"Rey is given a luxury that comes so easily to male heroes – she simply turns a corner, finds a magical item (Luke Skywalker’s Lightsaber, no less) and it awakens the Force in her. Just that. No searing infertility, no rape, no revelation of past abuse, no heartbreak, no sacrifice. No heroine who’s validity is defined by what she has sacrificed, in the way of Katniss handing up her life for her sister, becoming a martyr for a revolution. In the way of Ariel, handing over her power to speak in order to walk on land. No poison apple, no needle on a spinning wheel here."
Anonymous asked: i'm wondering, if people would like to share, what they experience during sensory overload. My vision always, always blurs, my skin usually feels tight and painful, there's usually a loud ringing in my ears and my mouth usually feels like i've just eaten a plate of ash. My processing slows to almost a halt and I sometimes go nonverbel. If the ringing in my ears doesn't knock out my hearing all together, everything sounds like I'm underwater. I'm just wondering what others experience.
Can’t speak for Maddi, obvs, but I tend to think of it as being halfway between a migraine, claustrophobia, and a panic attack. Everything’s too loud and too fast and my head hurts and I don’t know how I’m meant to breathe with so many things around me jfc have you heard of personal space. Its something that people all experience differently from eachother though, I think.
~ Sana
You know, I was actually going to make a post about. I think it’s a great idea to share our experiences, there’s so many ways sensory overload can be expressed that it can be really hard to recognise it sometimes.
I personally, am most sensitive to touch, luckily most of the people in my life either know this or respect my boundaries enough that whilst it’s still a bit of a minefield navigating life with tactile sensitivities I can MOSTLY avoid getting to the point of getting overloaded this way. Touch is actually the one sense that when overloaded I will have actual kicking, screaming, biting meltdowns which are absolutely no fun at all 0/10, do not recommend.
Luckily I won’t meltdown when I overload via other senses but I will still overload and that’s still deeply unpleasant.
Mild overload for me is usually expressed by anxiety, everything happening all at once and I get stressed and anxious and usually start snapping at people who don’t really deserve it. At this point if I can take myself off somewhere quiet and dark or just, not full of people I can bring myself back to an un-overloaded state.
If I can’t then I start shutting down, I get more and more anxious until my brain nope’s out of the situation and I end up dissociating and starting to loose abilities I normally have. Like you my processing goes out of the window, I can’t concentrate, I can’t think, what little coordination I usually had tends to rapidly desert me and most frustratingly I tend to go non-verbal as well (I’ve also actually been meaning to make a post about dyspraxia and going non-verbal as well). I just generally tend to retreat into myself as I lose the ability to interact with the outside world, or if I can interact I can’t do it in a way that’s considered appropriate by neurotypical standards. The more overloaded I get the less I can fake “proper” body language which is frustrating because I know I’m coming across as rude.
I personally don’t experience physical symptoms, like blurred vision or ringing ears although I don’t think you’re alone in that. To me, everything sort of seems, far away and… It’s like the contrast is wrong, like watching a movie with a filter that’s just slightly off. But I think that’s a dissociative thing than a specifically sensory one.
idk sensory overloads are weird and I would be very interested in hearing about other peoples experiences with them.
-Maddi
Touch isn’t really a trigger for me, but this is how I respond to sensory overload as well.
I have no more Tumblr app on my phone. And I tried to spend minimal time on the Internet over the holidays, especially before I saw The Force Awakens. And so, here I am, back after about three weeks hoping desperately to find a GIF of Molly Weasley disapproving of Bill’s inexplicable turn to the dark side. Come on Tumblr, don’t disappoint me now…
