This desire to change autistic people and ‘normalise’ them is because “it is easier to change the individual rather than society,” says Steve Silberman.

“And when I'm looking at it, it's all coming in really, really quickly. It's like swamping, there's one aspect of my Asperger’s that you may not expect. You see, I experience the world in a very different way to pretty much everyone else. There's like a hyper imagine like a hyperreality. It's not just about seeing, it's about hearing, it's about smelling, it's about tasting is about everything. I mean, there's a very distinct smell of this time of spring, it's quite ripe, it's quite moist. So, if it rained, now, this afternoon, the smell would change quite radically, and it would be much more intense. Sound wise, obviously, is that jet that's going over, I can hear the traffic and the distance, and then you've got the natural sounds that are here. So that was a blackbird rattling over there. As Robin's calling hours of Blackbird calling now. I can hear blue tits going. Oh, just had chaffinch sing. This layer of birdsong going on. This sensory overload is a constant distraction. And it's had a hugely isolating effect on me ever since I was a small boy.”- Chris Packham (Source: https://otter.ai)

Like Chris Packham, I also experience the world in a very different way to everyone else. Truthfully, sensory overload will manifest itself differently in each autistic person. In ‘normal every-day situations that aren’t intense or magnified’ I am normal, but if a situation changes and it becomes intense, it also becomes a challenge and everything becomes ‘3 to 5 times' more magnified.

Cutting my Cloth

I tend to have to steer clear of situations where I experience sensory overload, but around illness or a terminal illness this is where I become unstuck, because any illness becomes magnified, and which is why I then have to make the painful decision not to go in.

Trying to navigate illness

When my twin took ill a few weeks ago, and was later diagnosed with terminal cancer, I tried to do the right thing. Pushing myself forward, I found myself having to navigate a ‘hospital situation’ where through sensory overload, I continually felt panicked and out of my depth. People's illness becomes more pronounced. Where Chris Packham talks about hyperreality, around illness... this is very much an issue for me.

Sensory Overload

In an illness situation in hospital, it’s not just seeing what I’m seeing around the visuals, but it's all the sensory overload distractions, like smells that are airborne, including the hospital smell and food preparations that permeate the corridors and patients' rooms; the bright lights, the machinery keeping patients well and/or alive, the hustle and bustle of people hurriedly walking to see their loved ones, the echo of their conversations in corridors talking about their loved ones, the look of despair on their faces, their concerns and worries as they continue to talk about their situation, other people's blank expressions, expressions of disbelief, these all contribute to sensory overload.

Sensory Magnification

It is also watching the decline of your loved one, who is beginning to looking sickly, deathly even, which is magnified 3 to 5 more times. All those things, change the way you are able to deal with things around hypersensitivity. instead of physically turning up, working behind the scenes, I making sure my twin and her family have everything they need, so they can continue to look after my twin successfully. I hate how my hypersensitivity makes everything so isolating.

Throughout my life, without knowing about my disability and knowing about my disability now, the constant sensory overload has always been a continual distraction, one that is difficult to navigate and one that is hugely isolating. Around autism it blights and continues to blight my life, but it also doesn't help when there are miscommunications from those who think we need to get past 'sensory issues’ which they should know is impossible to do.

Only someone who is autistic will understand what that really means and simply put, will not judge. Thank you, ‘Chris Packham,' for speaking out on all our behalf.