Stimming:
- What does it look like: Repetitive movements or vocalisations. There is an enormous variety of stims, but some of the more common ones are hand flapping, rocking, making a repeated vocal sound, or flicking my fingers in front of my eyes. Some stims are harmful, like hitting or kicking myself or others, biting, or banging my head on things. Most are harmless, even if some can be a bit odd-looking.
- What’s happening: I’m feeling a strong emotion (which could be positive or negative) and communicating and/or regulating it; or I’m having trouble orienting myself or sorting my thoughts out; or there’s too much sensory input happening around me and I’m helping myself stay calm by starting some sensory input that I have control over. The more time you spend around me, the more you’ll get used to my stims, and the easier it will get to interpret them.
- What do you need to do: Most of the time, nothing! If I’m stimming in a way that you know means I’m anxious or distressed, check in with me and find out what’s going on, or check my environment for things that could be stressing me out. If I’m stimming in a way that hurts me or someone else, you do need to stop me, but try to do this as gently and non-invasively as possible, and ideally tell me what you’re doing and why you’re doing it in a way that I can understand. Try to figure out what’s causing the harmful stim, and fix the problem or remove the stressful thing. If I’m capable of discussing the problem with you, help me redirect my feelings into a stim that’s not hurting anyone – maybe I can chew on a stim toy instead of biting, or smack some blocks together instead of bashing my head.
Masking:
- What does it look like: Having a conversation with a non-autistic person, sitting still, making eye contact, and/or expressing my feelings with my face.
- What’s happening: In order to be understood by non-autistic people, I am suppressing my natural body language, facial expressions (or lack of), and tone of voice. I’m deliberately remembering all the explicit social rules I know and putting them into practice, and concentrating on making my face muscles, vocal intonation, gaze, hands, and body go where non-autistic people expect them to. I might be really good at this, so that it looks effortless and you have no idea I’m working this hard; or I might not be very good at it, and I might look or sound odd. Strong emotions, positive or negative, make focusing on masking more difficult, so if I’m really excited, happy, angry, stressed, or upset I might start talking and moving in ways that seem strange.
- What do you need to do: Masking is difficult, and very tiring – I need you to give me a break from it! I understand that not everyone knows how autistic people communicate, and I will need to mask sometimes, maybe most of the time, but being able to interact without masking, or with less masking, is a huge relief for me. You can help me by letting me be myself around you – let me flap my hands to tell you I’m excited instead of using my face, let me talk in a monotone instead of having to concentrate on changing my voice pitch, let me interact with you in a way that makes sense to me.
Meltdown:
- What does it look like: Total, often violent, loss of control. I might be screaming, thrashing, or throwing things. I may attack you, myself, or someone else. I might break things. I will be impossible to communicate with until the meltdown is over.
- What’s happening: My system has become so overloaded with stress, frustration, sensory input, and/or emotion that I’ve lost control of it. It’s really important to remember that a meltdown is not a tantrum – I’m not doing this on purpose, I hate that it’s happening, and I can’t stop it. It feels like my whole brain and body is filled with nails-down-a-chalkboard shrieking, and my body is doing anything possible (without my input or permission) to make it stop. I don’t have the mental capacity to process communication or calm myself down; all I can do is wait until it’s over.
- What do you need to do: While a meltdown is happening, all you can do is keep me and the people and thing around me safe. If there’s something obvious that caused the meltdown, like a loud noise, either remove it or if possible move me away from it. Once the meltdown is over, I’ll be exhausted – let me have some time alone or with someone I trust, make sure I know that you don’t blame me for anything that happened during the meltdown. If I’ve been yelling or screaming I’m probably thirsty; if I’ve hurt myself I may need help to patch myself up. Once I’m feeling better, try to work out why the meltdown happened (if I can talk you through it, either verbally or using alternative communication, this is the best way to figure out what went wrong; if I can’t communicate or don’t know why it happened, try going back over the day’s events leading up to the meltdown – did anything new or unexpected happen, was I around more sensory input than usual, was I around more people than usual, am I sick or injured or overtired). I hate meltdowns and don’t want to have another one – the best thing you can do for me is help me figure out why a meltdown happened, and help me avoid it next time.
Shutdown:
- What does it look like: I’ve stopped responding to anything. I may be staring into space, or staring at a fixed point like my hands. I’m not talking, moving (beyond a repetitive stim), or reacting to you.
- What’s happening: Like a meltdown, a shutdown happens because I’ve reached the limit of what I can cope with, and my brain has either stopped letting me respond to outside input, or stopped processing it entirely. I may not be aware of anything happening around me, and I almost certainly can’t process more complex input like language. I’m not doing this on purpose, and I don’t like that it’s happening – I don’t like not being able to control my body or respond to what’s going on around me. Shutdowns can be very disorienting. They can feel a bit like fainting or passing out, or they can feel like panic attacks.
- What do you need to do: During a shutdown, leave me alone until I come out of it. If there’s something removable like a bright light that may have triggered the shutdown, taking it away can make coming out of it easier on me. Please don’t move me, though – I may not be aware of being moved, and coming out of a shutdown in a different place or with the environment significantly changed is very disorienting and can make me feel really sick. Placing something I find comforting, like my favourite toy or blanket, near me so that I can see it when I come out of the shutdown can help. Like meltdowns, the best thing you can do is help me figure out why the shutdown happened, and how I can stop it happening again.
Eye Contact:
- What does it look like: Looking directly at someone else’s eyeballs.
- What’s happening: I’m trying really hard to look into someone’s eyes, because I know that non-autistic people like and expect that. Doing this is uncomfortable for me, and probably stops me being able to pay attention to things like what the other person is saying, or what the rest of their face is doing. I can’t read emotions from eyeballs, so I need to look at the rest of the person’s face to understand what they’re feeling and communicating, and if my auditory processing isn’t great I may need to watch their mouth to understand what they’re saying.
- What do you need to do: When you’re talking to me, let me look at my hands, or the floor, or the rest of your face. I’m not being rude or disrespectful, and I can pay attention better if I can look where I need to.