#interoception

[mynameiselicomics]

Discomfort.

#autism #actually autistic #actually autism #neurodiversity #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #comics #webcomic #original comic #autism community #actuallyautistic #actually neurodivergent #proprioception #interoception #asd #autistic #autistic artist

[neuroticboyfriend]

tip for people with chronic pain/fatigue: lay down occasionally. haven't laid down in the past 3-5 hours? do it (if you can) and see how you feel. i've found that i'll lay down in bed just to be in my room, but then i get hit with an instant wave of relief because just sitting on the couch was too much for my body, and i didn't realize it.

when you're in pain or fatigued for a long time, your awareness of your body may get wonky - especially if you already struggle w/interoception due to neurodivergency. so. test it, sometimes. you can apply it to other things too: sit if you're standing. stop doing a task if you've been doing it for a while. have a small snack to see if you're hungry. etc. etc.

#softspoonie #disabled #disability #chronic illness #chronically ill #spoonie #spoonie tips #chronic pain #chronicpain #chronic fatigue #actually chronically ill #self care #interoception #neurodivergency #actually neurodivergent #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #health #self help

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

Autism & Fluctuationing Support Needs Part 2

Lil Penguin Studios/Autism Happy Place

#autism #actually autistic #autism acceptence month #autism awareness month #autism & support needs #fluctuating support needs #executive dysfunction #interoception #special interest #energy levels #sensory sensitivity #neurodivergence #neurodiversity #actually neurodivergent #feel free to share/reblog #Lil Penguin Studios/Autism Happy Place (Facebook)

[galacticscrotum]

I didn’t fully realize the extent to which I am affected by sensory overload until I decided to accommodate myself anyway. Wearing headphones in public keeps my anxiety so much lower.

It’s kinda ironic that the reason I didn’t notice I’m autistic is because I’m autistic. My struggles with interoception made it hard for me to recognize my sensory issues.

#autism #autistic women #autistic #actually autistic #autism spectrum #autistic problems #autistic experiences #autism community #autistic community #autism feels #autistic feels #late diagnosed autistic #self diagnosed autistic #sensory overload #sensory issues #interoception

[etherealspacejelly]

why is my interoception so fucking bad. ill be sitting there like "ough ouch owie my stomach hurts so bad !! ＞﹏＜ what could possibly be wrong with me???"

and then i go to the bathroom and take a shit and im fine.

#autism #actually autistic #audhd #adhd #interoception

[jennhasadhd]

Time Warp: *Hours vanish*

Me: *Stomach growls* "Missed the hunger cue...again."

ADHD Brain: "Productive day, right?"

Interoception: *Still on vacation*

#adhd #jennhasadhd #adhder #adhd memes #neurodivergent #adhd problems #adhd feels #adhd life #adult adhd #actually neurodivergent #Interoception

[yuribeam]

my family’s disabled. EDS and tethered cord confirmed in some but everyone has roughly the same progression of symptoms. my mom and sibling have already had tethered cord release surgery and we’re in the process of looking at my spine.

im in the process of figuring out what’s normal and what’s not, how to identify sensations, how to take care of myself, how to cope with a body that works less and less. i am also autistic, so for me, that means identifying specific feelings and sensations can be difficult

so earlier today i was woken up from a nap by my mom telling me she’s leaving for dinner with my stepdad. im always down for pad thai so i get myself up, together, and out the door in about five minutes. which is not really enough time to assess how my body is feeling, which is difficult for me anyway.

before dinner im already feeling a little lightheaded and clammy and i figure i just need to eat, which i do, and it is in fact worse. i excuse myself for the restroom, thinking it’s because my stomach’s been weird, don’t feel better. silently rushing my mom to wrap up chatting with my family bc i feel like i need to be home. make it home, curl up on the recliner, feel some sharp pains along my spine, watch a little star trek, eat some leftovers, yknow 

then my mom comes into my room before bed and says that she recognized how i was feeling at dinner. cold but feeling overheated, clammy, pale, almost a bit dizzy, hungry but not hungry, needing to put my head in my hands and shift around, uncomfortable but unable to pinpoint what's wrong. she says, i've felt like that a lot too, for decades, and i always think did i eat enough protein did i drink enough did i do something wrong to trigger something i can’t recognize, and actually?

i think it’s just pain. 

which is currently kind of blowing my mind a bit to realize, that although i know people with chronic pain will not recognize their pain the same as able bodied people

i am more likely to feel the side effects of pain than the pain itself 

put another way, i am experiencing my body reacting to pain whether or not i feel more or less than usual of what i think of as pain (sharp, shooting, twinge, spasm, pointy ache..).

I thought of general pain or the constant background pain as just a low ache that maybe comes with some stiffness and soreness, but I am feeling it through other senses and manifestations as well

so im really rethinking about how to recognize and predict and categorize and classify pain. it made me think of the emotions wheel, which you probably recognize a version of if you’ve had therapy 

and i think something like this with words for physical sensations like restless, queasy, tight, collapsible, unsteady, foggy, tensed, and probably better words i’m not thinking of, would be a helpful start to identify how to communicate what is going on with my body 

is this relatable to anyone? how do you recognize and communicate feelings in your body that you’ve gotten used to but are not medically “normal”? what words would you put on the sensation wheel? 

#does this make sense to anyone? or is it super extremely obvious? idk i found this out an hour ago and reddits down so #disability #chronic pain #autism #interoception #spoonie #chronically ill #chronic illness #pain scale #emotions wheel #feelings wheel #therapy #physical therapy #disabled #health #fibromyalgia #eds zebra #ehlers danlos #scoliosis #kyphosis

[snakeautistic]

Interoception and I do not get along clearly considering my complete lack of it!! You don’t know how often I’ll go through the day being like “huh why do I feel kinda bad” and only realize it’s because I haven’t had any water based on the color of my pee 😨. I used to also just forget to eat because I don’t really get hungry, though I’m getting better at that. Also when it comes to like,, taking a piss because I don’t realize I have to until it’s almost too late so I have to RACE to the bathroom. It’s actually so bad and this is embarrassing but I’ve pissed myself once or twice in the not so distant past because of that.

#interoception #actually autistic #autism #neurodivergent #autistic #neurodiversity #autistic things #autistic experiences #autistic rant #neurodivergence

[autism-affirmations]

#autism #autistic #actually autistic #autism memes #autism affirmation #sensory processing disorder #audhd #interoception

[alpaca-clouds]

The Pain Scale is kinda useless

Yes, this has to do with neurodiversity. But also about general disabilities, about sexism and racism and other things.

I spend a lot of time last week in hospital, because I had a biking accident last week and was in the ER, as well as going to two check ups, the last one earlier today. And there I once again realized how useless the painscale is.

See, the entire idea of the pain scale is that you should tell doctors the pain you are in on the scale of "no pain" to "worst pain imaginable". But... the thing is that this runs into several problems:

How bad the worst pain imaginable is varies a lot depending on what the worst pain someone has ever experienced is.

People, who have to fight chronic pain, generally have a very shifted pain scale.

A lot of neurodiverse, especially a lot of autistic people, have problem with interoception - so actually telling what they and their body feel. And this can at times include pain.

And then of course there is the issue that because of a lot of people who genuinely just at the moment are experiencing their worst pain imaginable, even though for someone else it might just be a 5 or 6, makes doctors always like "Yeah, sure" when someone arrives and tells them "yeah, I am at a 9". While also saying: "So, its not that bad," when someone arrives saying "Yeah, I am at a 4 or 5?"

Just two examples for me. Earlier last year I had done something to my back and I was in so severe pain that I barely could move. But of course I did not call the ambulance, but had my roomie bring me to the hospital. So, I hobbled into the ER there, and when they asked me about my pain, I was like "8 to 9?" And they were like: "Oh, you came here on your own, it could not have been that bad."

Another one was last week. You should know, that as a teen, I had a really, really bad internal infection, with really the most horrible pain imaginable. Like, "I was screaming until they gave me morphium" bad. So, trying to focus on how my body was feeling, I came to the conclusion: "4 or 5?" And the doctor was like: "Well, than it cannot be so bad." Welp, psych. I ended up having a fracture. And the doctor just looked at me like: "... How can you still move?" And I was just: "Well, I know much worse pain."

And it should be noted. I have had several fractures during my life and... I never considered the pain of a fracture as that extreme. I do not know whether it is because of messed up interoception or something. But yeah. I move around quite fine with a fracture.

Really, I kinda feel like even for doctors it is not really the most useful evaluation tool. Because I see a lot of doctors go "Well, it is not that bad that you need treatment" if you are telling them a number smaller than 5, but as soon as you go above 7, they basically go: "Press X to doubt".

And that is without going into the problems of sexism, racism and the like. Because when a woman talks about her pain, doctors will go like: "She is just very sensitive." Meanwhile if the person is not white they will also assume other things. And of course men in general often are made to underplay their pain, to be ruff and manly.

Don't get me wrong. I know why the pain scale exists. But... I do not think it is very useful as it is right now for the reasons named above.

#neurodiversity #autism #interoception #pain scale #chronic pain #hospital #medical care #er doctors

[orangetubor]

Struggles of audhd: your body doenst tell you that you need to pee (or any other bodily functions like eat) so then you don't pee all day and then you're doing stuff and then you sneeze.

If it's not clear I peed myself. I was gonna put this in the tags but let's actually talk about it cuz a lot of people don't talk about the lack of interoception part of ADHD and autism.

symptoms of interoception: weird responses to pain or other stimuli, stress, or emotions, difficulty recognising and reporting symptoms of illness, incontinence and constipation, bad at registering hunger levels.

I don't pee unless I'm desperate. I don't eat unless I'm starving. I don't drink water like, ever. I don't realise I'm stressed until I'm having a shutdown, I'm super bad at registering that I'm cold, partly due to nerve damage but mostly due to this. I don't realise I'm cold till I put my hand on my stomach and it's literally freezing. I was about to say I don't have any problems recognising heat or pain but then I realized my signature thing is 'heatproof hands' with which I pick up bread right out of the oven and tubs full of boiling water. So I guess that's not true.

#also i said audhd bcs its a symptom of both #also everyone on planet earth needs ro get more normal about incontinence #especially stoma bags. you all need to get normal about stoma bags #disability #incontinence #interoception #alexithymia #audhd #adhd #autism #cripple punk

[structuredsucc]

For autistic (and some ADHD) people, internal sensations can be just as dysregulating as external ones.

Feeling excited, hungry, or in pain can also be a source of sensory overload and can contribute to us shutting down or melting down.

This is particularly tricky to navigate when alexithymia or poor interoception makes it hard (if not impossible) to pinpoint the source of these internal sensations

#actually autistic #neurodivergent #autistic #alexythymia #interoception #meltdown #shutdown #sensory overload

[neuroticboyfriend]

tip for people with chronic pain/fatigue: lay down occasionally. haven't laid down in the past 3-5 hours? do it (if you can) and see how you feel. i've found that i'll lay down in bed just to be in my room, but then i get hit with an instant wave of relief because just sitting on the couch was too much for my body, and i didn't realize it.

when you're in pain or fatigued for a long time, your awareness of your body may get wonky - especially if you already struggle w/interoception due to neurodivergency. so. test it, sometimes. you can apply it to other things too: sit if you're standing. take a break a task if you've been doing it for a while. have a small snack to see if you're hungry. etc. etc.

#softspoonie #disabled #disability #chronic illness #chronically ill #spoonie #spoonie tips #chronic pain #chronicpain #chronic fatigue #actually chronically ill #self care #interoception #neurodivergency #actually neurodivergent #neurodivergent #neurodivergence #health #self help

[my-autism-adhd-blog]

7 Lesser Commonly Known Autistic Traits/Experiences

Neurodivergent_lou

#autism #actually autistic #7 less common traits/experiences #safe foods #interoception #emotional dysregulation #gi issues #crashing out #different voices #neurodivergence #neurodiversity #actually neurodivergent #feel free to reblog #neurodivergent_lou (Facebook)

[defectivegembrain]

See not having much awareness of temperature is funny because instead of going oh it's hot and I know this from the sensation of heat I just hear people say it's hot and I remember what time of year it is and at some point I may notice that I am sweaty and I'm like...I have collected a combination of observations and reports from first hand sources and this qualitative data suggests that it may be hot

#actuallyautistic #sensory issues #interoception

[etherealspacejelly]

me, walking into the kitchen to get lunch: hmmm no actually im not hungry yet

*sits down on the couch for 2 fucking seconds*

me, suddenly starving to death: where was this energy two minutes ago???

#adhd #actually adhd #interoception #autism #actually autistic #now i gotta get up again ffs #every damn time