Robin NygrenDidn’t really care about representation before I saw a random trailer last august for a game I didn’t think I would ever be able to buy for myself for a console I don’t own, presenting Max Caulfield, “an autistic and deductive student” and that was unexpectedly one of the best moments of my 2022. I love this boring, bland and forgettable character and I was sold the moment she had to put on her headphones just to walk through the school hallway. And that leads to what I wanted to bring up today. Sensory overload. First, I remember when I went to a flea market with some friends and it was so crowded so I took out my sunglasses to create a border or shield or something between me and them. Putting these tinted lenses on worked to kind of exclude myself from the world around me and easier to just retreat into my own little bubble while still walking around the market. And that was that, my friends thought I looked stupid putting them on indoors in a relatively dark room but I quickly explained myself and that was that. Nice friends, they don't judge me more than necessary.
But I was away for a few days last week with family to our (sadly ghost free) cabin in the woods and one day we went to a café. And I started to get a little sensory overloaded. So I sat at my table, trying to listen to my sister and father’s conversation, at the same time as my brain was picking up the table next to us, and the table behind us. And the children singing in the corner. And the floorboards squeaking whenever somebody walked by. And the conversation in the other side of the room which I heard just as loudly and my father next to me. And I heard chairs move, cutlery being put down on the tables, glasses move, another squeak from the floor, somebody was coming up the stairs, stopped, down, turned, and then up, a girl screaming, woman laughing, cutlery again, some guys walking in, complaining about who knows what, the woman next to us speaks really loudly, she moved her chair back, loud sound, she gets out, floor moving, more cutlery, children still singing, somebody’s running down the stairs, 5 more conversations in the same room, I need to get out. Now.
And sensory issues can be a part of everyday life, 2 conversations at once at the family dinner, cars driving too fast or hunking at nothing at all or loud drunk teens screaming for no reason at all, my neighbor’s loud music or the earthquakes when his friends are walking up and down the stairs, my vacuum cleaner, my microwave, my little brother when he learned how to whistle, certain commercials. The world can be so loud and I wish I knew how you people can just turn it off.
2023-04-15 12:35:27 +0000