Brain Glitches
There are times when my brain feels like an overloaded computer that can't take in and process information quickly enough and I end up in a mental fog or daze for a while, trying to figure out what to do next. This can often happen in public places, where I am trying to process new surroundings and sounds, and it can impact the strangers around me and how they perceive me and deal with me. This is where sensory overload happens. I can be oblivious to things that would normally catch my attention, like a random kid trying to say "hi" to me. I normally notice kids before I notice adults, but when my brain glitches, things are not normal, as my brain tries to process priority information and sort thru the multitude of things around me.
If I am only in these situations for a short amount of time, like a minute or two, then my brain can bounce back pretty quickly, once I am back in a familiar situation and I have guidance as to what I am supposed to do next, like in and out of a restaurant where I am picking up a food delivery and I am back to my car with directions on where to deliver the meal. However, the longer that I am in these overwhelming situations, waiting for the next step of what I am supposed to do, the more impact is has in my brain's ability to bounce back. Being in a large crowd of people at church between services can be very overwhelming. There is lots of information for my brain to glitch on. I have found it somewhat helpful to have my back to a wall so that I only have incoming information from 180 degrees in front of me, rather than 360 degrees all around me. This isn't always easy to accomplish though, so that makes things harder for my brain.
These glitches can have long lasting effects on me. It can leave me feeling lost for several hours afterwards. Having a friend with me when my brain glitches happen is very helpful because I can depend on them to guide me thru the situation and not have to depend on my own brain alone to guide me, when my brain feels inadequate for the situation. But I am not with friends in public very often and having these brain glitches happen leaves me feeling very alone and inadequate for dealing with life, especially social life.
Sometimes brain glitches happen when I am alone, often when I am driving for work. I can be driving along, and my brain wanders off into thought about something random and all of a sudden, I forget where I am supposed to be going next. Thankfully my phone, in its little hands-free stand next to me, can remind me of where I am heading to next, since my phone is essential to both of my driving jobs. These glitches don't have a long-lasting effect, but they happen often now. I guess you could say that my phone is comparable to a friend in this situation because it guides my brain to where it needs to be. Unfortunately, my phone can only help me with directions when I am driving, not when I am in social situations and public places.
Dealing with these social things and brain glitches alone means that it is harder for me to take advantage of extra opportunities for social interaction because of the risk of being overwhelmed when I know that the chances of that are very high, and I have already been recently overwhelmed. I don't have a husband, I don't have family members that I see very often, and I don't have inseparable friends (those girls who live together and do everything together), like some people that I know. I have casual friendships, people that are friends and I text with, but rarely ever spend time with because of our lives are busy and very different from each other and/or we live too far apart to spend time together in person very often. I wish that I knew how to make inseparable friends, but that skill doesn't come with autism because friendships are social and that is where we lack skills the most.
I didn't used to have these brain glitches very often before, especially the bad ones with long-term effects, but they happen on a regular basis now, sometimes multiple times per day. I guess this is a long-term side effect of physiological trauma mixed with autism and I am still trying to figure out how to deal with this new part of my life on my own.