Hints Autism Gives Us

We have all heard of the dreaded meltdown. I’ve written about my own meltdowns and how I view them. Those moments of terror in which we become a force of nature while our nervous system purges all of it’s stored anxiety. For some of us, we have triggers where the anxiety is instantaneous. For others, we have a tipping point in which the anxiety has reached its threshold and the sensory overload meltdown runs its course. However, what if you diverge from your normal pattern of meltdowns?

Usually, my meltdowns are completely sensory-related and I will reach a tipping point, as mentioned above, and out it, all comes out. I have no control over it. (Meltdowns are involuntary for those of you who don’t know.) On a normal meltdown day, I may throw things, say things I don’t mean, punch a wall, hit my head, stomp my feet, and then it’s over. I recover, usually in the shower, and then sleep for hours as my body adjusts to the neurological reset it just experienced. I get up later and get on with my life. However, what do you do when your meltdowns for no apparent reason takes a turn for the worse? A potentially fatal turn?

In the late spring/summer of 2019, my meltdowns did just that. They became a threat to my life. I had hit my head and had so many concussions that landed me in the ER that my insurance company called to make sure I wasn’t being abused. No, I told them, I‘m just Autistic. My meltdowns increased in frequency and intensity. I went from having an inconvenient meltdown once every 6 months or so to having them once a month or shorter intervals. I have a scar on my left wrist where they had to go in and reattach ligaments that were injured during a meltdown. I won’t go into details of the rest because they may be triggering for some. Needless to say, I was actively fearful for my life. I reclused and avoided all stress. Friends that didn’t understand the symptoms of Autism were dismissed because I was too high strung to properly educate them. What was going on with me?

At first, we thought it was my recent weight loss that was throwing off my balance but when it calm down as expected; I recalled that I had read in several blogs, articles, scholarly papers, and more, that an autistic person may have an increase in meltdowns if there is an internal illness that went untreated. Cysts, impacted teeth, IBS, pituitary tumors are just a few to mention. This isn’t only in non-verbal Autistics either! This can happen in Autistics that are considered low support needs as well. When I read this I realized that my nervous system may not actually be trying to kill me but instead, it’s alerting me to something serious, I became an Autie with a mission.

I made appointments with my Neurologist, Primary Care Physician, Psychiatrist, Gynecologist, Audiologist, and all the other specialists I could think of! I have had more MRI’s, CT scans, and X-rays this year than I have had in my life! Not to mention the EEG and the plethora of blood work. I didn’t have any latent STD’s, my pituitary tumor was well under control. I saw something in an old overlooked test result from years back that implied I may have low immunoglobulin’s so I insisted my doctor look into that as well. My routine yearly checkups came around and I put off my mammogram because I had been so overwhelmed with the number of medical demands I had put myself through trying to find answers. I just couldn’t do it because I might risk a meltdown. I rescheduled it for December. A couple of months out.

The prior year, 2019, I felt a lump, thickening, something was wrong in my right breast. After some testing, I was told it was just dense breast tissue so putting off my mammogram seemed a pretty low-risk decision. I went to my mammogram in December and 4 days before Christmas I was told I had two irregular masses in my right breast. The timeline fits perfectly. By the time you feel breast cancer, it’s been in your body for 2-5 years. I can do the math and if my body detected it in 2018 before I did it would have begun to cause major meltdowns in order to warn me. However, I didn’t know how to interpret my meltdowns as a warning of impending medical trouble.

Last week I went in for a biopsy and it was confirmed that I have invasive breast cancer. Even since my mammogram in December of 2020, it has grown. Soon I will be meeting with an Oncologist to discuss surgical options. While I’m terrified I’m also thankful. Hopefully, with treatment and healing, my meltdowns will subside and I can live peacefully again!

Meltdowns aren’t always sensory-based, for me, they are rarely emotional so when I was confronted with meltdowns that seemingly had no explanation it was terrifying. I’m glad I have found the answer within as to why my meltdowns were so out of control and I hope beyond hope that this may be an insight for someone like me going through the same thing.

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One of My Autism Theories

What causes Autism? It’s the question of the millennium in many communities. From simply curious Autistics to the pro cure (eugenics) crowd the question is ever present. Why is this so important? Because many of us believe that we are just a natural variation of human DNA and therefore are normal in our own right. Meaning, we don’t need a cure but the only way to prove that is to find out why Autism happens. I’m going to explore one of my theories in this post that I believe may be an element to unlocking the mystery of why Autistics exist. 

The first thing most of us learn in life is that coincidence, correlation, and causation do not need to coexist and there are a slew of variables, X factor’s, if you will, that we may not know about. Yes, Autism can show up around the time the first vaccinations are administered yet Autism can also show up before vaccinations, after vaccinations, or in children who never have been vaccinated. Study after study has disproven the Autism Vaccination Myth and if that isn’t enough to convince you the fact that the doctor that made this claim retracted everything should. We can dismiss this and should. So what, you may ask, if not vaccinations? 

There is an observation that I have made that may explain Autism and it’s increased prevalence in our modern times and that’s modern times in and of itself. We see a study increase in Autism with the continuously growing population and the more technicalogically advanced we become as a society. I believe that this is happening as a natural reaction within humans due to overstimulation and lack of sensory input that we used to be accustomed to. 

The increase in the human population has left us with increasingly less and less individual room. We have a decrease in personal space with every birth, housing unit going up, resqued life, recovered illness out space decreases. Micro units and homes are becoming an ideal in many over populated cities because we have run out of space for us to comfortably have our own homes as we did in decades past. As a result we aren’t able to take times away to process and decompress our bodies and relieve the Neurological irritation that overpopulation comes with. This may have an effect on the Neurological System causing an over response in an attempt to protect itself. It’s a reaction to the perceived threat. 

In genetics we see generational fears appear in familial units. There was an experiment with rats where they conditioned rats to fear the smell of Cherry Blossoms by associating the scent with electrical shock. The rats then became fearful of the scent as it now represented pain to them. When the scientists bread the rats the adult offspring were scared of the smell of Cherry Blossoms despite the fact they had no prior experience with the scent. This is a good indicator that neurological reactions to any overstimilation may be passed down the generations. 

When we have all these phobias converge into one Neurological System it can cause genetically based general adaptation diversities and Autistic tendencies. Since Autism is a Spectrum with many unique and varied aspects we may have some humans not present with any Autistic traits until the genetic line is triggered by things such as overpopulation, lack of personal space, noise, and any other triggers that may be an issue to that specific genetic line. 

When humanity’s population started rapidly increasing as it has in Earth’s recent history more genetic lines have been being prompted to react. This would explain Autistic familial units as well as the unexpected Autistic child/children being born into Neurotypical families. However with the increase in population there also comes an increase in technology in order to serve more humans efficiently.

The advancement of technology often results in a reduction in humans having their sensory needs met. When it comes to history humans have had to till, plant, harvest, chop, boil, smell, feel, and experience the sensory that comes with life. Even an introvert that did not do these things would experience a richer sensory environment than one does now. 

We used to walk to a library while being out where birds chirped, wind blew, and the sun warmed you. Then browsing the nice neat stacks and rows of books. Pulling them out of place and feeling the book. Opening it and hearing the spine protesting as you spread the pages. The smell of the book and the neat lines of script that would cause stories to dance in your head as you found escape. But now, even the most book wormish of humans do not always get the rich sensory experience that we did a half a century ago. 

Many humans do not go to the library but read digital books on their computer, phone, or tablet. While technology comes with it’s boons it also lacks the sensory input that humans need to cope with the reduction in alone time and the crowding with increased population. 

For example if there was an Autistic in a crowded metropolitan area a century ago he or she may have completely flown under the radar because they had the sensory input that balanced out the overstimulation. If you took the same Autistic and put them into modern day America they may be more Autistic because of the reduction in sensory needs being met and the increased overstimulation from the surrounding environment. 

Keep in mind reduction in sensory and lack of area for personal use isn’t the only issue. We now have digital technology. We have beeps, blips, digital noises, the everpresent electrical hum, LED’s, blue light from everything, the list just goes on and on. Even when outdoors we are connected to artificial stimulation that is constantly bombarding our brains. 

We may be seeing an increase and a boom in Autism occurrences because the life humans have created for themselves is bringing about the protective genetic reaction that is programmed into their DNA. It was always there, it’s normal, natural. It’s a step in human adaptation that is a response to the progression of mankind. Not everyone has the genetic possibility of Neurodiversity but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t normal we are just a fragment of the vast spectrum that is the human species. 

However, this is only one of my theories I have entertained regarding the in’s and outs of the causes of Autism. I think there may be something to it.