Personally, I have been having a lot of difficulty everywhere. It began Tuesday night. Words got really difficult to produce, I was in my bug eye lack of blinking face, my oral motor skills were worse than normal (I could not drink out of a cup without spilling all over myself). My head started to throb, I took my migraine medication and went to sleep very early. I woke up the next morning and was still experiencing migraine symptoms. I didn’t really understand why my attack just would not end.

I looked at the results of the election and felt nothing. I thought.

So there are three things that come with autism that I think have made this election especially difficult: Interoception difficulties, rejection sensitivity and, justice sensitivity.

Interoception is the ability to perceive and be aware of internal body sensations.

We use these to know what were feeling, what we need etc. I, like many autistics am not very good at identifying or labeling my emotions/feelings. Let’s be real I suck at this. I am 30 years old and only now realizing what signals my body sends me to tell me I’m hungry. I think partly because I have a hard time actually sensing the things from my body, partly because I take things very literally. My stomach doesn’t “rumble” when I get hungry like I thought it would, I get tired, it gets harder to speak, I have an uneasy feeling in my stomach. I often would think I was feeling anxious and/or tired and reach for a cup of coffee or try and identify why I was feeling anxious, inevitably making me feel more anxious. I’ve now realized this is how I sense hunger and try and eat something- it feels like magic. On my second reflection on this I am realizing that I am so unaware of my bodyily sensations that I don’t feel them until they are way more severe like the complete shut down I go into when I haven’t eaten. I don’t necessarily notice what my body feels like when its angry, scared, sad. I don’t always notice that my heart is racing, or that my breathing is quicker. Sometimes if I do I don’t necessarily know why and it may take hours or days for me to identify that those were due to a feeling of anger or scared.

Rejection sensitivity is intense emotional reactions to perceived or actual rejection or failure.

This is extremely common among autistics and then can also be associated with shame. I don’t want to feel completely devastated and like my entire world is ending when plans I was looking forward to get changed or canceled but I can’t help it. As an adult I can logically ration with myself but it doesn’t change the effect it has on my nervous system. Even the perceived thought of a plan being change I can literally feel throughout my entire body as if there is this sludge filling up inside of me. I now often know that my reaction may be larger than someone else and that can lead to a lot of shame. I didn’t think about the fact that if my candidate didn’t win I would feel rejected.

Justice sensitivity autisic/adhd persons tend to have a stronger sense of justice and morality and contrary to popular belief stronger empathy than others. I think this can partially be because of my black and white thinking I can have a hard time seeing things I think are 100% right from other peoples points of view. I also feel extremely deeply about those things. Things that may not necessarily directly effect me feel as if they’re happing to me.

So all of these things combined have lead to a really confusing few days. I didn’t even realize that the uncertainty of the election was weighing on me. Some of the stress triggered a (migraine) attack or maybe thats how I sense sadness/anger/fear? I spent the day feeling very unsettled and like I had a migraine attack. I tried to do everything I could to help how I was feeling. I journaled, I rested, I went for a walk, I did tai chi, I layed down, I made sure I was eating nutritious foods, maintaining hydration but, I couldn’t feel regulated. The last thing I knew to do was to be around safe people. So I went to my partners house; it was at that moment that everything hit me. I started sobbing; snot everywhere. We went for a walk and I was able to talk and as I started to talk about what I was thinking about I was able to label things… a little.

Now it is Thursday, I am still feeling it. I understand why I am feeling it and that it just will effect me more than a neurotypical person. So I am spending my time regulating my nervous system. I am giving myself grace. I am taking time to physically rest, nourish my body. I am using all of my comfort items, spending time only around safe people, connecting to people who make me feel good via phone, hugging my stuffed squirtle extra tight, listening to podcasts about my special interests, spending time sorting simple items, wearing clothing that I find comfortable, painting, dancing, writing. Reminding myself this won’t last forever. I will feel more regulated again and as the great Justin McElroy said “I’m gonna wake up and keep trying to and do good and no one gets to vote on that”.