9:09pm January 9, 2012

➸ Perpetually Myself: Autism and pressure

Does anyone know why it is that autistic people tend to seek pressure? I know I do it a ton, in whatever way I can: tensing muscles, wrapping up with blankets, crunching up and sitting funny, even throwing myself against walls or floors sometimes.

It’s more than that it just…

There’s also a chance that the “feeling in the limbs” is pain. Pain involving sensory nerves can do weird things, including respond terribly to light touch (including the touch of air moving gently) while responding much better to deep pressure.

I say this because I have a thoroughly nasty kind of pain that works sort of like that. It’s a kind of pain that even nonautistic people don’t always recognize as pain because it feels different than, say, banging your foot. And autistic people can be so unaware of what our body’s responses mean that we can “feel an unpleasant sensation” that “causes us to freak out” and not recognize that the “freaking out” (or loss of ability to function, apparent loss of motivation, or other things) is actually a fairly standard response to pain. Personally I have to learn this with every single new kind of pain – first I notice how I respond to it then later put two and two together.

I have an autistic friend who never gets depressed ever, but while she was in the hospital she started feeling suicidal. She thought this very strange. Then they noticed she had an intestinal blockage. The moment they gave her something to treat the (extremely severe) bowel pain, the suicidal thoughts stopped. She hadn’t recognized it was pain because it felt different from, say, back pain.

I used to end up holding my head and groaning but felt nothing but what seemed like a “weird feeling”. My friend told me I was doing this because I had a headache and to take some ibuprofen. I did so and it all went away. And this despite being able to recognize several other forms of headache. I never know when it will pop up.

Anyway that it’s some kind of pain involving sensory nerves may not be the answer but it’s worth considering. (Note that often, neither OTC painkillers nor opiates do much for that kind of pain. Anticonvulsants are the only thing that works for me. But if it’s infrequent or mild or not something you want to seek treatment over that’s fine too. I’m not a doctor, I’ve just had a lot of experience with “weird sensations” that turn out to be pain. In one case I was literally writhing on the floor screaming and couldn’t work out I was in severe pain. Yes, I’m dense.)

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