very often and use it to meditate and fall asleep. I still don't know if it's normal, but let's just say that's one thing I'm hypersensitive about and call it a day.
Sometimes I can't feel my heartbeat at all, and other times, like right now, I can feel it in my stomach. Never, as far as I can recall, where it's meant to be. I have been through several yoga sessions or meditations where I've been asked to feel into my heart beat and have never heard of only being able to hear it when something is wrong, but always to notice it so I can feel it slowing down. Falling asleep to it is great! Nothing wrong with that :o)
@@NothingByHalves I did always feel my heartbeat in my stomach too and my doctor said "that's just your digestion". Even though I could literally feel it speed up and slow down along with my measured heartbeat. And YES, it's fantastic to fall asleep to. Very calming.
@@tineputzeys "that's just your digestion" 🤣🤣🤣 What planet are they on? I've never heard of a digestive system that throbs like a heart beat 😂 What chance do we stand of being interoceptive when given advice like that?
@@tineputzeys that’s really interesting about feeling your heartbeat in your stomach, throbbing like the heart muscle… There are cultures that have the stomach as the center of emotions like we often have the heart in that position. Maybe they feel that there instead of in their hearts!
My high body awareness is somewhat of a superpower I've utilized to help me with my weight training, I'll know what's out of balance in a single lift and work out what people would pay physical therapists thousands to help them figure out and fix
I used to eat anything I was overwhelmed. My weight was really out of control. I lost over 100lbs twice with very strict food and exercise control but ended terribly sick the first time and broke my leg the second time. I wasn't focused on health and had no idea I was hurting my health. I finally got over food as a coping mechanism and I ate because I had little kids or someone else to eat. Now I forget to eat. I know if I eat regularly I regulate so much better but I only have to feed myself now. So I often forget. I need to fix that but I feel a lot less stupid over forgetting to eat. Clearly I'm not alone
I often forget to eat. When I start to feel sick, I know I need water. Have had a urine infection in the past pst that I apparently would have had for 6 months, though didn’t realise until it showed by accident as I had to have a urine test for something else. The doctor was amazed that I couldn’t know this or acknowledge any pain that apparently most people feel when experiencing this.
I'm a 47yo male and have always had a strange body sensation compared to everyone else around me. My sense of pain is quite low, so I often wonder where the bruises come from when I discover them on my body. I think I bump my head, arms and legs all the time because somehow the physical outer limit of my body doesn't match the one my brain assumes. I have also learnt that I need to eat as I get meaner and meaner to those around me. Of course, it would be better to eat before that happens, but I just don't realize I'm hungry. So I've gotten into a daily routine of eating at the same time every day, whether I'm hungry or not. And I've loved the feeling of deep pressure on my body for as long as I can remember. I totally understand Temple Grandin's idea of her "squeezing machine". Maybe that's one reason why I love to wear very tight corsets...
This is so me, sensitive to light and noice, not sesitive to pain or taste. I can feel every little pain inside my body but have trouble with thirst and hunger. Its a rendom mix of hypo and hyper sensitivity.
I know you wouldn't have personal experience with this, but maybe from working with your clients, do you have any insights on how interoception interacts with effects of the menstrual cycle (not just periods, but the whole cycle)? In a neuroscience class I took, the professor told us men have continuous, stable internal feelings while women do not. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
I've heard that men also have monthly cycles which affects their moods. It's just not as obvious because unlike women who have physical signs (menstruation, ovulation) to go along with those moods... men might suddenly feel flat or lively and not know why.
Autistic AFAB person here and holy wow do my hormones seriously mess with my introception, co-ordination and focus. I take part in a couple of martial arts and for one week a month I am UTTERLY useless and clumsy and can't do left from right (this is how I started, but with practice over time I am a lot better now) In terms of moods and feelings the 3 days before and after periods I am super sensitive to other people's emotions and pick them up like a lightning rod until I eventually meltdown. Not going to lie, this is why I would rather be male.
I can dissociate from hunger and thirst and using the bathroom and work for hours on end. When I finally stop working and come back from outer space then everything seems urgent, especially the need for water. I get so focused on something that everything else disappears, even my physical existence becomes something that is remembered far off in the back of my mind somewhere.
I tend to be a jumbled hypersensitive mess, and it is tricky to sort out what I'm feeling. Your comment about being overly empathetic hit home for me.. When is it "me" and when is it something around me?
I always ended up in the hospitals...they would get a doctor to my brother only for the doctor to indicate that i look sick and i am the one who needs help..also when i was giving childbirth..the anasethesia wasn't working for some reason...yet i haven't noticed..i just kept feeling the pain and it hasn't occured to me to say anything!
Interesting! Anesthesia doesn't always work on my mom either, though sometimes it does. And novacaine, (what they used to use to numb the mouth for dental work), sometimes didn't work on me. I am nearly impossible to sedate with sleeping pills, too. Though, anesthesia in the hospital has worked for me.
I'm too sensitive in every way, but I tend to ignore it when I cut or bruise myself because I want to finish what I'm doing at the time. Then I forget how it happened. I can't touch a lot of things and hate shoes. I don't wear them at home. My worst problems are sounds that other people are fortunate not to be able to hear. Ultra and infra sounds are excruciatingly painful! I think I have hyperacusis. I've always been extremely good at telling if music is out of tune, and when it's just slightly off it drives me nuts, so digital tuning is really aggravating to me. Autotune messes with my brain signals big time. Digital editing in movies and commercials where they do unnatural speeds. Really hurts to see that! So I don't have TV. Static and white noise... NO! Sub base makes me scream in pain, so I keep earplugs made for that nearby for when inconsiderate people who can't even actually hear those tones drive by. If they could they would feel like I do. I long to be back in a time when most people appreciated awesome sound quality and those who didn't at least didn't mess with it.
I'm hypersensitive to the locations of sensations in my body. But I'm hypersensitive to the type of sensations. I also don't realize when I'm hungry or thirsty until it's too far. The only way I can tell that I'm thirsty, is when my mouth is dry. To keep track of my body, I use a checklist. If I am feeling off I run through a list, water, Food, hot cold, bathroom, environment.
Are there other ways to regulate emotions you could do a video on sometimes? Like beyond becoming aware of your emotions, what specifically to do to steer them into calmer territory?
Nociception is NOT the same as emotions, which are NOT feelings. The latter two often can be distinguished at great difficulty by having the complete scenario looked at with the usual precautions of critique of info and addressing all biases. So, in the name of the rule of "Nil nocere" that is imposed on anyone who is compassionate and wishes to help not harm: what if autistic people experienced their differentness (i.e., risk to their existence) so much and so often early into their childhood that they came up with an adaptation mechanism not to feel certain signals from inside of their body or body surface? Therefore, the actual pain or discomfort remains hidden from the conscious mind until it breaks through a certain threshold, but at that point, it presents itself being excruciating or very severe, causing severe pain or distress. So, this is, possibly, a protective mechanism from sensory info overload and as such should not be eliminated ( such as by suggested "coping " strategy to eliminate what is there for a good reason ) or pathologized. Not least because the old wisdom of management does recommend that one ought not mend anything that is working well given the circumstances. More so, as there is a more recent notion in autism research arguing that being autistic is actually nothing but evolution in action, i.e. It's happening contemporaneously. NB. I,too, was taught at school that evolution takes millions of years, which, as scientists more recently realised, was a very bold assumption. Epigenetics did not even exist. +1 observation on language and social responsibility attached to being influential: Words or sentences that indicate people - just because of being themselves - end up or overrepresented in hospitals casualty units is actually unhelpful as it contributes to the pathologisation of normal, healthy (bio)diversity, including all and any attributes of autistic spectrum. If we lived on a planet that had its people more evenly developed domains within their own overall intelligence then Aspies would not perceived by them as threat and there would not be existing the notion of 1 piece of negativistic info requires 3 positivistic one to cancel out so the neural pathway ( toxic negativism or toxic positivism) does not get distorted that in extreme form, to me, appears to be the birthplace of delusional thinking. I guess this is what was noted by Jacqueline Novogrätz who observed that empathy plus inaction has the potential to preserve Status quo
for 11 years, two serious conditions went undetected in my twins: celiac (did not feel abdominal pain) and eosinophilic esophagitis (no throat pain).
so if your doc asks if you are feeling pain, always, always, remind them: "my body does not process pain"-- or something along those lines
I have a sensory processing disorder along with my ASD, but trauma from birth of not being diagnosed nor having a family that 'accepted' my sensorial differences... I just shut off all feeling in my body as a toddler. I'm in my 40s now and am really trying to connect them back again. I struggle with hunger, i have no idea what it feels like, I keep getting it confused with nausea. At home these days Im a bit better recognising i need to use the bathroom but in public - with people and their eye contact and conversational style demands - its always been a survival tactic to just switch off all feeling again. I'd go 14 hours at work without a bathroom or food break. I'd come home with the shakes and in tears - no idea what was going on. It's so much bigger than NT's or medical professional think.
I’ve had that all my life
I was trained to ignore myself & throughout life - my work reinforced this modality of my feelings & needs don’t matter. Other things are more important. LoL .. I’m doing better now that I stay home most often. I can “ feel” & “ hear “ myself when I’m by myself. ~ It just takes a little practice. 🐇
This is true for me too. Thank you.
so sad. my son cannot tell when he is thirsty, cold, needs to use the bathroom, etc.,(until the last minute). maybe a timer/alarm will help.
Me too❤
Same here. My family still don’t seem to buy it. My mum used call me a wimp all the time for saying that shoes hurt or the bath water was too hot or clothes to scratchy or shopping centre too busy, bright and loud!
I’m 4 days into my journey…after being misdiagnosed with depression, then bipolar, then BPD, then complex PTSD…someone signposted me last Saturday…I cannot believe it and yet with every video of yours I watch it’s like someone has given me my instruction manual 37 years late!!! My mind is blown. Honestly this is life changing…and I actually feel I’m slowly finding the validation in life I could never find. I am so glad I found you, thank you so much for doing this. x
So tired being misdiagnosed. Glad to find this channel.
I’ve been misdiagnosed a few times, but I do have bpd. However, bpd often appears comorbid with autism. Which makes sense, because I was abused for never knowing how to “walk on eggshells the right way”, and I could never predict my caretakers emotions. Because I wasn’t taken care of and my autism wasn’t addressed, I accumulated a lot of trauma, which manifested as bpd. I’m currently researching the gender gap in autism diagnoses and bpd diagnoses and how they’re related. I think bpd or the not as pervasive but similar cptsd are natural reactions to trauma stemming from being an autistic child in a cruel, neglectful, neurotypical world. I think as autism is accepted we will see less bpd diagnoses in general, and a happier population
I have similar story… I love these videos. I have to be careful with this matter but I feel like RUclips diagnosed me much better than all the specialists who always found anxiety depression and Tourette in me. Nothing worked for me, later turned out that Tourette was wrong diagnosis but nothing followed. I was always a weirdo that nobody understood and I asked myself million times the question “what’s wrong with me” and I also get this question from other people including my closest ones.
Same here.
I learned about interception a few years ago and it has changed my life! I now make a point to eat, drink, go to the washroom, sleep - and right away I could see the difference in how I handle the day. I no longer have the fear of thinking for an instant that I might be dying. My heart hasn't forgotten to beat where I need to cough to reset. And now that I know body sensations are tied to emotion I don't fear them and I roll with it. I still don't understand but I no longer freak out. I'm happier and I smile more. It has eased my anxiety.
Something I've experienced is conflicting feelings like feeling hot and sweating while shivering and having goose bumps. Or eating a lot and feeling extremely full but then at the same time feeling very hungry. Sometime I will have a strong urge to go to the bathroom but when I go nothing/very little comes out. Is it just me?
No. It's not just you.
I experience that as well.
Thanks for saying it.
I get this all the time.
For me, it has a lot to do with my blood sugar. Hot and sweaty while shivering with goose bumps is usually from crashing blood sugar or fever for me. And since I don't notice when I need to eat, it happens often. And I'm sick a lot, so fevers are common for me, too. I wonder if that might be part of what you guys are feeling.
Also, the strong urge to go to the bathroom but little comes out is usually because I have a urinary tract infection. And for people who tend to ignore the need to pee, UTIs are common.
Same with constipation. We ignore the need long enough to make it difficult to go.
Feeling hungry is the bodies response to something missing. If it's not energy, it's micro-nutrients, e.g. minerals or vitamins.
Temperature regulation is also tied into the whole nutrient balance, a healthy body can generally regulate temperature very well up to a certain point. It can also be trained to make the thermic comfort zone (what feels right and not too cold/hot) larger but that's a bit off topic.
I don't know a whole lot about the bathroom urge, but just from the other two it'd be a good idea to get your bloodwork done and maybe make some changes to your diet if necessary.
All that said, it's perfectly normal for circulation not being 100% on top of things all the time, it's when stuff like that happens very frequently that it might be a good idea to get it checked.
Hmmm... I don't feel hungry when I should, which mean I can get into low-blood-sugar fog - and when I finally eat, I may eat too much. Exercise helps.
Also, very high pain threshold which means I'm careless and I get minor injuries... one of my kids inherited this, which caused problems with doctors who accused me of ignoring her ear infections - but she wouldn't act bothered or start crying until after it was already bad - but I finally found a doctor who understood about high pain threshold thing.
Thank you, Paul.
Thank you to the Patreons who voted for this video. I finally know another reason why my life has been so off kilter for a lot of decades. As it happened back in the 80s I was living in the same beach city as a pair of somewhat whacked out MIT graduates who were into life extension research, Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw. I ran across them and recognized Durk from descriptions. I struck up an acquaintence. At one point one of them mentioned body awareness in the context to their um strange predeliction to see a new pill, ingest it, and ask their bodies what it does. That level of body awareness astonished me. It is beyond me. After I'd had a bout of pneumonia a doctor gave me a vitamin injection. A few days later, "Do you feel any different?" "Uh, no, just the same old same old body." He was VERY surprised. But that's always been my general reaction to "how do you feel?" "OK," and drop it. With doctors I have to take a conscious inventory and even then miss things. That's almost up to , "You mean you don't notice your missing index finger?" "Oh, yeah, forgot about that." That's the new normal so I don't think about it. (I do have all my fingers. I hope you get the drift, though.)
I keep thinking "This aspergers thing, it can't be me! I like clutter too much." Your videos keep asking me things like, "You REALLY think so? Is clutter your chief stim?"
{o.o}
@@laurac2783 Please allow me to step out of line here a bit. As I near the end of my 8th decade I figure, "Why bother to make it formal?" Recognizing it, however, has clarified some of my oddities; and I've been able to work on workarounds - and um er ah expand my "instascript" catalog for dealing with other people. The best new script is "STFU". I tend to try to control conversations with other people with a barrage of words. "STFU" seems to work better in situations I'm beginning to recognize. (And careful about where I put things? Um, my balance system is partially out of order. So that's automatic. {^_-})
At the start of your fifth decade you are in a splendid point, compared to me, to partially rebuild your life to get more satisfaction out of it. I understand there is a lot of understanding these days and much more useful help for learning how to adapt to your peculiarities. Why not get some of that help while it can do some good for you?
{^_^}
can clutter be a stim? or wanting to stack things that don't meed to be stacked,or shouldn't be, (like jars in a pantry)?
or placing large items on top of cabinets, or large pans, dishes on top shelf in refrigerator when there are empty cabinets and lower shelves they will fit in? my husband does this and I'm wondering if it could be a stim, an ocd thing, or both. he also leaves drawers and cabinets open. I'm the opposite and like things in order. Quite the comical pair, if you think about it 😂
Clutter for me is adhd and raised in clutter
I'm definitely excited to see this video, I have poor interoception with difficulty knowing when to eat or drink water and will go the whole day without eating and will need to be reminded and also won't feel most pain that much.
Me too!
Same. Food is so good though. I need to remember to eat.
I sense that I get a high when I eat, it’s too much sometimes.
@@homosapien000 Red meat makes me high. but i cant digest it. funny, eh?
@@nancyzehr3679 Sure is, gonna have to structure better eating habits. Modern day food is poison in my opinion. It’s hard when you got fast food chains, restaurants, etc. everywhere which is tempting. Examine what you put inside your body 🥷🏼
Definitely a really central part of my autistic experience. My tendency in my body is under-reactive, reflexively ignoring pain, and disconnected. I've put myself in worse situations because of it and that's been something to emotionally process.
I'm currently in a reasonably successful process of reconnecting back to my body. The signals are at least there for me so I can tune into them more and build up that connection and feedback. Of course that's not a simple and easy thing because often our bodies are storing trauma so reconnecting means addressing that and that has to be in the right way and the right time to be safe. I do things like regular scanning, paying close attention, trying things out and seeing how they feel, being really mindful in my body and then playing around with things like yoga, active physical meditations, breath exercises, trauma release exercises etc. It's not a steady progression, I have ups and downs, but it's all learning.
For me it's homecoming and quite emotional. I have to say it's pretty surreal to be a fully grown adult and realise you have a lot to learn about something that is so fundamental. The lack of social validation growing up is a huge, huge issue. Rewriting all that in my understanding of myself is a big job. I follow my intuition a lot through it all. As a parent I validate my kids and their feelings really strongly, guide them to tuning in and trusting their instincts. I think a lot of us growing up in prior decades did not get that validation, all the more for those of us who are autistic and had atypical feelings.
I strongly relate to all that you said. Thank you.
I really appreciate your reply here! Thanks for sharing
Recently self-diagnosed with Asperger's at the age of 51, and living with C-PTSD for 40 years. Didn't recognise until recently why I had managed to deeply repress so many of my emotions. I went for counselling at the age of 20 and she asked to describe/draw how I was feeling and where it was located in my body. I had no clue what she was talking about, so I made it up. I also couldn't connect with any of the trauma and didn't cry for 30 years. It took a long while to recover from the breakdown I had (everything started to unravel from 2014 when I started using EFT as a coaching tool) and now I feel much more calm on the whole, but still tend to ignore hunger, thirst, emotions unless I specifically tune in.
In many ways, the lack of sensitivity was a great survival tool, whilst the breakdown I had, tuning in, being sensitive and totally hypervigilant, brought my life to a complete standstill. So now I am trying to get the balance right - tuning in to my emotions enough to know whether something is right or wrong for me, and tuning out enough to actually get through the day without folding again. Getting there.
I was diagnosed at age 50 (7 years ago) How have employment and relationships been for you? They’ve often been a train wreck for me. Now long term single and self employed but that also brings difficulty, generating sufficient income all on your own isn’t easy.
@@MsDamosmum I had more energy to mask when I was younger, but basically spent most of my life in burnout in evenings and weekends. Worked in an office for long stretches. Codependent in relationships due to the trauma and was in two four year relationships with very safe partners. Single at 28 and messed around ever since. Now moving into self employment and getting help to get the confidence and focus I need after being out of solid work for nine years.
I have done enough work on myself to be ready for a fresh start - just becoming very aware of where my mental energy gets depleted and very serious about putting boundaries in place.
I've also made a couple of NT friends online and have been upfront on how I change when I get tired - to the point that they helpfully point out where I am reading things the wrong way.
Finally recognising there were things I couldn't change and seeing the reason for the way my life turned out was both a relief and a bit of a shock. Learning how to unmask with people who have known me all my life is probably the hardest thing, but then so many people have also gone through really big shifts over the past couple of years, so perhaps it's not as big as I think.
Wishing you all the best. We've had enough challenges trying to fit into the world, now perhaps, it's our time to stand out... 🤗💫
@@NothingByHalves If you don’t mind me asking, where have you turned to get help with confidence and focus?
@@MsDamosmum when I thought I was ready to get back to work, I went onto benefits, and after a while realised the business I wanted to create, so I signed up to a New Enterprise Scheme. Total disaster. Got no assistance. Was then referred to a different program by my work adviser and my phone referral took place two days after I took the ASD50 online test. They messed up the first referral so I had to start all over again. My work advisor then changed....to someone who is Autistic (!!!!).
Total miracle. He is helping me to stand up for myself, referred me a second time and encourages me to ask for what I need. So many things I've tolerated thinking I ought to be trying harder.
It's a slow process trying not to change the way I function, but finally seeing the wood for the trees.
I am hoping they will be able to find an appropriate service/business group through one of the charities. I go down rabbit holes researching...
I have never related to anything so much in a long time 🙏
I am so amazed to learn that I am not the only person who experiences this.
Thank you so much.
Hey! I went and studied Buddhist martial arts to develop and cultivate my own interoception. Worked for me. Heck, it works for others too as it is basic developmental training for those arts. I can feel synovial fluid and the pressure of it between my joints now; I now have pressure sensors there!
This is a really important topic for me. Because of the lack of sensation when I need to go to the toilet and the disgust of our school toilets back then, part of my internals changed shape and makes it even more difficult to sense because it's stretched. I'm often in one of two modes, either "don't need to go" or "if I don't go within 5min imma shit my pants". Add nervous bowel syndrome and I'm almost always too late to meetings.
Similar with hunger. I either don't need food or I'm in a extrem low sugar state, where I get aggressive, dizzy and sweaty. As mentioned in the video I time my food intake and it's mostly every 5h. This makes it difficult to include other people in my routine, because their day/food rythm is different.
Also not being able to interpret you own emotions makes questions like "how are you" really frustrating, because nobody likes to hear "I don't know".
all of these things are tough, especially the 'poop problem.' my son's doc said the bowel can become stretched over time from chronic constipation which could possibly cause complications. he prescribed miralax which my son discontinued after reading about problems which can occur from taking it. he currently takes 2-triple fiber capsules and a flaxseed oil gel cap each day which work as well as the miralax did. in addition , i found a water bottle marked in 8oz sections with the time to drink each section. unfortunately , it did not help bc he is a deep thinker and did not notice the bottle sitting at his desk. the brand name is Cactaki and it would probably be helpful to others
@@mdj864 Thank you, for the insight. Yes, I experienced the stretching and it complicates things, but it's possible to mitigate that somewhat by doing pelvic floor training. I've also taken all sorts of stuff, but non really helped. The drinking problem is a matter of habbit. In an alcoholic context it would be bad, but the reach for the bottle needs to be second only to breathing. I don't even recognize it anymore. Also a bottle with built-in straw helps a lot, since you don't need to angle your head and keep reading/watching something. I noticed that a lot of headaches were just a lack of water. Improves the QoL quite a bit.
@@OperationDarkside thanks, I wasn't aware there were pelvic floor exercises for it
also the suggestion of a bottle with straw is a good idea-
my son is in online college and has to try and pry his brain from entering code to drink water (just about impossible), but a straw will definitely help
I literally have to be reminded by my cats to eat or drink. Maybe an alarm on a phone would help you guys.
I thought I was the only one who goes without peeing all day until I'm about to piss myself ahhahah Same with drinking. I learned that headache means I should have drunk sth. My drinking & going to the toilet was so off that I had a kidney stone at 19yo. Kind of luckily I get a slight stinging sensation in my kidneys now whenever I'm late with peeing. Still I'd advise you not to wait for a kidney stone. Terrible pain.
This video could not have come at a better time! I have been struggling with IBS for a few years now and finding it very difficult to manage and the pain being overwhelming for long periods of time without anything helping. In the last year I have been slowly coming to the conclusion that I might be autistic, awaiting a diagnosis now officially but I am confident to self diagnose now after watching this channel. I was just coming to the conclusion that I have alexithymia and this is what has made it so hard to manage and explains a lot of thing about my past retrospectively!
The thing I didn't know that now makes things make even more sense is that I could be oversensitive as well and when honing in on the pain for long periods to struggle to identify if different things were helping I think I was experiencing it more than the average person was. I have even had times while high where I accidentally got 'locked onto' the pain and it became everything, it was really scary. Now I think if I can practice the things suggested here it could help a lot with my recovery.
The ironic thing is that it's only through this experience that I became I aware I was autistic in the first place! This channel is a gift, thank you so much!
I am both extremes. I can be hypersensitive at times.
And yet injure myself severely and not be aware of what is wrong. I certainly can't explain what is happening.
Same. I'm extremely sensitive to all the clasic things. And yet I remember many times looking down at an injury thinking, "That should hurt." While I'm in constant pain from unseen things that the drs can't seem to diagnose.
@@anyascelticcreations Oh I'm not the only one then!
@@peaceandhonesty3516 Nope. Definitely not the only one.
Hehe.. I did not know that my arm was broken until a doctor looking for something else in an x-ray pointed it out. "I don't see anything wrong with your elbows, but you broke your arm here a few months ago." Mom always worried about my elbows.
I think I'm a combination of both things. Or maybe because I'm so sensitive....I try to block some things out. Oh wow, now being told just do it....I soooo relate to that....made me feel so despairing. Thank you so much for this video!
I'm definitely on the over-sensitive side. With a disconnect. Borrowing a metaphor from The Wheel Of Time: My self is inside a void, focusing on a "flame" and everything else is outside. I am still very much aware of it, overly so even, but I can "ignore" it. I am feeling my own heartbeat and blood circulation right now and am aware of the general state of my body due to my emotions. My problem lies in the regulation itself. I'm mostly fine with food, water and toilet, unless I'm focused on something. However. I never learned how to actually regulate my emotions. I can grab and describe them. Even give them their "proper" names most of the times because I have invested time into learning to do that. Nothing beyond that though.
My history with emotions has been very not good though. I used to express my emotions freely as a child. Because that was how I regulated them. Until I was intensely bullied for how easy it was to "tease" me into crying. Which led to me suppressing them for most of my life afterwards. Until everything broke down due to pain I couldn't suppress and I had to deal with every emotion I had bottled up for decades throwing me left and right at random. Which mostly resulted in me sitting those short fits out because I didn't know anything better than allowing myself to feel them.
It was an immense relief when I was able to cry at my father's passing.
Now I don't suppress them anymore. I feel them on the inside, but expressing them is still extremely difficult. Or tackling the sources of anxiety and stress. It's a real struggle because I want to do things, but often end up paralyzed thanks to the clash my opposing emotions.
Omg, I love the Wheel of Time series! I once said that to a roommate and they thought I was lying and like... pretending I'd read it. 😅🙃 But which Aes Sedai color would you join?!
@@SarahTimmartworldwide Without a second thought: Brown. I live to breathe knowledge. White might be worth considering depending on how future-focused the research the Browns do actually is. A lot of what we see is digging up lost knowledge and keeping it. But I guess even the Blue has its appeal, as I am sometimes tempted to become a biology and history teacher to queer the record of some things. Although that might just go back around to Brown, now that I think on it.
@nestrior7733 Yess! Omg, I loooved the Brown characters too, able to find the tombs that revealed so much of the Dragon mythology, Aiel, Dark One, etc... Ahhh! But yeah, I could see Moraine's frustration with her Blue drive for more immediate justice rather than the long game of digging through history. Those were such formative books for me. If we could all go on quests. & what an amazing quest to reQueer history... I love Alok's work with revealing the colonial history of gender policing. So good.
Thank you so much for yet another validating and informative video!
I thought that my lack of hunger signals was due to years of Anorexia relapses and remittances.
I did realise that I struggle so much to answer a question like "How are you?". I don't know how I am! I never know how I really feel!! Alexythmia is strong in me. Lol
I'm extremely perceptive of other people's emotional states and I take on their emotions, especially difficult emotions. It's rough.
Thank you so much for validating the problem with high body awareness and not being taken seriously.
I was diagnosed with Autism late into adulthood. Making changes in life is especially difficult which has made all of my progress slow in a world that moves very fast. Your videos are very helpful.
This was so helpful to me. Thank you! I didn't realize that I have issues with this until watching this video. But I definitely do! For example, I often don't know that I'm hungry until my cats are jumping on me telling me that my blood sugar is crashing and that I need to eat. And I often have very little sense of when I am ready to sleep. Both can be very problematic! And I am just now realizing that I am probably missing many more signals from my body as well.
Thank you for pointing this out! Now I know to do something about it. Either learn to feel things better, or set reminders to tell me to do the things that I need to do.
Wow! I have just had several revelations all at once.
I have struggled connecting with my body, the associated functions and emotions for most of my life (only recognised through reflection with my counsellor and initiated by your videos after my diagnosis). My ability to recognise, understand and adapt my daily routine to cope is only just coming into focus with external help. From not being able to recognize when to take in food and water (causing ketoacidosis in some extreme cases), to being in an intense emotional state without being able to see it or describe it and having to rely on feedback from those around me. This feedback usually comes out of leftfield and can actually destroy me in the moment as I grapple with the consequences...
As for someone asking me how do I feel, it takes all of my powers to even contemplate what that means.
Thank you for opening some doors for me.
Thank you! I have known what many health problems were before the doctor. I've done more research on things I have gone through and ways to handle myself when I'm feeling too much going on inside.
That happens to me a lot. Having an overload of sensations of pain, numbness, random other feelings... All at the same time can cause a near meltdown.
I do like a "body scan") everyday (I have an illness that affects my whole body - so it's a good tool for me!) to make sure everything feels okay and that nothing seems wrong.
Some days I can't remember to do that. I have alarms set telling me to eat and go to the bathroom and hydrated because I just forget. I am also time blind so that really doesn't help. Everyone tells me how amazing it is that I'm very self aware and I know what's best. However, because I say "hey doc, I'm feeling this specific way in this specific spot, they tell me I wouldn't have that specific of a pain to be described that well."
I found a doctor who believes me now and I'm getting the help I need.
Good luck everyone and Paul, thank for the great video! Will share it!
Time blind. That's a really cool way of phrasing that. I thought that is just a personal foible, crappy gauge of time passing. Causes a lot of issues with appointments, schedules & being mindful of other people's time, as well as meal times or when I last ate or drank.
@@sixthsenseamelia4695 it's a well known thing in the ADHD community and there is more to learn about it and why it happens! (:
I was only diagnosed last year at the age of 25 and I love watching your videos, you were one of the first autistic RUclipsrs I found and you’ve helped me put words to my so many of my experiences :) I’ve struggled with debilitating stomach issues for years cause I don’t experience hunger until I’m absolutely starving and in pain. It’s crazy how like all my issues come back to autism lol, thanks for this video! It’s nice knowing I’m not alone and there are things I can do to improve this issue!
Your content are most helpful for me and my autism spectrum son. 🌞 You really give fundamental knowlege, not like most " autistic" youtubers, who, for me, seems are just attention seeking people, and not real autism , they are not giving real help or information. 🤷 Thanks for your great work! ❤️
Thanks for all you do. You really have given me a significantly better understanding of myself.
same - I knew none of this❤
😡 After having 2 epic meltdowns in a week (& still in fizzy simmer mode) I'm really looking forward to this video topic.
@Jimberry and the Couscous
🙋🏻♀️ Hello Jim.
Thank U Paul 🐇
I am working on connecting w. my body & emotions. I am slowly learning how to connect, identify & interpret my feelings: And finally to verbally express them. It’s been a long journey- to here …. 🐫…..
I was diagnosed last year at 48. When I was 7 I had a massive bladder infection. The Dr said I just didn't want to stop playing to go the the bathroom. I said I didn't know I had to go. He said I was lying.
I often don't remember to eat, but I try like you to just make sure I eat in a day whether I feel hungry or not.
Honestly, this made me cry. So many times growing up I was accused of lying about things I "couldn't be" feeling or even at times hearing inner workings, like pulse.
I don't go to many large gatherings because it's like having a magnet pulling on my senses/emotions. I've waited hours in the car when I was convinced to go to high energy parties.
All this time I thought I was crazy, or at least mistaken, that I was "feeling" others emotional states, even after diagnosis.
Thank you for these videos. The Executive Function video also helped me a lot.
LOVE YOU!! Thanks for all you do!!!!
Thank you for this. I think I do this all the time. My brother definitely does.
Thank you for this video!
I found out only recently that I am autistic (I am a 56 years old woman fom Brussels , Belgium ).
After all the realisations that this implies I feel pretty exhausted and one thing that downs on me is the unbelievable amount of stuff that I have to learn now. I basically have to relearn everything. I am a psychotherapist so I know that thanks to neuroplasticity the brain is flexible. Everyone who possesses a brain can learn new stuff and can literally hack their brain with purpose and practice which is good news. But so far I find myself having to hack my brain into so many new behaviours that I am a nanosecond away from melting down at every single moment of my life.
I hope very much that… that too shall pass … And that I can find some stability at some point because right now it’s utter chaos.
Thank you for creating this video! I’ve been listening to a podcast by Divergent Conversations, and they mentioned Interception in their Autism series.
Then I watch this video and you clearly explained this concept to me in a way that’s so easy to understand.
I do struggle with interception and I have for many years. I often don’t know how I feel til I’ve reached a meltdown and I don’t respond to my body needs til they’re screaming at me. Yet I can’t leave the house or sleep without going to the toilet first.
I chuckled when you said you eat to a schedule to make sure you eat! Just today I ended up sleeping late (cuz I didn’t get enough sleep) and it’s completely thrown off my schedule, so I ate breakfast at 11am and lunch at 1pm 🙈
I've never had a normal appetite. If other people aren't around and I don't have an established routine, I can go without eating for days at a time. I usually remember to eat because 1) someone else is eating 2) I have a splitting headache or 3) because I'm getting irritable. This becomes a huge problem when I'm home alone or if (when) I'm anxious, stressed, or depressed.
I feel you. I eat one meal a day and often skip.
I know to go make a Sandwich if I feel nauseous
Thankfully I eat on a schedule, so I rarely mess up there. But I definitely let myself get dehydrated and let myself go to long without a bathroom break if I'm not on my usual schedule.
Very interesting. When I feel something in my body, I only can say "I don't feel well" and become very anxious because it's difficult for me to believe or feel that there are things (organs, muscles...) in my belly. I see it like a big empty bag..
I don't feel thirst. Even with a bottle of water in front of me, I see it but it's not related with thirst. I know I have to go to the toilet only if I'm in the bathroom. And don't always made the difference between hunger and satiety, and I feel nauseous frequently, which is a real phobia. Sometimes when I don't feel well because of an emotion, I feel as if my arms are full of water.. It took me a long time to make the connection. So there are a lot of things in my body I don't feel, understand. Inside body is a very strange place.
My heart goes out to you--I can only imagine how challenging it must be. I am fascinated, understanding the sensory perceptions of others, it helps me know how to communicate and be sensitive to how they experience the world. one of my autistic twins is good at describing his perceptions to me, the other is not--because he isn't aware of a lot of his perceptions and therefore can't explain them. but knowing this about him is helpful for both of us.
Omg im that nervous and difficult patient who is overly in tune with my body and go for extra checks/followups until i feel I’ve been heard or healed. Often I find mistakes or things that doctors have overlooked. It freaks me out when theyre in such a rush to get all their patients in in a day and rush past my needs/concerns. They’re overworked but they also aren’t the ones in our bodies experiencing what we feel
This is such an important topic, including the comment section.
this video is very helpful. my twins have these issues, so hopefully i can get them to watch this
🍀
Been researching autism for weeks now and just hearing about this concept - totally resonates, thank you so much!!
Thank you so much for this video! You choose the very right words and examples to explain how it feels to be us. I have a lot of problems trying to translate what goes through my brain in an effective way, and knowing how to say it out loud is really important, not only for therapy but also for simpathy when talking to neurotypicals. I was recently diagnosed in the spectrum and I went through you channel. It feels so good to know I'm not alone in this, and that I can learn from other's experiences to seek out for a better "mainstreaming". The diagnosis sets you free but that freedom brings you a feeling that you're lost, and founding a community has helped me re-encounter and respect myself the way I am. Thank you.
I'm an NT with enormous empathy and would be very sensitive to what you go through. my kids are autists so i have a good understanding of what its like. I think a lot of NTs are jerks bc they have zero empathy and come across as being superior. ive had doctors and teachers who treated me and my kids like garbage which makes me think that a majority of the people we deem as neurotypical. have underlying conditions. hang in there and know that i for one do care
@@mdj864 yes yes a lot of people we deem neurotypical have underlying conditions.. Is not NT kind of dummy ? an statistical average
For my part i distinguish between people who are closed down in a fixed dogmatic knowledge and want absolutely to deny their own issues, who judge to hide their fear and refusal, to ignore themselves finally.
and the ones who want to discover new things, who open themselves, look at life, at people, at animals, listening, wondering, changing their views, accepting their ignorance..
Ironically four members of my family labelling me rudely "crazy” and considering themselves "normal” are (my revenge i diagnose them back 🧐)
Two of them Borderline as a form of cPTSD, easily offending insulting others. Cruel, blunt.
The third, a sister, typically Asperger's (like her father) She calls that proudly "being scientific", blunt in behavior, loud voice.
The fourth a brother is Asperger's, the overlogical mind not getting the people and masking.
I have turned the spike back.. they won't know. Do not deserve it. May they die ignorant.
Another excellent video Paul, thank you
This is part of why I’ve found somatic therapy to be very useful. It works directly with how your body reacts and feels, and helps to regulate it to let built up stress out before it causes long term damage. I’ve found it helps be in being better at tuning in to what my body is doing, and then to be able to regulate the sensations, and choose better how to react to them too. It helps me be less sensitive to stimulation from the outside and to get over the built up anxiety more quickly. It has also helps me be able to understand my internal signals better so I can leave a situation before meltdown hits more often, or to help with remembering to eat, use the bathroom, etc. before it gets to be urgent.
This is perfect...I'm dealing with this right now. Like I will think I'm hungry, but I'm actually feeling stressed...
I almost died of a very severe pancreatis 3 years ago. My belly was aching since months, but I didn't take it seriously (in fact, I had lots of liver stones) until one of this stones attacked my pancreas. Long story short, I survive but now, I'm so afraid of not feeling internal things enough. Have regular body check-ups, folks !
my son had celiac but was not diagnosed until age 11 because even though his small intestine was being destroyed from gluten, he felt no pain
this was so helpful! my therapist has been asking me to stop and notice how my body is feeling and this helped me understand why that's important and why it's something I have issues with doing naturally
Wow, wow, wow! This is so insightful and helpful, thank you!
I know both traits, hyper in me and hypo in my partner and both descriptions are fitting so well. 😘
Thank you for this. A very clearly presented and helpful explanation. 🖖
Hi Paul, thank you for your support to the community! I enjoy your way of looking at things and proffesional take as well on subjects. I could not find a video about grief on your channel. I would be very gratefull to hear your take on this. About how autistic people generally deal with this and what helps.
Have a nice day!
People think I have an overly low opinion of people ... but you would too if you had amazing hearing and can catch all the snide things people say under their breath and see the lies written on their faces :p
This is really useful to know. I have 5 year old son with autism who struggles with toilet, sleep and not knowing when his hungry. His dr confirmed what you mentioned about lacking body awareness and information processing. Thank you.
This explains SOOOOOO much!! On my journey to an official diagnoses but I know I have autism by all the research. this is another piece of the puzzle! Thank you so much for this precious inside!
Saving this video for later.
TW: disordered eating
I’m terrible at “listening” to my body. In the past I’ve gotten so focused on whatever I’m doing that I’ve relied on gum to stave off hunger.
For awhile, years, I thought I might have an eating disorder and thus became obsessed with psychology but more specifically EDs. Not the healthiest interest to say the least.
Eating, for some reason, always feels like such a chore… probably because I haven’t figured out how to meal plan + I hate the feeling of grease/raw meat. Doesn’t help that I only like one or two meals/snacks at a time & that cooking can feel like an insurmountable task when I’m depressed.
But I’ve found a way around (most) of those issues. Soups (and stews)
Easy, I can set it aside to cook for a long time, and I get to avoid a lot of gross sensory stuff. I’m excited, too, because it’s such an easy way to make vegetables less crunchy + taste way better!
Thank you for your channel
I honestly don’t feel hunger, I just get to a point where I feel dizzy & I know I need to eat/drink. But on the flip side, I am hyper aware of feelings within my body. Any pain, discomfort, etc I feel really strongly & it makes me anxious. And yeah, what you said at the end. I’m always trying to push down my emotions because it’s not acceptable to be upset for any reason, but the next thing I know 1 tiny thing happens & I’m having a meltdown. It is really difficult to deal with
idont get full...
Great video!! Really validating & comforting & informative ☺️
Needing to go to the toilet makes me feel overwhelmed. I'm told I'm not hydrated enough, yet it only makes me need to pee more often. Then I have less time to focus on more important things. Constipation is also painful.
I learned recently that bowel issues like IBS are a common co - morbidity for people with ASD. I was shocked when I found out some people sh*t once, twice, three times in a day. I was like - what? No way. I don't do #2s for a week yet don't feel like I'm full of sh*t. Its OK if you laugh about me being full of sh*t most of the time, because I laugh about that too 😂
@@sixthsenseamelia4695 that sucks. at least you have a sense of humor about it! 😂 my son has had the same problem bc he can't tell when he's thirsty and is dehydrated most of the time. he takes a fiber capsule and a flaxseed oil capsule daily which seems to help.
@@sixthsenseamelia4695 I've struggled between constipation and accidents. Someone mentioned protective underwear but I am not sure how to process the idea.
You still need more water. Esp if constipated
I love your channel, Paul! Your work is awesome!
This definitely helps identify an area that would help me work better with others
I recently think I had an autistic meltdown, I was unable to control my behavior and went into a conversation that was as if it was forced out of me, I was over stimulated , by the music, and all the noises produced by all the people around me , afterwards I was in a hyper sensitive state
I've been looking into autism and so much of the information associated with it fits me extremely well
I am practically convinced I'm autistic at this point .
Every video I watch from this guy is extremely relatable .
Theres always a sense of detachement from these feelings
I'm sure I'm autistic and the more I watch Paul's videos, the more confirmation I have. I'm very talented, intelligent, with a phenomenal memory (mostly for useless facts), but I can relate to so much in this video. I've injured myself badly several times (twice resulting in hospital operations), yet I felt no pain. I don't know if I'm hot or cold. I can wear a jumper in sweltering heat, or a t-shirt in freezing weather. I don't know when I'm hungry or thirsty.
What I'm most frustrated about (I do know I'm frustrated) is that after dating a lady for four years, I moved in with her. We saw her parents most weekends and went on holiday with them every year, so her parents knew me well. Her mum was a GP and knew all of the above about me, yet never hinted that I might be on the spectrum. My anxiety was sky-high throughout the relationship, yet I thought it was 'normal' to feel the way I did. I lived with my girlfriend for over 4 years before she dumped me.
My anxiety caused by autism has ultimately resulted in me being homeless for a year, being in a job that I hate and single. I so wish I had realised I was on the spectrum years ago - my life would be so much different now.
Sitting here listening and crying because I never thought about this before but it makes so much sense of my experiences...like not knowing I'm hungry until I get a headache from not eating, unaware I had a UTI for months because I had no pain at all, feeling very very anxious with no idea why, when my clothes were uncomfortable (unaware that was causing it), and frustrated that I was anxious "for no reason". The thought that I might have autism or SPD never even crossed my mind until two weeks ago when I started seeing a psychologist for therapy and she suggested it, and I'm both really sad that if that's the issue, I'll never be normal (have always worked really, really hard to hide my "quirks"), and also relieved that there's an explanation. :(
Wow, so useful content. I have seldom got so much from any 15 min RUclips video. Thanks, Paul!
Thank you for this video Paul. Finally diagnosed recently and a number of things you have spoken about here resonate with me. Alexithymia was identified in my report so definitely something I need to focus on too. Too many goals! 😂
I know the feeling, and that I am NO GOOD at multi tasking.
Thanks Paul ,you are doing great work, Kerilyn
How do you handle telling doctors about things when you know they're going to try to invalidate you?
Have any diagnosed Autistic people here also been diagnosed with Central Sensitivity?
I have a solid memory of getting my hearing checked when I was little and the doctor telling my Mom I was mistaken when I continued to raise my hand, to say I could still hear the sounds in the headphones. He claimed I must have just been guessing well because I couldn't still hear it, even though clearly there's no benefit of a child continuing about a hearing exam.
Hi Lisa, not sure what is Central Sensitivity, but throughout my life I went through many "dis-validating" feed-backs from doctors, so I believe I know what you talking about...
When I was a kid (since I remember), I had severe migraines, just as reaction to sun, smells and others... At some point, my mom took me to doctor, they have done various investigations, checked my hearing,, my eyesight, X-rated my skull... and in the end they just told my mom I am making it up to pull attention, cause I am completely ok... It was similar with other of my sensation issues... In around 20y I ended up at "functional diagnostics" department for general investigation, and I was told my body is "neuro-labile" 🤔 ... And... tbh... I was actually by quite some doctors even told I am "hypochondriac", mainly when I tried to find some help for my all-life digestion issues ... and by my psychiatrist (I am being cured for anxiety and panic disorder) I was already labeled by many things ... starting with histrionic disorder, ending with Borderline personality disorder...
At some point I just slowly started evading doctors as much as possible...
Only thanks to the fact that my sons are ND (the younger one got diagnosed with Asperger) I finally found out what's the matter...
Wish you good luck and sending love :) ❤
CrystallineSoll I appreciate hearing your experience. I also stopped seeing physicians after feeling like they treated me like a hypochondriac, because my Mom was always treated that way by people. I fortunately have only had one be rude to me. A hematologist was blatantly rude to me and started the visit by saying "you don't have cancer, let me tell you the statistics.." I explained I just was there because the doctor wanted me to have labs done over strange bruising, leg pain and head aches.
I guess he thought it was unnecessary for a person my age to get some of the tests the doctor requested?
Either way I did end up having a positive ana test, some vitamin deficiencies and such. He made sure to tell me my ANA score didn't matter at all and acted like a bully. I imagine maybe some people get out of control and might fear cancer enough to ask for the tests the doctor ordered but it was mostly blood clot screening related. I just was treated like a hypochondriac over what the doctor asked him to do. I stopped looking for answers once I was diagnosed with central Sensitization because it seemed to explain some of it, but I definitely feel there's much more too it. I relate heavily to the experiences of diagnosed Autistic people and hope to find out if it's the information I'm missing. Either way, I'm thankful to find that others feel similarly. It helps take the sting out of the hits thrown by less understanding or cruel people.
They gave me a similar exam in school. First in class. I couldn't get it right. The nurse accused me of simulating making me even more nervous. She threw out all of us out because I was allegedly disrespecting her.
My classmates where angry with me that we where forced to go play for 2h instead of getting the exam.😂
Still preyed on my mind as I didn't understand why I couldn't get the test right.
This seems similar to what I experience. If there is a loud unexpected sound, it ‘echoes’ in my head and I hear it repeating on a continuing loop for several minutes afterward. My extreme sensitivity to sound makes it very difficult living with others, both for me *and* for them! I started using earplugs/noise-canceling headphones/industrial ear-protectors years before I realized I might be autistic.
I could hear my pet gerbils squeaking (so cute), when the books said it was out of the range of adult human hearing. I was pretty chuffed with my supersonic hearing for once, mostly it's a nuisance!
This puts a name to a series of issues I have.
Neurodivergent Doctor's video on this topic is pretty good too.
An atypical sensory profile probably explains why I'm not keen on loud noises, but set the equalizer to play rhe bass as loud as possible. I guess I just like the low end.
Yes! I was in incredible pain once and Instead of the ER I was trying to see my psychiatrist😳! It turned out I had some big kidney stones! By the way I don't drink soda or coffee😉
GREAT explanation! Thank you!
Hi. Thanks for this. I am 75 and have always had problems with this, but never had a name for it. I'm a hot person; when I get up on a freezing day, it takes my body hours to realise I'm supposed to be wearing warm clothes. Sometimes I go for days without remembering to eat. I get all kinds of strange feelings about other people: I see colours, feel textures, hear sounds and so on when I get near them. . For years I used this talent to help patientst, as I was a naturopath and homoeopath (by associating these sensations with parts of their bodies). This is the most positive use for interception I've come across. By the way, I am afraid of everything. I feel like something is about to happen with the neurotypicals. There is a certain instability about them. Maybe they are about to experience loveliness! Ho ho.
Thank you for this video!
Thank you, this video was incredible!
Waiting from India ❤️
This is a great video, thanks!
I learned from a YoSamdySam video that I have very low interoception, and it's been very interesting to work out what the implications are for my life.
For example, I use MyFitnessPal to eat the right amount as I don't experience "hunger", just "bored mouth". I've also tried drink reminder apps so I don't shrivel up like a raisin. And I recently learned that I've been experiencing migraines for around twenty-five years...
I’m hypersensitive and tune into other peoples energy and emotions. As a result I often think something is wrong with me, and it makes life very difficult at times.
Was just introduced to this term to us by my sons OT today .
I love your videos Keep it up 😜.
I once read or heard (don't remember) that you can only feel your heartbeat when something is (very) wrong. HYPOCHONDRIAC PANIC! I feel it very often and use it to meditate and fall asleep. I still don't know if it's normal, but let's just say that's one thing I'm hypersensitive about and call it a day.
Sometimes I can't feel my heartbeat at all, and other times, like right now, I can feel it in my stomach. Never, as far as I can recall, where it's meant to be.
I have been through several yoga sessions or meditations where I've been asked to feel into my heart beat and have never heard of only being able to hear it when something is wrong, but always to notice it so I can feel it slowing down. Falling asleep to it is great! Nothing wrong with that :o)
@@NothingByHalves I did always feel my heartbeat in my stomach too and my doctor said "that's just your digestion". Even though I could literally feel it speed up and slow down along with my measured heartbeat.
And YES, it's fantastic to fall asleep to. Very calming.
@@tineputzeys "that's just your digestion" 🤣🤣🤣 What planet are they on? I've never heard of a digestive system that throbs like a heart beat 😂
What chance do we stand of being interoceptive when given advice like that?
@@tineputzeys that’s really interesting about feeling your heartbeat in your stomach, throbbing like the heart muscle… There are cultures that have the stomach as the center of emotions like we often have the heart in that position. Maybe they feel that there instead of in their hearts!
@@NothingByHalves I have a better doctor today, let's just keep it at that. 😅
My high body awareness is somewhat of a superpower I've utilized to help me with my weight training, I'll know what's out of balance in a single lift and work out what people would pay physical therapists thousands to help them figure out and fix
I used to eat anything I was overwhelmed. My weight was really out of control. I lost over 100lbs twice with very strict food and exercise control but ended terribly sick the first time and broke my leg the second time. I wasn't focused on health and had no idea I was hurting my health. I finally got over food as a coping mechanism and I ate because I had little kids or someone else to eat. Now I forget to eat. I know if I eat regularly I regulate so much better but I only have to feed myself now. So I often forget. I need to fix that but I feel a lot less stupid over forgetting to eat. Clearly I'm not alone
I often forget to eat. When I start to feel sick, I know I need water. Have had a urine infection in the past pst that I apparently would have had for 6 months, though didn’t realise until it showed by accident as I had to have a urine test for something else. The doctor was amazed that I couldn’t know this or acknowledge any pain that apparently most people feel when experiencing this.
I'm a 47yo male and have always had a strange body sensation compared to everyone else around me. My sense of pain is quite low, so I often wonder where the bruises come from when I discover them on my body. I think I bump my head, arms and legs all the time because somehow the physical outer limit of my body doesn't match the one my brain assumes.
I have also learnt that I need to eat as I get meaner and meaner to those around me. Of course, it would be better to eat before that happens, but I just don't realize I'm hungry. So I've gotten into a daily routine of eating at the same time every day, whether I'm hungry or not.
And I've loved the feeling of deep pressure on my body for as long as I can remember. I totally understand Temple Grandin's idea of her "squeezing machine". Maybe that's one reason why I love to wear very tight corsets...
This is so me, sensitive to light and noice, not sesitive to pain or taste. I can feel every little pain inside my body but have trouble with thirst and hunger. Its a rendom mix of hypo and hyper sensitivity.
I know you wouldn't have personal experience with this, but maybe from working with your clients, do you have any insights on how interoception interacts with effects of the menstrual cycle (not just periods, but the whole cycle)? In a neuroscience class I took, the professor told us men have continuous, stable internal feelings while women do not. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
The idea that men exist in a state of hormonal stasis is definitely a topic for debate amongst the experts.
I've heard that men also have monthly cycles which affects their moods. It's just not as obvious because unlike women who have physical signs (menstruation, ovulation) to go along with those moods... men might suddenly feel flat or lively and not know why.
Autistic AFAB person here and holy wow do my hormones seriously mess with my introception, co-ordination and focus. I take part in a couple of martial arts and for one week a month I am UTTERLY useless and clumsy and can't do left from right (this is how I started, but with practice over time I am a lot better now)
In terms of moods and feelings the 3 days before and after periods I am super sensitive to other people's emotions and pick them up like a lightning rod until I eventually meltdown. Not going to lie, this is why I would rather be male.
I can dissociate from hunger and thirst and using the bathroom and work for hours on end. When I finally stop working and come back from outer space then everything seems urgent, especially the need for water. I get so focused on something that everything else disappears, even my physical existence becomes something that is remembered far off in the back of my mind somewhere.
Thank you!
Several times, I did not realize I was sick until it was almost to late to survive.
Watching this at 8pm after having not drunk anything all day :))
I tend to be a jumbled hypersensitive mess, and it is tricky to sort out what I'm feeling. Your comment about being overly empathetic hit home for me.. When is it "me" and when is it something around me?
I feel okay
I always ended up in the hospitals...they would get a doctor to my brother only for the doctor to indicate that i look sick and i am the one who needs help..also when i was giving childbirth..the anasethesia wasn't working for some reason...yet i haven't noticed..i just kept feeling the pain and it hasn't occured to me to say anything!
Interesting! Anesthesia doesn't always work on my mom either, though sometimes it does. And novacaine, (what they used to use to numb the mouth for dental work), sometimes didn't work on me. I am nearly impossible to sedate with sleeping pills, too. Though, anesthesia in the hospital has worked for me.
I'm too sensitive in every way, but I tend to ignore it when I cut or bruise myself because I want to finish what I'm doing at the time. Then I forget how it happened. I can't touch a lot of things and hate shoes. I don't wear them at home. My worst problems are sounds that other people are fortunate not to be able to hear. Ultra and infra sounds are excruciatingly painful! I think I have hyperacusis. I've always been extremely good at telling if music is out of tune, and when it's just slightly off it drives me nuts, so digital tuning is really aggravating to me. Autotune messes with my brain signals big time. Digital editing in movies and commercials where they do unnatural speeds. Really hurts to see that! So I don't have TV. Static and white noise... NO! Sub base makes me scream in pain, so I keep earplugs made for that nearby for when inconsiderate people who can't even actually hear those tones drive by. If they could they would feel like I do. I long to be back in a time when most people appreciated awesome sound quality and those who didn't at least didn't mess with it.
I'm hypersensitive to the locations of sensations in my body. But I'm hypersensitive to the type of sensations. I also don't realize when I'm hungry or thirsty until it's too far. The only way I can tell that I'm thirsty, is when my mouth is dry. To keep track of my body, I use a checklist. If I am feeling off I run through a list, water, Food, hot cold, bathroom, environment.
Very interesting ☺️.
Are there other ways to regulate emotions you could do a video on sometimes? Like beyond becoming aware of your emotions, what specifically to do to steer them into calmer territory?
Nociception is NOT the same as emotions, which are NOT feelings. The latter two often can be distinguished at great difficulty by having the complete scenario looked at with the usual precautions of critique of info and addressing all biases. So, in the name of the rule of "Nil nocere" that is imposed on anyone who is compassionate and wishes to help not harm: what if autistic people experienced their differentness (i.e., risk to their existence) so much and so often early into their childhood that they came up with an adaptation mechanism not to feel certain signals from inside of their body or body surface? Therefore, the actual pain or discomfort remains hidden from the conscious mind until it breaks through a certain threshold, but at that point, it presents itself being excruciating or very severe, causing severe pain or distress. So, this is, possibly, a protective mechanism from sensory info overload and as such should not be eliminated ( such as by suggested "coping " strategy to eliminate what is there for a good reason ) or pathologized. Not least because the old wisdom of management does recommend that one ought not mend anything that is working well given the circumstances. More so, as there is a more recent notion in autism research arguing that being autistic is actually nothing but evolution in action, i.e. It's happening contemporaneously. NB. I,too, was taught at school that evolution takes millions of years, which, as scientists more recently realised, was a very bold assumption. Epigenetics did not even exist.
+1 observation on language and social responsibility attached to being influential:
Words or sentences that indicate people - just because of being themselves - end up or overrepresented in hospitals casualty units is actually unhelpful as it contributes to the pathologisation of normal, healthy (bio)diversity, including all and any attributes of autistic spectrum. If we lived on a planet that had its people more evenly developed domains within their own overall intelligence then Aspies would not perceived by them as threat and there would not be existing the notion of 1 piece of negativistic info requires 3 positivistic one to cancel out so the neural pathway ( toxic negativism or toxic positivism) does not get distorted that in extreme form, to me, appears to be the birthplace of delusional thinking.
I guess this is what was noted by Jacqueline Novogrätz who observed that empathy plus inaction has the potential to preserve Status quo
I've never understood such phrases like "butterflies in my stomach" I'm still questioning what does that even mean till this day
anxiety has made this worse for me :( i often don't trust my thoughts and ignore it or get worried