Brain Rest and Activity

With autism, and especially since going thru psychological trauma and having PTSD, there are limits as to how much my brain can handle. Even some things that I enjoy doing have to have a limit, or my brain will not be able to function properly. When severe overload happens and not enough time to recover is given, it can cause brain problems that can take a long while to recover from. That is how my trauma happened. My brain was overloaded beyond its capacity, and I was not allowed by those above me at work to be able to help my brain in the way that I needed, and it eventually caused trauma that I will likely be dealing with for the rest of my life. My sensitivity to sounds and things around me has increased, when they were already higher than most other people around me. The amount of interaction and time around people that my brain can handle has decreased.

Recently I had a day where my mental limits were tested. Everything that I did that day was either fairly easy or fun. Nothing physically stressful and if only some of these things had happened and not all of them in one day, I would have been able to handle it just fine. That day happened to turn into a day where I spent about 12 hours out of my house. I was happy that day, but by the time I went to bed that night, my brain was exhausted (I was even exhausted in my dream that night) ​and the next day my brain was sluggish. Thankfully I didn't have much planned for that day and I was able to relax a bit. By the next day I was able to get back to normal routines and feeling normal again. It wasn't that anything bad or stressful happened that day or anything went wrong or that I physically overdid it. I just had my brain in full gear for too long and I guess you could say it overheated like a computer and needed a lot of time to cool down and get back to normal and be able to work properly again.

Now that I am feeling normal again, I started to think of all of the ways that I have used to help my brain recover over the years, even before I understood what was happening and how I was developing coping methods. These methods change over the years, but they have some things in common that helps my brain to cool down and recover.

As a child I loved to read. It was a way to escape into another world for a while. I loved reading teen mysteries and also historical biographies. Also, when I was 7, mom taught me how to crochet. I did this a lot over the years. The hand eye coordination keeps part of my brain active while letting other parts of the brain ​rest. That act of letting one part of the brain rest while the other part is still active is essential in helping me, and others like me, to recover from overload. As I got into my teens, I found another way to recover. We lived in the parsonage and had access to our church next door all the time. I would fairly often go into the quiet church basement and organize the craft supplies. I could do this for hours in complete silence. No one in my family really understood why, but I now know that it was a coping method that helped me to be able to function the rest of the time around people, especially my big family with lots of siblings and constant activity.

Now as an adult, I have added other methods to my assortment. I still like to crochet and organize, but I also have a game on my phone that I play. It does the hand eye coordination and strategy but allows part of my brain to rest while I am doing it. Sometimes I do it in compete silence and sometimes I have music or a show playing on my computer nearby. Whichever method is best for my brain at that time is what I do. Sometimes my brain needs complete silence and sometimes it needs something to think about and follow while I play my game, similar to how my brain was when I would read books as a child and teen. A place for my brain to escape to where I didn't need to think about how to react to anything or anyone socially in that moment, which is a big source or overload for me. Podcasts have become more normal for me lately when I need something to listen to, though I still watch TV shows and movies too.

I have heard that it is common for autistic people to be into computer games and video games more than other people. Sometimes this is looked down upon because people think that we are just being lazy and wanting to play all of the time and not work. What I have realized is that for us, it isn't about being lazy and not working, it is about giving part of our brains a chance to rest and recover and also keeping ​other parts of our brain active, the parts where we can problem solve without the social interaction that overwhelms us so much. This coping method is essential for our brain health and survival, and I hope that learning this information will help lots of people in life, both those who have mental health struggles and those who know people with mental health struggles, to better understand what is happening and why.