As a late-diagnosed autistic woman, this gave me language for something I’ve struggled to explain even to myself.
What especially resonated was the idea of baseline load and threshold proximity. I’ve spent a lot of my life comparing my struggles to what I see other people managing and assuming that if something seems “manageable” for them, it should be manageable for me too.
But this article articulated what I’m learning - that I’m often starting the day already carrying a much heavier invisible load — sensory processing, chronic stress, hypervigilance, physical pain, emotional responsibility, masking, grief, all of it layered together before the visible demands of the day even begin.
The “higher resolution perception” framing was especially meaningful to me because it doesn’t pathologize the experience, but it also doesn’t minimize the very real cumulative cost of living that way.
And I deeply appreciated the nuance throughout the piece - especially the point that building understanding requires acknowledging shared human experiences without collapsing important differences. That felt unusually compassionate and honest.
Hi Susan! Thank you so much for this, and I am so happy that this gave you language for this phenomenon. The "invisible load" aspect is something I sat with for a looong time before I found language for it too, so knowing it landed that way means a lot.
I think the comparison trap you're describing is one of the most damaging things about being undiagnosed for so long. We compare ourselves to people who are operating from a completely different baseline and then conclude that we're failing at something that was never actually equivalent. It takes a long time to unlearn that. I used to describe it as feeling like I'd spent my whole life running to catch up to a train that took off without me and wondering how everyone else seemed to board it on time just fine. It's because they didn't have as much luggage as I did, I finally learned!
I'm really glad the "higher resolution" framing worked for you, too. I didn't want to reach for something that sounded positive but was actually just a reframe that paints over the real issue. Both things are true at once, and I think we deserve language that holds both. Thank you again for reading and for your kind words!!
Interesting take. I think this angle esp with couples therapy with an ND person and NT person would be helpful.
Broadly and systemically with ableism, it would be challenging to bridge this message because people get stuck in B&W thinking. And that’s what the whole narrative around ND vs NT tends to frame things.
This is very well said. And gives a much better alternative too to things like “high functioning” (🤮)
My threshold is higher when compared to some, and lower when compared to others. It also varies with stimulus: I’ll reach my threshold really fast with terra cotta pots or sandpaper, whereas I’m fine with wool. So even someone with the “same” limit as me may reach theirs earlier or later than I do based on stimulus.
But yes, that common ground is key. I read an article by someone who OCD and suddenly understood it. Oh! That’s like when I have to have my silly little games like how far I get before a door closes… but I can drop mine when they are irritating and I don’t have more than 1 going at a time. So I can extrapolate that to understand OCD (what if I had dozens? And couldn’t turn them off when they irritated me?? Ahhhhh!!!!!)
From where I’m standing, this is pointing at something much larger than burnout-as-individual-failure. It speaks to what happens when a person is repeatedly asked to survive inside fields that were not arranged with their agency, nervous system, values, timing, or way of meaning-making in mind.
And for autistic and neurodivergent people especially, that cost starts early.
So many children are effectively trained to internalize the same lesson:
"Adjust yourself to fit the field." Not "Let’s read what this field is charging you," definitely not "let’s ask whether this environment is arranged in a way that lets you move, refuse, recover, belong, and still remain yourself."
Just:
"Fit."
That is an insanely expensive starting condition. And it puts people behind before the race even admits it has begun.
In school contexts, this matters enormously. When a child’s energy is constantly being spent on masking, translating, suppressing, guessing, enduring sensory mismatch, or proving that their needs are “reasonable enough” to be honoured, we are no longer looking at a motivation problem. We are now looking at hidden cost.
And hidden cost always lands somewhere.
Often, it lands in the body.
Often, it lands as shutdown, refusal, burnout, avoidance, anger, disengagement, or that repeated rant that everyone keeps trying to smooth over instead of listening to.
But maybe the rant is not noise. Maybe the mushrooms are not random. Maybe the repeated pull, fixation, objection, or “too muchness” is a compass signal trying to show where the person’s agency still has life.
From my own work through Agency Restoration Framework, I’d describe this as a field problem before I’d describe it as an individual deficit. ARF asks: where is the cost landing, who is being asked to pay it, and is the movement being required actually payable by the person being asked to move? If the only way a person can “succeed” is by severing themselves from their own read of reality, that is not integration.
That is compliance with better lighting.
True integration has to mean more than helping someone survive a structure that keeps misreading them. It has to involve arranging conditions where their actual way of reading, caring, moving, refusing, recovering, and contributing can remain intact.
Not every passion needs to become a career. Not every compass signal needs to become a productivity pipeline. But if a person keeps returning to something with intensity, grief, fury, delight, precision, or stubborn life, I think we owe that signal more than dismissal.
We owe it a clean read.
Maybe it's more worthwhile to ask what kind of field would allow this person to move without constantly abandoning themselves first. Maybe it shouldn't always be asking how they can fit.
Thank you. I think the concepts of load and thresholds you described are helpful. I also think about how “my bucket” gets replenished, which is not usually the same way that an NT’s bucket gets replenished. For example, a person may get a dopamine “hit” cleaning and decorating their home before having people over. The anticipation alone can be rewarding and lighten their load. For me, preparing for someone to come over increases my load. Same thing with spending my day with a bunch of people at a workplace, but for someone else, this can be an uplifting experience.
It's funny for me because often when I hear "everyone's a little autistic" it's from a family member who's probably an undiagnosed ND themselves... I just go, "makes you think, doesn't it?"
Yes!! I’m the only officially diagnosed autistic person in my family but I do not think I am the only autistic person in my family, not by a long shot. I think that IS why my own autism was missed for so long, because everyone around me was like “yeah, that’s normal.” 😅
This suggestion, of taking shared experiences and then inviting the hearer to imagine a much larger version of them, is brilliant. Begin with something that is understood, to build the empathy bridge. The toe-stubbing example is brilliant.
Very good and thorough explanation. It resonates with me personally as a neurodivergent individual and with what I see with my youngest son who is autistic. It's the background that's not background but added load and drained energy. It's the always walking around with a bucket that's half full already in the morning on a good day, and overflowing on a bad day. It's needing downtime for offloading. I've spent 30+ years unlearning my own conditioning and trying to be gentler towards myself and understanding my kiddo. Like you said we're not alien, we're just wired differently. And our capitalist system is geared towards one size fits all that never fits us. If we can change that, if we can create more room for everyone, my bet is that we'll all suffer less and are better able to encounter our differences with curiosity instead of dismissal.
I also like to say “intensity, frequency, duration” … yes it can be the same thing or similar, but not in the same amounts.
It’s also important to call out or at least be aware that the ‘reflexive defensiveness’ or ‘reflexive dismissal’ of those in privileged positions is culturally part of the systems we live within and how those systems perpetuate themselves and harm.
It should not solely be on our shoulders, the person being oppressed, to word things perfectly in order to gain access to empathy, understanding and compassion.
Neurotypical people also need to realize that they need to dismantle their own indoctrination and moral and empathetic disengagement. And we should also hold them to this standard and expectation.
The norm should be compassion and empathy even during the process of learning to understand each other better. We should all want to meet the human needs of those around us. That should be the reflexive behavior we teach in society (and hopefully it will be one day).
But the systems we live in, like capitalism, have taught us reflexive dismissal/defensiveness of so many things via propaganda. To live in a system obsessed with profit we all have had to learn how to dismiss human needs as a norm to perpetuate the system. We even do this to ourselves by not listening to our own bodies.
So I agree, we can be mindful of communicating well or communicating nuances to build bridges but this is just as much NTs responsibility as it is ours even if NTs don’t recognize it yet.
This really resonated with me, super well put! As a neurodivergent person currently dealing with intense and constant overstimulation I felt very seen, and I hope I can use this shifted perspective in conversations with neurotypical people in the future!
Hi Marta! Thank you so much, and I really hope it does help in those future conversations. That's exactly what I was hoping this piece could do for people. Wishing you some relief from the overstimulation soon!!
As a late-diagnosed autistic woman, this gave me language for something I’ve struggled to explain even to myself.
What especially resonated was the idea of baseline load and threshold proximity. I’ve spent a lot of my life comparing my struggles to what I see other people managing and assuming that if something seems “manageable” for them, it should be manageable for me too.
But this article articulated what I’m learning - that I’m often starting the day already carrying a much heavier invisible load — sensory processing, chronic stress, hypervigilance, physical pain, emotional responsibility, masking, grief, all of it layered together before the visible demands of the day even begin.
The “higher resolution perception” framing was especially meaningful to me because it doesn’t pathologize the experience, but it also doesn’t minimize the very real cumulative cost of living that way.
And I deeply appreciated the nuance throughout the piece - especially the point that building understanding requires acknowledging shared human experiences without collapsing important differences. That felt unusually compassionate and honest.
Thank you. 💯
Hi Susan! Thank you so much for this, and I am so happy that this gave you language for this phenomenon. The "invisible load" aspect is something I sat with for a looong time before I found language for it too, so knowing it landed that way means a lot.
I think the comparison trap you're describing is one of the most damaging things about being undiagnosed for so long. We compare ourselves to people who are operating from a completely different baseline and then conclude that we're failing at something that was never actually equivalent. It takes a long time to unlearn that. I used to describe it as feeling like I'd spent my whole life running to catch up to a train that took off without me and wondering how everyone else seemed to board it on time just fine. It's because they didn't have as much luggage as I did, I finally learned!
I'm really glad the "higher resolution" framing worked for you, too. I didn't want to reach for something that sounded positive but was actually just a reframe that paints over the real issue. Both things are true at once, and I think we deserve language that holds both. Thank you again for reading and for your kind words!!
Yes! This has always been about thresholds and quantity, not that we are entirely dissimilar creatures.
Interesting take. I think this angle esp with couples therapy with an ND person and NT person would be helpful.
Broadly and systemically with ableism, it would be challenging to bridge this message because people get stuck in B&W thinking. And that’s what the whole narrative around ND vs NT tends to frame things.
This is very well said. And gives a much better alternative too to things like “high functioning” (🤮)
My threshold is higher when compared to some, and lower when compared to others. It also varies with stimulus: I’ll reach my threshold really fast with terra cotta pots or sandpaper, whereas I’m fine with wool. So even someone with the “same” limit as me may reach theirs earlier or later than I do based on stimulus.
But yes, that common ground is key. I read an article by someone who OCD and suddenly understood it. Oh! That’s like when I have to have my silly little games like how far I get before a door closes… but I can drop mine when they are irritating and I don’t have more than 1 going at a time. So I can extrapolate that to understand OCD (what if I had dozens? And couldn’t turn them off when they irritated me?? Ahhhhh!!!!!)
This resonates deeply.
From where I’m standing, this is pointing at something much larger than burnout-as-individual-failure. It speaks to what happens when a person is repeatedly asked to survive inside fields that were not arranged with their agency, nervous system, values, timing, or way of meaning-making in mind.
And for autistic and neurodivergent people especially, that cost starts early.
So many children are effectively trained to internalize the same lesson:
"Adjust yourself to fit the field." Not "Let’s read what this field is charging you," definitely not "let’s ask whether this environment is arranged in a way that lets you move, refuse, recover, belong, and still remain yourself."
Just:
"Fit."
That is an insanely expensive starting condition. And it puts people behind before the race even admits it has begun.
In school contexts, this matters enormously. When a child’s energy is constantly being spent on masking, translating, suppressing, guessing, enduring sensory mismatch, or proving that their needs are “reasonable enough” to be honoured, we are no longer looking at a motivation problem. We are now looking at hidden cost.
And hidden cost always lands somewhere.
Often, it lands in the body.
Often, it lands as shutdown, refusal, burnout, avoidance, anger, disengagement, or that repeated rant that everyone keeps trying to smooth over instead of listening to.
But maybe the rant is not noise. Maybe the mushrooms are not random. Maybe the repeated pull, fixation, objection, or “too muchness” is a compass signal trying to show where the person’s agency still has life.
From my own work through Agency Restoration Framework, I’d describe this as a field problem before I’d describe it as an individual deficit. ARF asks: where is the cost landing, who is being asked to pay it, and is the movement being required actually payable by the person being asked to move? If the only way a person can “succeed” is by severing themselves from their own read of reality, that is not integration.
That is compliance with better lighting.
True integration has to mean more than helping someone survive a structure that keeps misreading them. It has to involve arranging conditions where their actual way of reading, caring, moving, refusing, recovering, and contributing can remain intact.
Not every passion needs to become a career. Not every compass signal needs to become a productivity pipeline. But if a person keeps returning to something with intensity, grief, fury, delight, precision, or stubborn life, I think we owe that signal more than dismissal.
We owe it a clean read.
Maybe it's more worthwhile to ask what kind of field would allow this person to move without constantly abandoning themselves first. Maybe it shouldn't always be asking how they can fit.
Transmission received.
Excellent article. Helps me understand my AuADHD family member better. Thank you for taking the time to explain this so carefully.
Thank you. I think the concepts of load and thresholds you described are helpful. I also think about how “my bucket” gets replenished, which is not usually the same way that an NT’s bucket gets replenished. For example, a person may get a dopamine “hit” cleaning and decorating their home before having people over. The anticipation alone can be rewarding and lighten their load. For me, preparing for someone to come over increases my load. Same thing with spending my day with a bunch of people at a workplace, but for someone else, this can be an uplifting experience.
It's funny for me because often when I hear "everyone's a little autistic" it's from a family member who's probably an undiagnosed ND themselves... I just go, "makes you think, doesn't it?"
Yes!! I’m the only officially diagnosed autistic person in my family but I do not think I am the only autistic person in my family, not by a long shot. I think that IS why my own autism was missed for so long, because everyone around me was like “yeah, that’s normal.” 😅
Thank you for this valuable insight. This helps me understand my autistic son and his struggles.
This suggestion, of taking shared experiences and then inviting the hearer to imagine a much larger version of them, is brilliant. Begin with something that is understood, to build the empathy bridge. The toe-stubbing example is brilliant.
Thank you for this.
Very good and thorough explanation. It resonates with me personally as a neurodivergent individual and with what I see with my youngest son who is autistic. It's the background that's not background but added load and drained energy. It's the always walking around with a bucket that's half full already in the morning on a good day, and overflowing on a bad day. It's needing downtime for offloading. I've spent 30+ years unlearning my own conditioning and trying to be gentler towards myself and understanding my kiddo. Like you said we're not alien, we're just wired differently. And our capitalist system is geared towards one size fits all that never fits us. If we can change that, if we can create more room for everyone, my bet is that we'll all suffer less and are better able to encounter our differences with curiosity instead of dismissal.
Thank you for this. Will share.
I also like to say “intensity, frequency, duration” … yes it can be the same thing or similar, but not in the same amounts.
It’s also important to call out or at least be aware that the ‘reflexive defensiveness’ or ‘reflexive dismissal’ of those in privileged positions is culturally part of the systems we live within and how those systems perpetuate themselves and harm.
It should not solely be on our shoulders, the person being oppressed, to word things perfectly in order to gain access to empathy, understanding and compassion.
Neurotypical people also need to realize that they need to dismantle their own indoctrination and moral and empathetic disengagement. And we should also hold them to this standard and expectation.
The norm should be compassion and empathy even during the process of learning to understand each other better. We should all want to meet the human needs of those around us. That should be the reflexive behavior we teach in society (and hopefully it will be one day).
But the systems we live in, like capitalism, have taught us reflexive dismissal/defensiveness of so many things via propaganda. To live in a system obsessed with profit we all have had to learn how to dismiss human needs as a norm to perpetuate the system. We even do this to ourselves by not listening to our own bodies.
So I agree, we can be mindful of communicating well or communicating nuances to build bridges but this is just as much NTs responsibility as it is ours even if NTs don’t recognize it yet.
Thank you for this. I learned so much. Somethings overlap a bit with people diagnosed with disorders like PTSD.
Me, with my neurospicy co-workers: 🥳 'vibing'
Me, with my neurotypical co-workers: 😑 'something is off'
This really resonated with me, super well put! As a neurodivergent person currently dealing with intense and constant overstimulation I felt very seen, and I hope I can use this shifted perspective in conversations with neurotypical people in the future!
Hi Marta! Thank you so much, and I really hope it does help in those future conversations. That's exactly what I was hoping this piece could do for people. Wishing you some relief from the overstimulation soon!!
Very moving, powerful piece, that provides a clear explanation of how sensory overload is experienced in different ways.
Hi Sarah! Thank you so much for taking the time and read and comment. It means a lot!