Episode 4 - Flash Bang Wallop (What A Panic!)

It’s a well-known fact that autism can bring with it what we now diplomatically call “sensory issues”. As the name suggests, that’s when one or more of your senses protests at being exposed to a stimulus it doesn’t like. The resulting symptoms can be physical (for instance, uncomfortably increased heartbeat, sweaty palms, shaking, rapid shallow breathing, feeling (or actually being) sick, headaches and dizziness. Psychological symptoms include feelings of anxiety, fear – even terror. Any combination of these symptoms coupled with an autistic person’s brain’s struggle to process extreme sensations and emotions as a neurotypical person would can result in complete and utter meltdown.

Sounds unpleasant, doesn’t it?

It is.

You may have spotted it’s not dissimilar to a panic attack – also not a fun way to spend your time.

Common causes of sensory issues include bright flashing lights (although some autistic people love these – this is known as “sensory-seeking” behaviour), certain colours, specific audio triggers (one young man I work with, for example, has a violent objection to the theme tune from “Fireman Sam”. Nobody knows why, including him.), textures (of food or clothing for example) or particular objects.

Mine is a paralysing fear of sudden loud bangs.

I’ve had it for as long as I can remember and you’d probably be surprised at how much this particular sensory difficulty can affect your day to day life.

Of course, 35+ years ago when I was a child, it wasn’t called a “sensory issue”. It was called “being silly”, “being soft” or “being a drama queen”. Treatments included being teased, being laughed at, being told to grow up and stop being such a baby, and people deliberately forcing you to confront your fear in the hope that it would somehow magically ‘cure’ you. Or just because they thought it was funny. More on that, and reasons why doing it makes you a d**k,  later.

Back to day to day life. Bonfire night, every year, was like something out of a nightmare. The fact that now fireworks are let off every night for about a fortnight before and after, and also for new year, Eid, Diwali, weddings, divorces (maybe?) and your uncle’s cousin’s neighbour’s stepdaughter’s half-birthday, doesn’t help. My second year of primary school, on the morning of the  6th   of November, we were set the assignment of writing about the bonfires that ALL of us must obviously have been to the night before. “Surely there’s nobody here that didn’t go to one…….?” Enquired Miss Taylor, raising an eyebrow.

Oh no.

At that age I’d probably never heard the phrase “I wanted the ground to open up and swallow me”, but if I HAD, I’d have thought it. Of course I hadn’t been to a sodding bonfire (I didn’t know the word ‘sodding’ either – it’s called artistic licence, just go with it!) – I’d been hiding under the sofa with the dog, fingers stuffed into ears,  wondering when this night of abject horror would be over.

Luckily, unlike some autistic children, imagination was something I didn’t lack. I made up a load of complete and utter nonsense. Miss Taylor probably wondered why I’d been to a completely different bonfire from the other 33 or so children in the class, but thankfully decided not to call me out on my imaginative bulls**t.

The following year, mum decided enough was enough. I was to don a pair of earmuffs (bright pink and fluffy if memory serves!), and be taken down the hill to the town bonfire on the field. If I was scared or upset, we were to “power through” and after a while I’d be ok. Stiff upper lip, what ho.

In fairness to mum, this can be a recognised treatment used to ‘cure’ phobias. It’s called ‘flooding’. The general idea is that when you’re exposed to a lot of the object or situation you’re frightened of, and you’re not allowed to leave, your brain will eventually get past the fear – basically because it has no choice -  and after that you’ll be fine.

Brutal.

Imagine an arachnophobic being locked into a free-roaming spider house at the zoo, and you’ll get the idea. Bizarrely, in some cases, it works. In my case, it most definitely didn’t.

Mum walked me up to the top of a banking on the opposite side of the road from the field where the bonfire was. This, she reasoned, was a far enough vantage point away from the fireworks, to keep me calm. Unfortunately it transpired that this was actually the hill from where the rockets were being let off. Frankly I think my screams drowned them out. Abandon ship, abort mission, etc.

Any sort of party, birthday, Christmas, etc., was a source of major anxiety. I would always need to know in advance if there were going to be balloons or party poppers – which caused a lot of tutting and sighing from mum. Needing advance information about exactly what I might face at a party was yet another way in which I drew attention to myself and singled myself out as “the weird kid”. Of course there WOULD inevitably be balloons, party poppers, crackers at Christmas etc. And so, I’d either flatly refuse to go, or be made to go, only for a hushed phone call to have to be made to mum some time later to come and collect me because “she’s a bit upset”.

Panto – the traditional Christmas treat for many children (“oh no it isn’t!”) would cause me sleepless and nauseous nights for weeks beforehand, if I was being made to go because of a school trip or something (“You CAN’T be the only one who doesn’t go! WHAT will people THINK?”) 

I could not then and cannot now fathom any conceivable reason why I should give the slightest whiff of a s**t as to what other people make of my differences. If they want to think of me as ‘the weird kid’, let them. Precisely zero fluffs given. Mum could not then and cannot now fathom any conceivable reason why I would ‘choose’ – as if there’s any choice at all involved – to give people reason to think of me as ‘the weird kid’. An abundance, nay, a SURFEIT of fluffs given.

Poor mum. I never meant to be so difficult. I just honestly couldn’t help it.

Gentlefolks, it’s not all doom and gloom. In the intervening years, I’ve engaged with a LOT of therapy of varying sorts. Hypnotherapy (EPIC fail – 1 in 5 people simply will not go under, and quell surprise, I’m one of them), NLP, or Neuro-Liguistic Programming (moderately successful, if only down to the placebo effect and my ability to visualise vividly – but frankly I’ll take it!), CBT, or Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (absolute GAME CHANGER, would not hesitate to recommend). There are also now things like silent fireworks, autism-friendly theatre performances and cinema screenings, sensory issue awareness training, etc. Hurrah. Life as “the weird kid”, at least in one respect, is definitely getting easier.

So here’s how not to be a d**k. If you know that an autistic person (or indeed ANY person) has a horror of a particular situation or thing, please, I BEG of you, do NOT, under ANY circumstances, deliberately expose them to said situation or thing. Either because you’re curious to know how bad it is (it’s bad) or you think it will be funny (it won’t), or for some inexplicable reason you derive pleasure from the discomfort of others (please get help).

It doesn’t matter if YOU don’t understand why the person is terrified of bananas/buttons/bees/bollocks. It’s THEIR lived experience, and it’s valid.

Be kind. Read that again. BE KIND,

Love and sparkles,

Rach xxx