What Over/Under Stimulation Feels Like And Some Honest Thoughts from an Autistic/ND Mom

As a neurodivergent woman, I am often dealing with over and under stimulation. As a child it was MUCH harder to manage, though even as an adult I still struggle with it.

When I am overstimulated it feels like my head and my whole body are going to explode. Too many stimuli coming at me and while I work hard to “ignore” the stimuli, there is a breaking point where every single thing I have been trying to ignore swells up and makes my brain hot and my eyes blurry and I can’t think straight anymore. What results is either bursting into tears or bursting out in rage and anger.

When I am understimulated I can’t get anything done and the only thing I can do is scroll on my phone mindlessly. Eventually it gives me enough dopamine to get up and do something, but I never feel recharged. I just feel like I’m in survival mode most of the time with no idea what will actually provide what I need. I feel like if I could just “hack” my brain I could figure out what it needs and always know how to help it. But I don’t. And I struggle. (I actually just learned how to start recognizing when I am under/overstimulated so I plan to work on this more and work on finding activities that DO recharge me.)

I remember trying to share these things with Christians/Christian healing people over the years and how hard I tried to be brave and open up about this and it was immediately that I was dealing with evil spirits and needed to have deliverance. And maybe some of it was demonically influenced, but much of what happens to me is not what you see in the explosion…that’s the fireworks from what actually happened leading up to those moments. And yes, everyone experiences these things, but the level at which I experience them is much more intense than a neurotypical individual. I’m not oppressed, I just need help processing the stimuli in my environment in a healthy way. There are tools for that, I just haven’t acquired/mastered them yet.

For the last year I have worked hard to “normalize” what I deal with. Which is sad because the year before that I had finally gotten free and brave enough to share what was happening in my life after discovering my children’s Autism diagnoses and realizing that I am also Autistic. But when I went to my Autism evaluation I was evaluated by a male that was completely unfamiliar with Autism in women and literally said to me, “You can’t have Autism because you make eye contact and are articulate.” From that moment on I decided I didn’t want to “have Autism” and also if the world looked so negatively at a neurodivergent brain and just assumed that it was broken and needed deliverance than I wanted no part of it all. So I tried to pretend like I was fine. Not Autistic–just neurodivergent. A nicer way of saying my brain is different without relying on a medical diagnosis. Because I quickly realized that if the world viewed Autism so poorly then if I got the diagnosis at any point they could find a way to take my kids from me. And I refuse to let that happen. So I’m deferring my second opinion evaluation until either my kids are 18 or I feel peace about trying again…if I ever do. Call it paranoia…but too much crap happens in this world and I don’t trust people to do the right thing by neurodivergent people so I have decided to wait. There are no special services I can get anyways and my insurance covers most of what I feel like I need to support me right now so it’s just for validation. But I already know how my brain is…I have lived with it for almost 39 years. I don’t need other people weighing in on that now. lol

But in my waiting I quickly realized that I couldn’t sweep this all under the rug anymore because…hello…my kids are standing right in front of me Autistic as ever. lol. And they HAVE a medical diagnosis. So I can’t ignore this all anymore. I can’t pretend that ND people aren’t treated differently. I can’t keep acting like a neurotypical and trying to parent my kids from that place because it’s destroying me inside. I keep trying to make them more like neurotypicals because I don’t want what happened to me to happen to them. I don’t want them to live in a world where they are swept under rugs and have their voices squashed. I don’t want them to live in a world that tells them they are too emotional and too sensitive but never give them any tools to try to help them or give them space to practice using those tools with grace until they get it “right”. And as badly as I didn’t want to repeat cycles, here I am repeating the cycle my parents used on me. They knew my brain was “different” so in many ways they were harder on me so I could “get it right” and “be like others” and most importantly “make it in the world”. Many of those skills HAVE saved me from some very scary and grim situations. I am grateful to them for doing what they could with what they had and what they knew. They couldn’t know what they didn’t know. But as an Autistic child/girl, I needed SO much more. And two things can be true. I needed more support AND my parents did the best they could and they loved me so much.

Sometimes I don’t want to live in a world where there is Autism. I’m just being honest. Sometimes I just long for Heaven because it sounds easier. More lovely. More peaceful. And here on Earth the lot I have been given in life is HARD. It is painful. Always has been. There are days I want to rip my hair out. But I’m not allowed to talk about the hard things because then people report me on social media and suddenly Instagram is reaching out asking if I need “help”. YES. I do need help. I need respite care and I need support as a mother of 2 clinically diagnosed Autistic kids and one awaiting HER evaluation this summer and I am terrified she will have the same experience I had and not get the help she needs. Should you be worried that I will end it all? Heck no. No, I’m going to say HELL NO. Because I have 3 babies and a husband that need me and I’m not going to quit when it gets hard. I’ll cry, I’ll rage, I’ll process with my counselor or my close friends and then I’ll pick myself up and get back to it. So don’t bother reporting me to Instagram. I’m good. Haha.

I hate that my kids need more help. I hate that things are always so hard for them. I want easier just for one day. I want to wake up one morning when we plan a family day and make waffles and have a dance party and not have someone so dysregulated that we all end up screaming at each other and then end up in separate corners regulating as best we can. This is the reality of our lives. IT IS HARD. It is painful. We do have good moments and we have worked through a LOT to get to where we are, but there’s always more work to be done.

I have been trying so hard to hide the hard. To make it seem like it’s okay because we love Jesus.

But you know what? Jesus loves us too. And He loves us IN the hard. And He knows how hard this is for us and He has sent really really good people to support us and love on us. He has sent provision in the most perfect timing (even though I feel guilty for accepting it every single time because I didn’t “earn” it). He never ever leaves our side in the hard. So if He already knows the hard, who am I hiding it from exactly and why?

I have been trying so hard to act like Autism isn’t a disability. That we are just wired differently and need extra tools. But the truth is, often the areas we lack tools in (or even if we have the tools) can be disabling. It truly can. Mental disabilities are not talked about because everyone assumes you can just fix them. Making someone feel guilty for a mental disability is about as low as making someone feel bad about not having a foot. Or not being able to walk.

Thank you for reading this far. I needed to process this out loud and admit that it’s hard. Admit that it is disabling. Admit that EVEN IF WE HAVE A DISABILITY JESUS STILL LOVES US AND HE CAN STILL WORK THROUGH US. We are not broken in the Kindgom of God.

I also need to say this out loud. Our disability is not a sin.

Had to pause and cry that one out for a minute. Heavy sobs. Truth sinking deep into my bones and into every cell of my body.

I am not a sin or broken because I am wired differently and I would never dare tell my kids that either.

My behavior and how I treat people in a dysregulated state? Yep. That can be sin. I can make messes just like anybody else. But my brain…the places I am lacking…not a sin. Because what does that verse say?

But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. ‘ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12: 8-9)

So here’s me today…boasting in my weakness so that His GRACE is sufficient for me and His POWER will be made PERFECT in my weakness. Because how can His power be perfect if I never ever admit that I’m weak?

God is still good. Jesus is still on the throne. And I can be disabled but not be broken or a wretched sinner because of it. No matter what ANYBODY else on this planet thinks.

And Jesus still loves me. And my family. And you.

Amen.
~Nikki