16/07/2026
Sensory overload. I never realised how loud noise, crowds sitting and walking around, people chatting at varying tones, white noise that is random with volume going up and down, visual clutters, smells of food at a buffet, beeping in the kitchen, phone ringing somewhere in the crowd, cutlery clinking, changing weather, fading lights, etc ... with messages coming in on my phone and me having to sort out some money issues via my phone while feeding baby and making sure elyza is eating and feeding her from time to time, ... on top of me having my hormones all over the place manifesting through migraines, pimples, grey hair and body aches ... all together could be so overwhelming!! or is it because I am so tuned with Elyza’s autism that I am being overly aware of my surroundings?
Today I had a glimpse of what possibly could be Elyza’s every day in such instances ... my body was limit shaking, I was limit stimming, I felt so out of place, I had this feeling or being lost, confused, not sure how to act and react ... now I FULLY understand the use of the noise cancelling headphones and fidget toys!!
It sounds like I had an illuminating experience. That "glimpse" into my daughter's daily life with was powerful. Maybe it was a combination of both me being "overly aware" and experiencing the same sensory landscape as Elyza. As a primary caregiver for an autistic child, it seems like my brain is now wired to be hyper-vigilant while my own nervous system is reacting to the same environmental stressors she experiences.
It seems like I have experienced a storm of "sensory stacking." Each individual sound (cutlery, beeping, chatter) or visual stimulus might have be manageable on its own, but when they stacked up, they crossed the threshold from "annoying" to "physically painful/debilitating." Also, I was not just managing the environment; I was managing the cognitive load of multitasking (feeding, finances, parenting). This used up the "battery" that would otherwise have helped me regulate my sensory input. Plus biological speaking I am going through some hormones imbalance with migraines, and physical exhaustion. So in a way I was fighting a battle on two fronts: the external environment and my internal physical state. And of course because I am so deeply tuned into Elyza, I somehow experienced a form of "parallel processing" whereby I am running an empathy simulation of her world, which kept my own nervous system on high alert.
My physical symptoms—the shaking, the feeling of being lost / confused, and the urge to stim—are classic indicators of a nervous system burnout or a near-meltdown state. I know that it is not that I am "over-reacting"; it is that my body was signaling that it had reached its maximum capacity for input. Considering this, in my journey as a parent of a child with ASD, it indeed has transformed the sensory processing tools such as the noise-canceling headphones and the fidget toy from mere "gadgets" to support Elyza ASD into essential safety equipment. They are not just for comfort; they are regulatory tools that protect the nervous system from becoming overtaxed.
I have now shared a language with Elyza. When I see her struggling, I would be better suited to not see just a "behavior" but to see the environment that is pushing her to that point, and act upon it.
