Struggling with Sensory Overload and Meltdowns

Sometimes when your aware/more aware of your autism you tend to notice it bother you like knowing a mosquitoe bit you.

Lifestyle changes and stress can severely impact Autism. It's for the same reason that people think you can grow out of it, for some learning enough coping skills and arranging their life to accommodate their needs, either through therapeutic intervention or by developing more and naturally navigating their issues, is enough to make many of the symptoms of autism subside for the most part. When it goes in the other direction, childhood autism worsening instead of getting better/remaining the same or autism symptoms appearing clearly in someone who previously hadn't noticed them, it generally means that the changes made between childhood and where the person is developmentally when the symptoms began worsening is less accommodating to the autistic individual's needs and may have added more stressors that make coping harder. Medication most definitely can be a factor in this but if it isn't the only factor looking for other changes that you can fix is just as important as tweaking your medication. Feeling out of control can most definitely also be one of those stressors, trying to gain more control where you can may help, like planning out a schedule that allows you to see and control your day and giving yourself breaks were you can stim/otherwise destress. Also stricter boundaries with those around you may help if that is an area you struggle with. On top of that using more accommodations than you used to use like headphones, stims/ stimtoys, or strategic clothing used as a barrier for skin contact may be helpful even if you only need it for a brief time while you arrange everything to be less stressful. I'm glad you're also working on ruling out physical conditions, your brain and body are connected so it is important to look at both sides so you don't miss anything important. I hope things start getting easier for you.

You are not alone. It wasn’t all of the sudden for me, BUT things seem to be exponentially getting worse. Message me if you need to chat