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This is generally a good article but this section
Erin Rackham proposes being perceived as another type of sense.
She can propose but the link is to a TikTok and meantime ‘gaze detection’ has been disproven repeatedly. Here’s a link to an accessible article by an accredited neuroscientist writing in an academic journal discussing exactly this
As an autistic person, I hate being perceived.
lmao!! I’ve never heard put that way, but yes!
Autistic people don’t get used to forced sensory sensitivities; they DISSOCIATE. Autistic people don’t “habituate”. Research shows our pain receptors light up when we’re exposed to our sensory sensitivities.
So much this. Prior to doing trauma work, a therapist ran a dissociation scale on me, and my score was quite high…like dissociative disorder high. I then worked with them to reconnect with reality and overwhelmed myself into a psychosomatic mess. I almost went to the hospital a few times until the autism therapist stepped in and told me what I needed to do to get it together. That was serious. I thought I was dying.
Yeah, I know that. Suppressed memories are like “locked drawers”, and if you open them, all of that mess is overwhelming. That is why you are supposed to open them slowly, one after one. Sorry your therapist didn’t tell you that.
This was very relatable.
Possibly, but they lost me at people on the spectrum having super human senses not available to neurotypical brains as a means to explain why the feelings of not wanting to be seen is not ‘mearly’ anxiety. Then mention to nebulous “studies” to back them up without citation.
That’s a really poor way to describe it. I don’t have superhuman vision, but I do have photosensitivity to the point I feel blinded in bright sunlight without eye protection. I don’t have superhuman hearing, but I will lay awake at night due to the buzzing sound of a transformer that other people swear they can’t hear, because I have limited ability to filter out sounds. My senses aren’t better than a neurotypical person’s, they’re just constantly heightened. My dark vision is a lot better than most people’s though, so it’s not all bad I guess.
Sensitivity to stimuli is a known facet of non neurotypical people. It can also be a sensitivity to anxiety. The blog specifically romanticized the need to not be seen as an extra sense that normal people do not have, because it just can’t be in our heads. And the allude to science backing up that claim pushes it too far.
I agree with you. Understanding this was written by an individual, though, I totally understand how they’re reaching their conclusions. But I had the same response to that part. It’s well-intentioned, but misguided. But, again, understandable.
I really don’t mind what people think of me, or if people look at me, as long as its not in an aggressive or creepy way. And I’m somewhat oblivious to it most of the time.
Same. I‘ve had trouble finding potential mates IRL because eye contact and subtle gestures are invisible to me.
Like, I think cats and lots of other animals have gaze detection or sth.
They sleep. I look at them. At that exact moment they shake , and run away. Happened so many times, it can’t all be coincidences.
Most impressive case was when I was sitting in a garden, doing nothing for like an hour. I notice there’s a black dot on the wall in front of me, but I don’t care. After like ten minutes or so, I get interested and ask myself, what is that black dot? I look at it and try to focus, and at that fucking moment I notice it’s a lizard, and it runs away like if it was panicking.
