Through His Eyes: My Son’s World of Sensory and Autism

Written from the perspective of my autistic son.

As I enter a new room.  The sights and sounds flow easily into my body like music with long, gentle cords.  I feel at peace as though I almost cannot feel my body – it moves the way I tell it with gentle, gliding movements. The view of the room comes to me in muted, soft colors. The sights and sounds translate to my body that I am safe. 

The next room I come to causes me to pause and shudder.  I place my fingers in my ears and close my eyes tight. I stop. I cannot move. Every voice feels like a million staccato notes being played inside my head. Fast. Loud. Each note ends abruptly.

The colors are bright, and they hurt my eyes like looking into the sun.

After a few minutes, I begin to open one eye.  Slowly the other.  I cannot process all information flowing at the same time.  I have to take it in one color, one voice, and one movement at a time. Once it all starts flowing together in my head, my heart rate slows down. My eyes open, and I unplug my ears.  Now I am able to get closer to this room.  I might be able to enter.

Sometimes it’s not this easy.  Sometimes I feel like a million ants are moving under my skin and all of my senses are overwhelmed. Sometimes panic creeps in, and the only way I can move is to cry and scream and throw my body until it’s all I can see, hear, and feel and until I’m in my own space again where I control what enters my mind. 

I know this is frustrating for those that help me, but I feel like my body may explode if I don’t enter into my own mind.  I don’t like to melt down, but it seems preferable to the alternative.  I make the best choice for me, and even if they won’t ever understand, the best choice for my helpers, too.

Once I come back completely from a meltdown I feel so much lighter. My mind has been cleared of all the things that crowded in at once.  Sometimes after a meltdown, I feel so much better that I laugh out loud! This also seems to confuse those around me.  

My emotions are quick to turn. Once taken care of, I can be perfectly okay for a while.  

The information that enters my mind takes over so fast that I don’t have time to process what I’m feeling before I react. It overtakes me, and before I know it, I’m entering my own world again.

Not too long ago I was away from home and a lady asked, “Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving?” 

I didn’t know her. Her face came to me in a disordered picture.  Her lips were so bright and her eyelashes were like spiders.  Her cheeks were another bright color and her hair was in round knots. She was wearing an animal for a coat.  I couldn’t look at her face again after the first picture I took was so… much.  So I reached out quickly to pet the animal she was wearing.  It didn’t move. She was surprised I touched her animal.  But it was such an odd thing to see. 

I needed to know more. 

Between the spiders on her eyelashes and her pet coat, I just couldn’t look anywhere near her.  I heard the question she asked.  I had a great Thanksgiving.  Everything that happened that day had entered my mind and body easily. 

She asked again, loudly this time, “Did you have a nice Thanksgiving?” My mind and my mouth (and everything else it takes to talk) doesn’t move together well.  When my brain tells my mouth to move, it’s not sure how to make the right sounds.  My mouth won’t move with my tongue which won’t move correctly with my diaphragm.  It’s hard for me that my body and brain do not coordinate.  It seems so easy for most.

After a moment the lady huffed and said, “Well, I guess you’re just not talking today” and walked away.  I wish she would have taken the time just to be kind instead of requiring my answer as a source of whether she was going to smile and treat me kindly.  I wasn’t being rude.  I can’t tell her how great my Thanksgiving was.  I actually can’t form the words.  But I heard it all. I just couldn’t respond in a way she could understand.

I can’t always respond like most people when I enter a room.  But I see and hear everything, even if it seems like I don’t.  I know who takes the time to talk to me, spend time with me, and who becomes exasperated with me when I struggle. I see and feel just like you.  My responses are just different. 

Always give grace.  You never know when what you see isn’t at all what it seems.