I do believe that constantly drip-fed overstimulation traumatises those of us without appropriate filters and barriers to cope with sensory experiences that are not designed to accommodate neurodivergence and in such a way that compounds with time, affecting us in ways that other people can’t even begin to imagine as they’re simply not having the same experience as us. Quite literally, the only thing we have in common with the majority of people who are apparently dealing with the exact same situations as us is that we’re physically in the same space…because the way we experience that space is a whole other matter. We can try to explain (with variable degrees of success) but we can never take them there with us so they understand! Until we give this effect the most appropriate name, trauma, we don’t deal with it appropriately either…because we just keep on sucking it up and wondering why we struggle and burn out so often and in so many apparently unusual or creative ways. Yet in the case of any other trauma we would work much harder to notice when it was happening, to put a stop to it and heal from it…but how do you heal from something that is relentless and ongoing, which you have to expose yourself to in order to be part of anything in life that has something to do with being around other people or in the world as it has been made to be, which is highly overstimulating and often too much for our differently wired systems?