I am so SICK of people using the word "austistic" as an insult! It's cruel & ignorant. As for sensory overload,it tortures any reasonably sensitive soul,as we evolved to live in quiet green woodland environments,not the loud,overcrowded beeping,honking polluted environments we are subjected to today! Having our personal space invaded,as well as hearing startling noises stimulates our fight/flight response,& our bodies interpret this stimuli as a threat-even if we consciously know it is not-our bodies DON'T! A state of hyperalertness is the unhealthy result. It's hardest on children & young adults. Studies of monkeys subjected to alarm clocks,ringing phones,ringing appliances,all the hoopla of modern life developed anxiety & high blood pressure. And we can't claim that the monkeys were autistic! I believe that autism is a natural response to a highly unnatural environment full of toxins and stressful stimuli.Theres a reason autism rates increased as pollutant levels did. Our central nervous systems in utero & in infancy are extremely fragile. Autistic people are simply more sensitive to factors that are affecting the entire species unfavorably. It's just that autistic people,like canaries in a toxic mine,are affected more profoundly. Worst of all, people throw around the word autistic as if they knew what it actually means,& whenever a kid has a meltdown, some big mouthed nitwit who couldn't name the diagnostic criteria at gunpoint labels them "autistic!:
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