Ever since about May / June I've been experiencing extremely unusually high stress levels, and these have been sustained so much higher than usual since then — without a break any longer than a day or two at any point. Normally my stress tends to cycle but since the spring it's been sustained. So I've developed an adaption to that lately over the past few weeks of groaning and moaning and saying words. This is not involuntary but it is something that when I'm alone, I do find stabilizes my parasympathetic nervous system.
I chose words that my downs-syndrome sister Katie used to use for this. In fact she probably still does it. I say "No more" a lot, that's a Katie thing :) And I say "Oh no" and "Oh no, Ba'Ba!" and "Fuuuuck". Ba'Ba is one of my top favourite nicknames for myself (cause my name is Ba).
And I find that it takes me out of the thought process and just kinda momentarily clears my mind, but only for a moment. I looked up this behaviour and ChatGPT tells me that it's nothing associated with autism since this is not an involuntary thing and it's only started later in life. But I do find that it reminds me a lot of stimming. It has a reverse effect where I feel as though I'm boating on waves of stress, rather than swimming through them, and this way I feel effortlessly carried by them in whatever direction they will go. Like if it's as meaningless as just "Oh no Ba'Ba!!" again and again then I guess it becomes just a mindless following patterns of stress, almost like a strange dance.
But the only problem is, it is a lot of the time sometimes. So it's become a concern that this helps me notice how much it is, and I'm really aware that there are many days which are "Oh no, Ba'Ba — no more" all day long. I mean I don't have this when lying down still, but getting up to do anything it's just so much. Some days are much better and there's not much, but there's still always some periods, usually when I'm getting more tired in the evening or before bed.
It's really weird. I've never had a behaviour like this in my life and I can't wait for it to be over with this stress. I'm definitely not accustomed to it being this bad for any extended length of time. I am hopeful that some of the things I'm doing for my health and some of the healing in my life may ease it off finally.
Add comment
Comments