How long does it take to grease a bun with cheese? Two minutes – max. But you have autism or ADHD, it can be an almost insurmountable task.
Anne Skov Jensen has figured out that there are 95 steps, she detects that she is hungry, she buttered a muffin. Every step requires, that she should think about. “My brain must calculate and analyze every single little step.” And it applies every time she needs to lubricate a bun.
In the family Forest Jensen, three out of four people with autism. 11 years ago, was 56-year-old Anne was diagnosed with ADHD and four years later with Asperger syndrome, after both her son and daughter had been diagnosed with.
Anne Skov Jensen’s brain is sharp and analytical. She is a skilled researcher, having studied law and was a public prosecutor, until she, after the two longer stresssygemeldinger had to give up work. “In the many years I have been good at copying others’ behavior, to compensate for my difficulties and camouflage my autism. But it has really worn me up.”
today, she holds the lecture, when she has a surplus to it. “Autismespekteret is wide. My lectures are always based on how I experience my autism and ADHD.”
While ADHD is constantly giving new impulses, have autisthjernen need for predictability, routines, ro. So Anne Skov Jensen’s diagnoses are often in conflict.
“In some ways I look like all the others. In other areas, I fall completely by the side of. There are days when I have slept well, have been able to eat breakfast and got dressed, without that there is something that scratches.”
And then there are other days Where I have not slept, or where I sansemæssigt become overwhelmed – as in yesterday morning, where the refrigerator smelled, and I could not open it – the whole day.” A bad day can also be, if she has a desire for apple juice, but the last have been drunk. “I will be three years. I crack completely out and can’t regulate the emotional. My brain can’t adapt and make a plan B.”
the Family Forest Jensen eat together four (maybe five) times – a year. One time is christmas eve. A meal involving both sound, taste, smell and smalltalk and are becoming slightly too much for autistic people. “We eat separately in order to minimize the stress. But there are plenty of other things we can do together, where we don’t get quite so overwhelmed.”
Speaking of food becomes Anne Skov Jensen never tired of oatmeal with milk and raisins. It taste the same – every day – and challenge either her senses or her executive functions, which shall, in turn, when we set goals, make a plan and adjust the plan if it does not hold.
It is the executive functions, there is in the game, when Anne Skov Jensen must smear a bun, find anything other than juice in the refrigerator or f.ex. awaken his daughter. For many years it was a daily routine, that she had a daughter Nina up and in school for 8 o’clock. But on the bulletin board in the kitchen hangs a slip of paper in one-minute increments to calculate, how the day is going to be different, the days when Nina met at 10. Most people would without thinking about it move all the processes are two hours ahead, but it is impossible for Anne Skov Jensen.
It is that often overwhelms the Anne Skov Jensen, is sensory overload, too much information and emotions. “I have no filter. I take the f.ex. all sounds with equal strength. I can’t weed out the ones I don’t need.”
This applies, among other things, the click-sound, as the Kaçak İddaa car is started to make. Her husband can’t hear it, but it is about to drive her crazy. The worst sounds are man-made – people, who sniffs, bites or chews in the carrots, keys on the computer or click pens. When she gets overwhelmed, she can get a ‘meltdown’. “It is very uncomfortable. I get tightness in the chest, gets hot in the body, and my brain shut completely down. I will zombieagtig. Some times I can hear what is being said to me, but I can’t get the words to make sense.”
Once it happened when her husband came home from shopping and had met a couples of friends who wanted to come over an hour later. Barely had he announced the visit, before questions whirled around in her brain like confetti:
“When will they arrive? How many will they arrive? How long are they? What time is it? They must have something to drink? What should I say to them? What should I wear? Should I in the bath? We have something to drink? They must have something to eat? Is here purely? There must be aired out? The questions rolled around in my head, in one big chaos.”
Until she collapsed. When the guests came, she sat on his haunches in the utility room with his head between his legs. She did not come forward before the guests were gone. Afterwards was ashamed of herself: “It was embarrassing. I was a fool, but I can’t control it.”
When she gets overwhelmed, goes her brain on alert. So pain, all sound in the ears, and the light stings in the eyes, and even the gentlest touch can feel like an assault: “In the situation, you should not give me a hug.” The only thing that works is the teddy bear. With the in her arms, with headphones on and during his sansedyne, she finds peace.
the Calm meetings she also, when she takes Ritalin against ADHD’one. She still remembers the first little white pill. “Immediately, I could feel the calm descend,” she says and lets his hands slip from the top of the head and down along the face to show how natural the feeling was.
The autistic brain is extremely detail oriented. Anne’s son can outperform even the most enthusiastic Apple-reseller on the knowledge, and her daughter drawing with a detail, that is rare (and was in the DR’s broadcast of The ‘hidden talents’, red.). Even Anne Skov Jensen specializes in autism and frequently visit the doctor Google in search of more knowledge.
So that leads the one search to the other – and suddenly at four o’clock of the night. “I can research all the way in, but can’t figure out how to stop again. I dig myself farther and farther down, until my brain shuts down.”
It is one reason that many autistic people end up with stress or depression or get sequelae such as anxiety, or sleep or eating disorders. According to Psykiatrifonden seen autism very often in combination with especially anxiety, phobia and OCD.
“the Treatment of anxiety is often to expose people for what they are afraid of. But there is a autismediagnose behind the fear, leading to exposure to the overvældelse, possible meltdown and more anxiety. Therefore, it is important to get the right diagnosis – even if you’re an adult.”
