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Sensory Overload

 As I write this, I am trying to decompress from sensory overload that nearly turned into a meltdown.

It all started when I went to the pharmacy with my nesting partner and the pharmacy technician interrupted me in mid-sentence and said, "I can't hear you." I get this a lot as I have difficulty controlling the volume of my speaking voice and also have apraxia of speech to a degree, so people also misunderstand what I am saying a lot of times and tend to do so in a condescending manner.

Matters escalated from this simple event that has occurred time and time again (especially in medical settings) that I often view as ableist and transmisogynistic in my case and ended up nearly turning into what the Autistic community refers to as a meltdown. There are also shutdowns, but I more frequently experience meltdowns. Depending on how you define a meltdown, this could have been considered a mini-meltdown as I was enraged, yelling, and crying in a sort of rotation once I got home.

I am now recovering from this event, but it sparked enough commotion that I figured I would write about my experience, however, sensory overload can occur from any number of stimuli, but often one of my biggest triggers is other people. Sounds and lights are other common triggers for me, and it often cannot be pinned down to just one sensory experience. Today has been a barrage of events that lead up to this occurrence that finally brought the sensory overload to its logical conclusion. 

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