WHY AUTISTIC PEOPLE NEED TO BE ALONE/ISOLATE | DR. KIM SAGE

welcome to my Ted Talk on being an isolator just joking um welcome to my channel and um I'm really struggling right now in terms of how I want to show up here and um not in a bad way like I really do but as I've been saying for a long time I'm loting at my computer I have been making content on the same topics for a very very long time it feels like and yet I know and I believe with all my these topics are super super important and yet I feel like I'm still um I don't know if I just even want to say the word masking but I I feel like I am in that I really want to get down to sharing my truth here and I've thought about it you know I was a very private person in my early life literally didn't post if you look at what I've posted historically prior to the last three years I don't really have family stuff um I didn't post on Instagram I always hated Instagram only because it made me feel bad about myself like when that kind of took off Facebook and then Instagram it was after my divorce and I felt like everyone's lives looked perfect and I was scared in private and now I've kind of swung to the flip side which is I have so much I want to share and yet it's also scary I don't want to make it about me and yet at the same time I feel like I really do believe this now my crushing trauma and Story of My Life um yes people have it so much worse and right now what's happening in the world it's it feels indulgent to even talk about our traumas but the truth is that I've really been through a lot and um not saying more than other people but I would say generally speaking even my therapist has said yeah you know and and she's a little older than I am you had more trauma than most people I really do feel like it is in Su regard um like the purpose of it is is for me to share right for me to say you're not alone and I'm going to share what happened to me and here's how I've gotten through it here's how I'm still getting through it or here's how I got over it and it makes me emotional because I have this Push Pull where I don't want to be um you know I want to be professional and yet I'm so tired of just delivering information there's a million great resources here for you to do that with I think modeling vulnerability and courage and strength and survival is probably my greatest strength and so that's what I'm going to do so I only have 30 minutes so I'm going to try to make this you know this is not going to be a 5 minute video but hopefully not more than 25 minutes I have a patient um at 1:00 but I want to share a couple things I'm going to make a second video to talk talk about the second issue which is my disregulation um with friendships when it models and mirrors my parents so that happened to me yesterday I to make another video about that but what I really wanted to talk about was something I felt this morning which was um how much I long to be alone and how it's because I feel so disregulated and I absolutely believe that it is from my brain whether we're going to call complex trauma neurod Divergence autism neurod Divergence I think there's such a a a significant intersection between complex trauma and and the Spectrum for me that it's hard to know um but like what the origin I guess I would say is but this idea of being alone and really longing for it this morning my daughter was she has a autoimmune disease and so she gets tired a lot and so sometimes she wakes up and if I don't let her sleep then a little bit she's it's either like sleep in and go to school or have her go and then come back earlier or not feel well she's missed like a lot of school every single year she's missed over 30 days of school um because of chronic illness and so she needed to sleep in she had already done that on Monday and I was feeling all this pressure and disregulation that I had felt which I'm going to talk about like I said yesterday and I I was like I just want you to leave I just want you to go to school so I can be alone because I have you know animals and I have and now I just have her me I don't know how I honestly got through four kids now that I understand my brain so much it makes a lot of sense about not just them but me and us sharing genetics about how stressful that was right for an only child with these kind of issues to have four children and to raise them mostly alone in relatively small you know more crowded environments once I got divorced but the point is that I felt it and so I started researching today why do autistic people like to be alone so much and now this is not true for all autistic people at all so there's a wide range of those who you know who isolate or not and I'm talking about not isolating feeling lonely though I'm not saying I don't ever feel that way I actually you know I am talking about choosing and wanting to be alone most of the time not all the time but even when I make plans I will dread them I had lunch with a friend I love so much or brunch on Sunday and I hadn't seen her for months and she's my friend that friend that lives in France and if most of you know how much I want to live in France part of the year and I just love her but I always like Dread it it it's just the idea of being social I have French class tonight I dread it I'm also behind cuz I'm struggling with the homework but because all of the people who were lovely people it's just social things are stressful and yet I'm not going to say I don't enjoy concerts and movies and brunches but it's very stressful for me deep inside and so I researched um maybe you are too that's why I'm saying this is like why do people on the Spectrum like to be alone so we're going to presume we're talking about those who have autism but of course complex trauma can feed into this the thing that I really struggle with is that the complex trauma that I have had has been relational trauma because of my eggshell parents and then what happened in my adult life with and my marriage and so it's not like I had a lot of trauma like people talk about having autism and then having trauma I do remember lots of things where I felt misunderstood or misperceived but the bulk of my complex trauma um has come from my parents and so and then for my adult life so it's hard to know like do I want to be alone because my you know my nervous system is jacked up all the time but I've always been this way I was an only child also is it that I played Alone um in in my room I listen to music in my room all through my life I was a latch key kid up until I got married and had all these kids I was alone a lot and I'm really feeling I don't know if it's burnout but longing more and more and so I know this is a long intro and those of you that hate long intros I'm sorry but I want to preload this I'll put down below where to start for the signs so I Googled it and I went through some articles and I found one I really liked and it is based on a uh research project or or uh paper by a PhD student at the University of the west of England and this this is a summary about alone time for autistic people and she says this that and also she's autistic and she says alone time for autistic people is isn't really talked about in Academia but I know it's vital for my well-being and a lot of my autistic friends feel the same way so I want to explore what aone time means for autistic people and so she did I think she did like a research like a survey she sent out I think there were like 146 responses but here's what she says so for the research she defined alone time as number one you are by yourself and you won't be interrupted by other people number two you are in a space that you feel comfortable in and number three you are able to choose what you do in this time and space so she goes through all the different dynamics of that and she came up with I think it's four different sort of categories or issues related to the Dynamics of the alone time when you were on the Spectrum the first one is that there's a a place around aone time as it relates to reacting to Social and sensory overwhelm so she says my participants were often overwhelmed by social input sensory input and needing to mask so social input what is that defined as so this is what was happen happening right we're trying to escape and have some a break from sensory and social overwhelm so alone time provides that social input could be verbal or nonverbal communication social input wasn't always a problem but difficult Intense or long periods of being in a social space was often physically and emotionally distressing sensory input this included distracting sounds bright light and uncomfortable temperatures some sensory input was distracting or even painful in Social spaces it is harder to control sensory input for me this is a huge part of it the lights the overhead lights the noises someone's chewing gum someone's talking over the teacher it just it's so annoying and I feel bad about that but that's what's happening masking masking meant behaving in ways that made nonautistic people feel more comfortable it included number one performing being engaged and switched on so like I'm acting like I'm engaged number two performing different social rules or personas hi I'm a psychologist I'm so glad to meet you and I'm like want to be more like this right making small talk have always hated that one and stopping themselves from stemming whether it's you know twirling your hair could be hand flapping of course but playing with a pen rocking back and forth the blanket thing I've talked about obviously I wouldn't take a blanket to French class but you have to contain all of that right so juggling what she says juggling social input sensory input and masking often made my participants feel exhausted and overwhelmed even if it was with people they loved so true at first they might feel distracted but then they might feel irritable or frustrated eventually overwhelmed might feel like internal pressure about to explode or traffic jam of processing overwhelm might cause a meltdown or shutdown and that's what I was going to refer to happened to me yesterday when I was talking to my best friend on the phone and I'm going to come back to that like all of the things that happen in Social conversations even if you're not in person and how that history you have and the sensory Dynamics can contribute to overwhelm so she says overwhelm might also cause discomfort pain confusion difficulties with speech not being able to focus and not being able to do everyday tasks number two retreating from social and sensory distractions so going back to what does aone time do it helps us Retreat from social and sensory distraction she says it was very important to have safe spaces to retreat to away from social input and negative sensory input safe spaces help in recovery from overwhelm locking the door and turning off the phone was a big relief a safe space could be a quiet room or a quiet outdoor space and it means different things to different people so for safe indoor spaces it could be a clear like clutter-free or minimal clutter minimalist space it could be a space where the temperature light sound and smells were all under your control it could be cozy spaces maybe under you know under a tent or under under a desk even or like a little a closet even a cozy environment and interesting spaces so something is like engaging or spaces set up for preferred activities like maybe a gaming area or something like that and then safe outdoor spaces provided happiness safety and inspiration natural spaces away from other people are often places to feel less inhibited places with sensory input that feels good like for me if I'm at the beach and I can hear the waves crashing not so much if all the kids are screaming but the waves crashing and spaces to think clearly and then the next category is regulating recovering and rechar charging so being immersed this is the idea often of special interest as well um in an activity helped with recovery from overwhelm and it helped with recharging batteries immersion is rewarding and she says some participants describe it as the Flow State you know we've talked about flow in terms of you're like in your groove you're in your sort of like flow of of your life and your work or whatever it's happening and so that feels like good and like things are like like it's flowing it's not stopped right so these immersive activities that could create this they could be making music hiking researching gardening bike maintenance uh diving crafting gaming I would say painting anything like that and for some people focusing on details is actually really helpful like losing themselves in the details of like editing a video or um you know focusing on a task or a skill and also that fictional worlds this is a very common dynamic in the autism research that the theide idea of interested um interest interest in sorry fantasy books fiction characters shows that there's something about that that can feel very safe and um like a a great place to manage feelings to escape to connect and that for many people on the Spectrum might look like rereading the same books re-watching the same shows or series that there's something about knowing what to expect that can feel really good not to mention connection with characters stories things like that and the last thing she says is that ready to connect with others that often times the alone time is giving us like I kind of said earlier the downtime to recharge so that we can reconnect with others it's not that I want to be alone all of the time it's that there's a price I pay for every social interaction I do and that I have to find ways to manage that and even referring to you know a few years ago when we had these situations where we were isolated for some people like like me it was like it was the greatest thing ever you know I didn't want to say that then of course there was risk I mean with my daughter's chronic illness and mine it was very scary in the beginning but like part of it was I don't have to go to my office I can work from home I can wear my sweatpants and a top I don't have to drive 30 minutes every day like that wears on a person and yet for other people um who were working from home for example not everybody was home with them and so that's stressful like I was saying part of my thing is I am the best making videos and thinking about what I want to do when I'm completely alone so I can shoot videos like I did all through the that time with my kids here in a back room but when I'm like fully being myself like if you see me get teary it's probably because I'm by myself I'm connecting to who I really am and so I don't know what you want to call that you know whatever it is neurod Divergence cptsd which is basically neurod Divergence as well all of these like accommodations and ways to get through our lives are most often in response to things things we cannot control and I have felt like God am I a hermit like what's wrong with me I feel this sort of like shame and yet there's another part of me that has struggled with friendships and Longs for connection and Community I was watching um that series on um live to be 100 the blue zones there that's on Netflix that research you know the the places around the world where they look at what of the factors that help people live really long healthy lives as they age and most of them are less industrialized unfortunately in terms of the ones that they showed but when they compared like I think it's like five different places around the world all of them had some aspect of community and I think this is where people like me and you for whatever reasons and because the world we live in now we're all so far apart from each other you know we get relocated we don't have connection I don't know how much of that you know I think in a in a controllable way I guess I would say that could be really helpful if you could lean lean into Community when you were ready and needed it I don't believe that complete isolation is good for any of us especially as my you know youngest of four is gone more and more I'm really starting to feel like my best friend says well you've actually never really been fully alone right because you've always had so many kids and you know when your kids leave the nest you still I mean ideally talk to them and worry about them and all that but like the dayt day is less intense like the homework getting in the car dishes groceries all that stuff so I want to hold that I do think there's a place where I can feel absolutely lonely um but I know that like the idea of ever having someone live in my house again besides my kids it's like no I don't really want that you know I really have come into a place where I enjoy being alone but I don't want it to only be that way and yet I think we're told that all isolation is bad and I just want to let you know that not all isolation is bad it's only bad if you long for more connection or you're suffering in some way and so I think we have to honor that we all have a a differen size window of Tolerance around our desire and longing to be alone maybe for you it's like oh I don't I I don't like to be alone much it's like this and for me it's like this and someone else is like this right I don't know but I do want to say if you relate to being neurod Divergent in some way that this might be you know something for you to like take power back and say I'm not a Hermit I'm not pushing people away I'm not avoidant I just need to have this is how my brain works and this is how I get the best out of myself this is how I find peace and then if there are parts of your life you're like well I like it peace you know 80% but um sorry but I would like to have more connection that's also really hard to do right it's hard to make friends as life goes on I really do believe that past college age especially your early like teens and 20s and so it's not so easy to to say just go work on that but I do think that would want to be be you know be one of your goals it is one of my goals to expand my sense of community and like Homebase especially being really not having parents and and siblings and things like that and my kids all over the map right I want to stay close to them but that it can't just be them that's too much pressure for them obviously so anyway I wanted to share that I think it's a link the um the article that I found it was actually on several websites down below and like I said at the beginning it's hard to know how much of that is as a result of my nervous system and eggshell parents how much of it is being raised alone how much of it is my brain I don't know and on some level I don't care except to say that I know that not everyone like I have other friends who really hate being alone like ever you know and um for me it's like even a text message can feel invasive like I don't want to respond back right now or you want me to be here right now like I said it's just it's a lot for us and so I just want to let you know that if you resonate with this that you know you're not alone and there's nothing wrong with you this may just be for whatever reason how your brain works but maybe you start to focus on valuing that and just advocating more and more that this is when I needed not saying yes to things when actually you need to go recharge not shaming yourself for doing these things but actually and actively encouraging yourself to be you know who you are who you are so because who you are is worthy and lovable and loved um but you can't really give that to yourself and feeling the sense of loved if you keep denying yourself this experience or making yourself feel bad for it you know so thanks for being here please stay safe and I'll see you tomorrow [Music] bye [Music]

Channel: Dr. Kim Sage, Licensed Psychologist

Views: 21,253

Keywords: isolating, isolation, introvert, autism, asd, highly sensitive person, sensory issues, sensory overwhelm, alone, autistic need for being alone, being alone, love being alone, prefer to islolate, cptsd, dr kim sage, autism spectrum disorder and being alone, why do autistic people like to be alone, cptsd and isolation

Id: Sc8mKhASXGY

Length: 21min 15sec (1275 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 12 2023