This post really deserves to be an add-on to my last one on the topic of synesthesia, migraine and environmental sensitivities; I clearly have a lot more to say on the topic, which has been a preoccupation all week. This time, I was inspired by an Instagram post I happened to see on the morning I first began writing this on the account called @theautisticlife, which listed the differences between autistic meltdown and shutdown (note: its taken me three full days to publish what I started to write on Tuesday as its taken far longer than usual to edit due to brain fog, which I thought I would mention since its so topical).

Under the meltdown heading, the post described this as being “a physiological chain-reaction to an overwhelming situation causing extreme stress and discomfort…caused by multiple triggers that are unique to the person depending on their sensory, emotional and social needs and their cognitive skills”.

Well, there is no doubt in my mind that when certain environmental factors mount up or coincide in my vicinity, this can trigger one of the sensory episodes I described in my last post wherein I experience a kind of all-systems-go migraine but also synesthetic effects (the blending and rerouting of various sensations using different sense organs and the general mixing-up of senses to create special effects that can be quite overwhelming). To recap, I believe this was triggered by my electromagentic sensitivity (more on that below) activated by some severe solar weather conditions over the last few days, overlapping with far higher exposure to manmade EMF over the weekend, in contrast with the fact that I have been living an extremely low EMF existence lately due to where we are currently living “in the middle of nowhere”. The combined effect seems to have provoked an episode of hyperexcitability in my brain, triggering symptoms I now believe are one of my versions of synesthesia (see my other post for more on that).

A possible link between synesthesia and meltdown?

This kind of sensory overwhelm (the kind that induces synesthesic effects) feels a lot like it could provoke a meltdown or even be a meltdown. I have certainly read at least one account of a person with synesthesia having to fend-off the almost inevitable meltdown that they associate with it by stimming a lot or using every distraction in the book to fix their attention elsewhere until the danger is over. ““Some individuals with synesthesia find that it enhances their creativity or makes certain tasks easier, while others may find it distracting or overwhelming,”” says a person quoted in this article “Living with synesthesia” and I would say it can be both, depending on the circumstances and version of synesthesia as there are multiple “types”.

Alternatively, could it be that a state of meltdown, triggered by sensory overload, then causes the synesthesia to happen? As I wrote about last time, it feels as though my brain pulls synesthesia out of the bag as a last resort to address some sort of “state of emergency” sensory deficit episode due to the individual sensory systems becoming so overwhelmed, suddenly, that they are forced to collaborate, turning to a sort of “firing volley” approach that uses all the senses together, all mixed up, without any of the usual boundaries in place. Either way, there certainly seems to be a very credible link between synesthesia and meltdown, from my point of view, and that’s what I want to look into here.

Synesthesia and shutdown

Then, as synesthetic effects can be so darned intense and, if they are prone to happening when a point of overwhelm has already been reached, it would make perfect sense that the nervous system would have to recover afterwards, which would seem to account for the connection with shutdown. Is there a connection with shutdown? Well, the same Instagram post as above goes on to describes a shutdown as “a protective coping mechanism where the brain “shuts down” as a response to being exposed to extreme stress. There’s often no energy left to process if manage information”. This is certainly what happens to me following an episode of sensory overload!

The point in common here seems to be the fact that sensory processing issues are strongly associated with autistic meltdown and shutdown, whilst synesthesia is its own kind of sensory processing challenge and certainly not all about enjoying colourful words and letters or a deeper appreciation of music. Here’s what I found on the topic:

“Psychologists at Sussex and Cambridge universities showed both people with autism and those with synesthesia experience heightened sensory difficulties. Common to both groups were problems with sounds and lights and a heightened ability to focus on details.” (Taken from an article entitled “Exploring Synesthesia’s relationship with autism”.)

In that same article, James Wannerton, president of the UK Synesthesia Association, describes an overload as being akin to a panic attack and goes on to suggests it seems similar to what people with autism endure during a meltdown. Enough, then, to push an overwrought nervous system to the very brink of shutdown.

This is what typically happens to me right after any sensory meltdown (let’s call it that from now on) episode so severe that synesthesia and/or migraine has been present and, in fact, this is what is happening to me right now, a full two (now four at time is posting) days since the instigating episode (although stormy weather conditions and highly active geomagnetic levels have continued to provoke my nervous system all week so I am far from in the clear from triggers and am still experiencing synesthetic effects more than normal).

For those few days, I’ve been mostly locked into my own head and much more so than for weeks or I would even say months beforehand, which has made it really noticeable to me how different I feel. I have no social battery left at all, though I have been surprisingly social lately, have no energy available to negotiate situations or conundrums and am utterly depleted and devoid of the scope to tolerate even the slightest increase of pitch, brightness or other likely excitatory effect in my environment (I can’t even cope with my electric toothbrush). Everything needs to be quiet, calm, bland and predictable until I can recover some surplus energy back into my system. I had one social engagement yesterday that I couldn’t really get out of and I managed it but that was because it was a music concert, I was taken there by car, didn’t need to interact with anyone except my husband and had comfortable and unclaustrophobic seating (more on that later). Today, I was meant to attend a funeral but was certainly in no fit state to go as I would have sucked in all of the emotions in the room and been completely unable to make appropriate smalltalk so my husband went alone. In fact, I am in deeper brain fog and withdrawal today than I was yesterday and this writing and research exercise is what’s keeping my head above the waterline as its giving me a focus and distraction.

In the meantime, my vision is extremely blurry and none of my prescription glasses seem quite right, though I know from experience that this phase will pass with the episode and is nothing to do with needing to see an optician. I’ve also noticed how busy patterns or even too many fallen leaves on the ground are making me feel overstimulated and dizzy at the moment and I felt carsick yesterday, which is rare for me. Motor and communication skills, facial expressions, ability to make eye contact and voice tone have all taken a hit until I can recover. Apathy, numbness, a need for total detachment from other people or the wider environment (it feels like my head is in a box as I can’t seem to extend my range of focus), feeling “spaced out” and in “brain fog” are all part of the picture and anyone who knows me well enough will just tactfully leave me alone when I am having a day or two like this, at least until I indicate I am ready to resurface again.

Hyperexcitability

The link between autism and neural hyperexcitabilty is pretty well known but what about a link with synesthesia? Let’s look at that from a couple of angles.

Psychologist Michael Jawer, who specialises in topics such as high sensitivity, anomalous experiences and thin boundaries (I have quoted his material many times before) says on this topic “Even synesthesia – the blending of senses, which in most people, are separate and distinct – is also demonstrable through neuroimaging. For persons who routinely “hear” words in colour, for example, both fMRI and PET scans reveal activity in the language and basil areas of the brain concurrently; whereas activity registers solely in the brain’s language area for “normal” individuals” (Michael Jawer, drawing on S Hornik’s “For some, pain is orange”). He continues, “In this regard, it is perhaps not surprising that people who have synesthesia seem more prone than the general population to anomalous experiences”.

So is what happens to me during a sensory meltdown an “anamolous experience” by any other name and could it really be seen on a brain scan? What do they think causes the unusual brain activity they can see in such cases?

A 2011 study at Oxford University published as “Synesthesia linked to a hyper-excitable brain” conducted tests using two brain stimulation methods to observe the effect on individuals with and without synesthesia. Those methods were, firstly, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), wich is a weak magnetic field used to stimulate neurons in the primary visual cortex and, secondly, transcranial direct current stimulation (TDCS) to see whether this hyperexcitability was related to the experience of synaesthesia. In the first test, those with synesthesia required only “tiny amounts” of stimulation to experience streaks of light in their visual cortex, suggesting this part of the brain is more sensitive and excitable in people with synesthesia. In the second test “turning the excitability up or down in the primary visual cortex led the five synaesthetes to have a stronger experience of colours connected with words or numbers, or would diminish or eliminate it entirely”. It was concluded that people with synesthesia may have a lower threshold for hyperexcitable neurons, making it easier for them to fire.

How does this hyperexcitabilty tendency link in with the “overexcitability” trait referred to in the context of the work of Polish psychologist Dąbrowski and his theory of positive disintegration as referred to in some of my earlier posts? Well, Dąbrowski uses the term to describe a heightened physiological experience of stimuli resulting from increased neuronal sensitivities and describes those who have hyperexcitability as showing “strength and perseveration of reactions incommensurate to their stimuli.” The five areas of excitability that he refers to, which include sensual overexcitability, are traits which he associates with giftedness and a lifelong process of breakdown followed by reintegration known as “positive disintegration” towards an outcome of becoming a much more highly developed personality.

I guess you could add to all that the old adage “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” and I have frequently noticed how I feel more intellectually or spiritually fired up or switched on following the recovery phase from one of my more extreme sensory meltdowns.

Flashes of light and other funky effects

Those light flashes referred to before are called phosphenes which are flashes of colourful light that are produced from inside the eye rather than from an outside light source. Some people report that phosphenes look like rapidly moving stars or shapes of colour that wander slowly across your vision. These are exactly the kind of effects that I reported having during my episode at the weekend (see last post) and which I freqently get during nighttime episodes of sensory meltdown, usually induced by EMFs from natural or manmade sources. You can sometimes get a similar effect from rubbing your eyes with the palm of your hand as this temporarily stimulates photoreceptors inside the retina which causes light and colours to appear and, possibly, float across the visual field for a few moments afterwards.

Experiencing these effects spontaneously can be either awe-striking and fascinating or alarming. I would certainly put them in the category of things that could potentially overstimulate you, melt you down or cause overwhelm, especially if you are experiencing other anomalous effects, delivered as sensations or sounds, at the same time!

Connective tissue laxity

One other topic I want to bring in, since it relates to autism, is connective tissue laxity, something which a large number of neurodiverse individuals are known to have. Hypermobility disorders don’t just affect knee joints and muscle, they also affect fascia, which is the substance that gives structure and order to the entire body, controlling what flows where and at what speed. When laxity is present, this has surely got to affect the signalling and delivery times of peptides, fluids, hormones, electrical and chemical signalling and so on throughout the body and, in fact, I feel as though I have examples of this going awry in my own experience, for instance at times when sensations from one part of my body have shot though my entire system at lighting speed during episodes of especially laxity. Parts of the brain or nervous system that should act as gatekeepers feel as though they are off duty at such times.

So what if, at certain times or in certain conditions, a physiological quirk of autistic biology enables especially fast signalling between different groups of nerves, parts of the brain or between groups of sensory equipment; what would that feel like to the person experiencing it? Do certain geomagnetic conditions induce such laxity? I certainly notice variations in my connective tissue challenges at certain times such as during full or new moon phases, during certain spaceweather events, when there are sudden alterations in air pressure or when exposed to certain environmental factors including EMFs.

Possible serotonin hit?

Another common feature with autism: I always tend to feel like I am in sudden emotional deficit when in shutdown, following an episode of sensory hyperexcitability, as though all my stores of serotonin have been siphoned out of me. An all pervading sadness, low mood or even borderline depression may come over me for a while and, though I know from experience that this is entirely temporary and will self-resolve without me having to fix anything, it also feels horrible at the time!

It’s like experiencing an emotional hangover that I have to patiently sit-out while the toxic effect flushes out of my system; a case of biding my time (though anything that can increase serotonin such as natural daylight, good sleep, saffron supplements, tryptophan, SAD lamp etc. could possibly help and is worth a try). Again, this always seems to happen the most following the kind of episodes that I would now call synesthesia-type sensory meltdowns.

Studies seem to back up this synesthesia-seratonin link although the theory goes that its an increase in serotonin in the brain that is behind the trait of experiencing synesthesia:

“To date, two hypotheses have highlighted serotonin’s role in the development of synaesthesia (Brang and Ramachandran, 2008; Brogaard, 2013)…Perhaps the best evidence to date for these models comes from a recent meta-analytic review, which shows that the induction of synaesthesia-like experiences in non-synaesthetes is most reliably observed with serotonin agonists, such as lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), mescaline, and psilocybin (Luke and Terhune, 2013). There is also preliminary evidence that serotonin agonists enhance synaesthesia in congenital synaesthetes (Simpson and Mckellar, 1955; Luke et al., 2012). However, these studies suffer from a number of methodological limitations (Luke and Terhune, 2013) and only provide preliminary support for serotonin models. Although congenital and induced synaesthesias may not share the same neurochemical mechanisms, these studies do suggest that serotonin may be implicated in synaesthesia.” (From “Probing the neurochemical basis of synaesthesia using psychophysics” – Terhune, Song, Duta & Kadosh 2014.)

However, and this is only my own personal hypothesis, what it feels like from the inside is that the brain pools all its serotonin stores during the sensory overwhelm episode (perhaps as a protective buffer?) leaving it desperately depleted in the aftermath (somewhat like the hangover from consuming too much alcohol or having a sugar crash after the sweet-treat – both alcohol and carbs are known to temporarily increase serotonin levels but deplete it afterwards). Following a full blown migraine/synesthesia episode it can feel like falling off a serotonin cliff as my altered mood plays out just how depleted I suddenly am!

Low serotonin is also thought to increase hyperexcitability (see study) and people with autism are thought to have generally less serotonin than average in their brains to start with; so a possible link to the kind of hyperexcitability that makes sensory processing issues and meltdown more likely. No doubt, the dire effects of this inbuilt low serotonin state increase during the darker months (Seasonal Affective Order is caused by a shortfall of serotonin due to reduced exposure to daylight); as I am currently being reminded of as the days rapidly shorten and become generally darker with poorer quality light, even during the day. A shortfall of serotonin is also known to reduce pain thresholds and alter the way the muscles work and is thus a well-known causative factor in fibromyagia and chronic pain. All these effects compound as lower serotonin levels persist, only adding to a generalised state of overwhelm and far higher risk of episodes of meltdown or shutdown.

So what about dopamine?

When it comes to neurotransmitters, dopamine is probably the most common buzzword used around the topic of neurodiversity but I’ve seen far less said about its links with synesthesia. Time for another of my pet theories, from the inside out: what if that part of me that is in perpetual dopamine deficiency (a major factor of ADHD but also autism) actively grabs onto (or tunes in to) opportunities to become hyperstimulated by whatever environmental factor is available, such as a geomagnetic storm taking place for example, taking the opportunity to be very highly stimulated for a time and what if that also leaves me chronically depleted afterwards, the same way that someone with ADHD might experience a crash after a binge of whatever they happen to use to get their dopamine fix? Extreme fluctuations of dopamine are known to have extremely unpleasant effects (not unlike those I describe under my description of shutdown) and just imagine the kind of crash you might experience after a full-blown stimming exercise involving the whole symphony of synesthesic effects dialled into a sensory experience that is way outside the ballpark of average such as a solar storm!

So is synesthesia (potentially) a sort of inbuilt stim toy called upon by a stimulation hungry brain? Certainly, some of the more positive effects involving colour and multi-sensory music appreciation can feel that way and its certainly food for thought to consider it might also have a downside!

Low dopamine symptoms include: lack of motivation, being tired, struggling to concentrate, feeling moody or anxious, lacking a feeling of enjoyment, feeling depressed or hopeless, trouble sleeping or staying asleep. Many of these could describe my week, which is a dramatic contrast with previous weeks lately.

Its interesting, as I’m coming out of the episode, I’m really needing dopamine fixes like some sort of lifeline to help pull me out of it (especially later in the week; all this added six days afterwards). For instance, as I start to feel just a little more communicative and outside of my own head, I’m really wanting to plan something interesting to do outside the house today like an injection of stimulation to pull me from the torpor. I’ve also found it really helpful to go ahead and order those boots I had been eying up for a few weeks (shopping is the classic dopamine fix!), a glucose sweet before I went for my walk and a shot of sweetness in my breakfast was really helpful and I even found myself craving a strong cup of caffeinated green matcha-sencha tea this morning though I long ago gave it up as it generally overstimulates me and tends to keep me awake at nights.

So how do you know you are having a meltdown?

Getting back to the core topic, are synesthesia and meltdowns linked and how do you even know you are having a meltdown? Please bear in mind that adult meltdowns are unlikely to look like those depicted in articles about autistic kids; it may even be possible to be having a meltdown and not realise it because of a lack of understanding as to what that might present as in an adult (for instance, perhaps it may express as migraine, IBS or panic attack rather than rage). Maybe some adults experiencing meltdown are so ashamed of how they are feeling, because it seems so unreasonable or out of proportion to what seems to be going on around them (especially if their triggers are subtle or out of the ordinary), that they do their best to hide or suppress how much they are struggling, which only serves to compound the intense feelings of overwhelm that they are bottling up in the longer run. Yet just because these experiences are hard to describe or pin down doesn’t mean they are not very real to those of us having them.

Synesthesia, if you have it, happens all the time

If you are someone with synesthesia, it doesn’t only happen when you are having some sort of meltdown or conveniently using it, even enjoying its special effects; it happens all the time, as a hardwired aspect of your nervous system, meaning you don’t get days off. Therefore, the effects are cumulative and build up as potential stressors, long before the meltdown that might happen when too many synesthetic effects switch on at once.

For instance, try out for a moment auditory-tactile synesthesia, which is where sound translates into a physical sensation. This heading is the nearest I have come to finding a descriptor of some of my bizarrest experiences because I suspect I respond to certain sound frequencies that are so low or high frequency that they do not even register consciously as “sound” and yet my felt senses tell me all about them. I suspect this also has a lot to do with my persistent tinnitus, which alters tone under certain conditions and which feels like a response to something “unhearable” at the conscious level.

For instance, I often feel as though I am dealing with actual physical objects that are making me feel uncomfortable in my own skin, for instance sharp sensations like I am being rained upon by shards of glass, have pointed shapes coming at me (there is a visual component to this too) or something granular and irritating touching me, perhaps a feeling akin to wearing rough clothing when I’m not…all very subtle and perhaps easy to dismiss as wholly imagined sensations of “discomfort”, yet the effects mount up and becomes more aggravating with time. At other times, I have no such issues going on, so there must be certain environmental factors that trigger them…not necessarily tactile exposures but these senses are presumably the closest-match sensory organ my synesthetic sensory system can attach them to (like opening a document with the nearest compatible, though not necessarily best-suited, software package).

This last couple of days, I feel like I am sensing “triangles”, sharp and angular, in my energy space, an effect that seems to have begun with the highly excitatory solar flares that began taking everyone by surprise over the weekend and all the windy-rainy storms that have come with it. Perhaps I am sensing the same energetic impact that set off bright red auroras as far south as the South of France and jerked magnometer needles by a significant leap when it arrived on Saturday night, delivering 4 days of considerable geomagnetic activity ongoing, or perhaps its just my nervous system’s attempt to communicate the change in the temperature as days get markedly more autumnal. Rooms high in manmade EMFs, in particular, can have this effect of feeling loaded with a multitude of abrasive shapes that assault my nerves and I find bluetooth particularly aggravating, like I am being hit in the face and chest area by a sandstorm; in fact I can’t bear it anywhere near me and always know when someone is using it!

All of these descriptions have something of synesthesia about them; my brain makes sense of invisible effects, detected by some sixth sense that I seem to possess, by delivering them via their nearest visual, tactile and auditory equivalents. These are no mere metaphors since the effects, at least to me, are as real and impactful as what I am describing… as they no doubt were to the well known “man who tasted shapes” (the title of the original book on synesthesia, which is now over 30 years old). Similar to him, in the densest of EMF smogs, I sometimes experience a taste in my mouth that is so metallic and abhorrent that it almost makes me gag or want to rinse my mouth out. The fact that synesthesia can cause sight to trigger texture, smell to produce sound or shapes to have flavour is now extremely well known and pretty well accepted, compared to when that original book was published, yet it remains just as impossible to describe the experience to anyone who has never experienced it for themselves.

Attention to detail

“Altogether, our studies suggest atypical sensory sensitivity and a bias towards detail processing are shared features of synaesthesia and ASD”. (From “Autistic traits in synaesthesia: atypical sensory sensitivity and enhanced perception of details” – Leeuwen, van Peterson, Dingemanse & Van Lier, 2019.)

Clearly, the kind of effects I have been talking about so far could, as a group, be labeled “sensory processing challenges”, as are also associated with autism. So are there any other comparable? Well, a study conducted in 2017 by a group of psychologists at Sussex and Cambridge universities, entitled “Atypical sensory sensitivity as a shared featured between syneaesthesia and autism” showed that both people with autism and those with synesthesia experience heightened sensory difficulties including problems with sounds, lights and touch and that another commonality was the heightened ability to focus on details. The study also found that synesthesia was more common amongst savants although the authors acknowledged that much more research was called for since and that many other questions arise from this. For instance, if you are more sensitive to environmental stimuli, could it also be more likely that you will then develop savant skills (which harks back to the discussion in my last post: could a vested interest in honing a certain sensitivity arise because of a degree of hypervigilence that makes it useful and could this then result in it becoming a sort of “gift” or savant ability developed out of necessity?) In other words, could there be a survival or fear-based reason for such sensory sensitivities, including related traits such as synesthesia? Do they get honed under pressure?

Under pressure

So do I have to be under pressure to experience synesthesia? Well, no, but the time when it was most active and useful was during my school years when I used it…a lot…as a study aid for cramming wild amounts of information into my head before exams. Being able to “see” data in full colour or recall it using sensory effects (a sort of palette of different senses that could help me quickly recall information or make associations with other data) was certainly an advantage, one that (in hindsight) I used to fill in for other deficits. Its well known that autistic people are under a lot more pressure when it comes to coping with a schooling system that is explicitly designed for neurotypical people, so did synesthesia turn into a coping mechanism that I subconsciously developed in order to get through the education system relatively unscathed?

Well, certainly, a schooling system that seemed to be contingent on an ability to remember and then “regurgitate” loads of information under high-pressure conditions always struck me as absurd but I somehow had to learn how to play the game if I was going to get the grades I needed to go to university. The latter was a goal that I set myself at the age of 6 (in hindsight, because I liked the “feeling” of it when we went to see-off my other siblings at their respective universities…they were a lot older than me). I didn’t ever really know what I wanted to gain from university or “do” afterwards, all I knew was that I liked the feeling of it so, having set my target, I now had to somehow get there. This meant playing the game of imbibing as much information as possible and then vomiting it onto a piece of paper whenever I sat an exam. In pursuit of this objective, synesthesia helped me enormously…although I often observed to myself how the information I took in this way was horribly temporary and shallow, a mere overlay to my deeper understanding and something I only got to keep in my brain for just long enough to deliver it again in the exam room (and then promptly forgot). Only in subjects where there was real aptitude or interest did the information really stick…but synesthesia certainly helped me to get through the rest!

I’ve often wondered why I seemed to experience synesthesia far less as I aged but I now realise that isn’t true at all; its just tended to change form a little or expand its repertoire. What I am saying is that my grapheme-colour synesthesia, the most common type, which involves seeing letters and numbers in different colours, is no longer so prevalent in my life because I simply don’t need it to the same degree as when I was in the academic system, The need to recall things quickly and in such detail has subsided, so the aptitude has simply faded a little around the edges, compared to how “buffed” it was at my academic peak, due to lack of use. Its still there …my daughter and I sometimes compare colour notes as she has it too…but its not as sharp-edged somehow as it was during high-pressure exams, when my recollection of the appropriate information relied on my colour and other associations being super consistent and highly nuanced. I never had to work at these visuals, they were just there when I needed them; and perhaps I just notice them less when not under pressure.

When things get heated

There are other aspects of synesthesia that could get seriously overwhelming if you have them. Wannerton (in the attached article referred to above) describes how his head gets hot when he is experiencing synesthesia…for me, a lightbulb moment to read as this happens very frequently to me too (and a very poor excuse to write these incidents off as menopausal “hot flush” as I am well past all that). They happen so often now that I’ve taken to carrying a Japanese style paper fan with me everywhere I go. Now I think about these hot episodes in some more detail, they mostly coincide with times when more than one source of sensory stimulation has reached a sort of watershed point, like the moment when the amount of water and the temperature beneath a pan causes the water to boil over, which is (strangely enough) exactly what it feels like…boiling over!

For instance, I will become suddenly hot-headed when I am 5 or 10 mins into a journey on the motorway just as the suddenly increased speed of movement of the car and all the various lights and EMFs flying at me start to register to my rather startled nervous system, or when the music and combined energetics of all the people in the audience at a concert are at their most emotionally stimulating, or when I am having to eat, talk and be socially present all at the same time in a room that is also busy or bright or noisy. Suddenly, as these sensory effects converge, its like I have a skullcap of heat going on at the top of my head and, like a cascade, radiating down my neck into my body, so out comes the fan again.

In fact, listening to music, especially live and in a public place, is a classic scenario for triggering my synesthesia, in so many positive ways too, since I get to experience music across all of my various senses, which can take it to a whole other level. However, on the downside, it’s much more likely that I will reach a sensory threshold at a concert, especially if the environment itself is also highly stimulating. Because of this, I’ve had to become quite picky about where I will attend music events, for instance, I always require a comfortable and unclaustrophobic seat and have to avoid being underneath stage lights or hemmed in on all sides by people with all their associated phones and smartwatches about their persons (end of aisles and front rows or to the side are my favourites). A very strong perfume in the vicinity can have extremely dire consequences, leading to migraine, vision issues (not what you want just as the performance starts!) or even a sort of sensory drunkeness if it is really potent, and the temperature of the space is so important to me (back to that fan). The aroma of so many washing powders or conditioners on people’s clothing can also have really unpleasant sensory effects if they are more than fleeting but, again, it all depends on the stack of stimuli I am being exposed to all at once; I can generally cope with one or two things but if there are several coming at me all at once, I quickly reach threshold. All of these sensory effects are very typical of what you will read on the autism forums…and are intrinsically linked to my synesthesia, in my experience.

Learning how to cope better

It’s one thing to have a sensory meltdown when some unpleasant sensory trigger sets you off but it’s not at all ideal when you are triggered by things that you enjoy doing, such as attending live music. So I’ve had to learn, how can these physical clues that a meltdown is building be taken as a benchmark that I’ve had enough, that I need to take down at least one activity or remove one sensory exposure from the mix (if I can), for instance is there one less thing I can pay attention to just in time to to avert the feeling of overwhelm? Can I pull back, avert my eyes, take a pause, close my eyes, count to ten, slow down my breath, change the topic, halt the conversation, cease doing whatever I am doing, self-stim in some way or step out of a room for a moment? Not always possible, of course, but the awareness of what is happening certainly helps me to tackle what is unfolding head on (rather than adopting the usual approach “I’m female…hot flushes and such are just my designated lot in life” and doing my best to ignore the sensory unpleasantness that threatens to overwhelm me).

I strongly suspect we all have synesthesia to a degree but maybe its more prevalent in maturing women as their intuitive senses amp up post-menopause just as the many of the other distractions of earlier womanhood fall away (I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this is the case). What this says to me is that it’s time we stopped pathologising all our least pleasant symptoms, weird or inconvenient as they might be, and started paying attention to what they are trying to tell us about our environment, our lifestyles, our choices and what we put up with in the average day. When our bodies shout “enough” we should always take a moment to listen, whether we are prone to meltdown or not, because its the consistent ignoring of our unspoken needs that leads to so many of the health problems further down the line!

And then there’s mirror-touch synesthesia!

Here’s another aspect of synesthesia that I just have to include under this topic because its one which is incredibly hard to live with and must surely be linked to meltdown. I’ve written about my experiences of mirror-touch synesthesia before; this is where I actually feel the pain or emotions of people near to me or even fictitious ones on a television screen. The experience goes way beyond empathy as it leaves me feeling as though I am in actual physical or emotional discomfort or pain, stress or fear myself, which has inevitably led to a lifestyle of careful avoidance when it comes to certain exposures. A basic example of this is that if I see someone being hit I feel as if I have been hit myself, or even if they are slighted or verbally abused, my own stomach twists in pain as if it was me it happened to, so you can imagine how precarious this is when you are around other people and how quickly it could amp up a feeling of overwhelm when there is a lot going on in your visual field.

We all have mirror neurones that activate when we see someone else going through something but for some people these neurones are hyper-active and get triggered more intensely. Though I often experience mirror-touch effects, I would say that it rarely happens to a degree that really bothers me unless I am already in meltdown/shutdown or being simultaneously triggered by other sources of high stimulation. This tells me there is obviously a compounding effect and I am most at risk when other sensory thresholds are reached. Inevitably, the addition of mirror-touch sensations hastens the overall feeling of overwhelm and then, once the meltdown episode is passed, I have to withdraw from all likely triggers of mirror-touch effects (other people!) for as long as possible in order to reset my nervous system; this is just another version of shutdown by any other name.

One more for the pot – mitempfindungen

I’ve also just come across a phenomenon called “mitempfindungen” (try saying that outloud!) which is when an itch or other sensation in one part of the body refers the sensation to a completely different part of the body so that you feel it in a different location altogether. The sensation is always ipsilateral, meaning it stays in the same side of the body. During the years I was having a lot of body work done, this factor would flag up again and again during treatments. For instance, an issue in, say, my neck would generate pain in my hip as it was worked on or a problem would be found in one body part which the therapist would treat by tackling another (a phenomenon that skilled myofascial bodyworkers are well versed in as they navigate their way around your anatomy). Although fairly common, this is far more prevalent in people that have synesthesia (I’ve read that as many as 75% of them have it) than in the general population (approx 10%). It certainly adds to the sensory gamut in a way that sometimes feels as though its the straw to break the camel’s back of my endless stream of anomalous experiences because, as if its wasn’t quite enough to have alternate senses firing off or joining forces as per synesthesia, having those effects show up in “the wrong” part of your body is something that only adds to the confusion and near constant feeling of sensory overwhelm!

This phenomenon has left me wondering about a lot of things, for instance, if body parts are interchangeable, how much might it be possible that one whole group of symptoms is really standing in for another? Could symptom-exchange explain some of the more bewildering sensations that occur for someone with autism, high sensitivity, sensory processing challenges and/or chronic health issues? It’s certainly the case that, whilst I can sometimes understand the trigger (say, very cold weather) the particular symptom that arises can feel abitrary or unrelated. The confusion and lack of self-belief (or other people’s belief..) that ensues can certainly be extremely overwhelming. Similar to synesthesia, this factor seems to point to a lack of boundaries between different senses or operating systems in the body; a sort of unbounded, compounded, everything-thrown-into-the-mix state of being that can be very hard to live with in a world that likes to label, categorise and diagnose.

Standing up for yourself, however weird your experiences sound

This is all such a lot to deal with so the last thing you need to do, if you have any of these traits, is to allow others to go hard on you, or to go hard on yourself for that matter, for having such experiences; doing so is only guaranteed to add a whole other layer of overwhelm.

Though I have always been pretty adept at hiding my meltdowns from other people (there’s a whole other post in that topic!), when I look back into the not too distant past I so clearly see how I used to blame myself and feel terribly guilty, not to mention all those other self-criticisms that I used to heap on top of the guilt, for being in longish periods of shutdown for “for no apparent reason”. I couldn’t fathom why I went thought phases…such as I have had this week…where I needed to lock myself away in my own head, withdrawn, expressionless, humourless, avoiding triggers, just needing my own space to reboot and with no obvious (or mainstream!) instigating event to point at.

In the light of everything I just shared, I don’t think I have to justify this to myself anymore, and there’s no need to justify to anyone I don’t want to share my experiences with (most wouldn’t have a hope of relating if I tried) but I have had to learn the word “no” and how to use it. Avoiding the meltdown trigger is by far the best thing but when meltdown occurs, and shutdown follows, I need to allow that to happen, no apologies required nor (from my husband, thankfully) expected.

Before I realised I was autistic, which was only four years ago (seems like far longer), I never even considered these kinds of triggers, or the fact they were somehow linked to my synesthesia, or how impactful they were. Now I see the bigger picture, I wonder if my body will need to resort less often to the long periods of generalised “fatigue” or even “chronic pain” that used to knock me out of action for incredibly long periods as a more socially acceptable excuse for going into shutdown.

No longer regarding these effects as pathology but, rather, as recognisable features of neurodiversity (both autism and synesthesia come under this heading) enables me to navigate them far better and to do what I need to do to help myself cope with them, and then to recover. I really hope that a greater knowledge and understanding of, plus far more open conversation about, these obviously interrelated sensory differences and the effects they can have will enable those affected to claim a far more positive response, more readily available concessions and much better levels of understanding and support from those around them; we can but hope.