Care and Handling of the Autistic-Spectrum-Disorder S-Type

by Raven Kaldera & Joshua Tenpenny

Overstimulation

This is reprinted from Broken Toys: Submissives with Mental Illness and Neurological Dysfunction edited by Del Tashlin & Raven Kaldera.

Raven:

One of the problems that ASD shares to an extent with ADD is having a too-permeable filter. On an ordinary day, most neurotypical people automatically shut out up to 80% of their stimuli - appliance noises, electric hums, moving shadows, bright colors, the shifting of clothing on the body - but one of the prime symptoms of ASD is a filter that won’t shut out enough to function for long periods in a high-stimulus environment. When the edge of overstimulation is reached, ASD people often have stronger emotional responses to it than most adults with ADD, for example - including, sometimes, freaking out. Their version of freaking out may be atypical; if you’ve got one of the less emotionally expressive sorts, you might not even know that they’ve been freaking out for several minutes until they blow up over some small thing. The more emotionally expressive sorts may freak out with unusual gestures and noises. Most have learned to leave and find a quiet place when the edge is looming, but if they are “on duty” and not free to run off when necessary, the M-type has to make that decision for them.

As an example of how we handle this, Joshua has a special hand signal that he uses when he is on duty in public and has reached his limit of stimulation. Even if he’s serving in the middle of a loud party, I know that if he gives me that signal, it’s time to let him go sit in a quiet place for a while, or he will soon be worse than useless. (I also trust him implicitly to never use that signal unless he is actually nearing the end of his rope; he wants very much to do a good job at whatever I ask.) The hand signal is not something that others might interpret, so I can say, “Josh, go do X,” and he can go calm his mind without having to mention his issues in front of people. (He’s uncomfortable with discussing his ASD problems in public in party situations, less out of humiliation and more because of the unhelpful ways that well-meaning people try to accommodate or assist him, or because he’s found that people often interpret it as a negative judgment on the situation: “Your party is too loud and you are talking about things that upset me so much that I have to leave.”)

Loud, confusing crowd noise is only one of the host of sensory issues that may dog an ASD individual. I’ve had it described to me by my slaveboy and other Aspie friends as living every day under a barrage of sensations that they must constantly struggle to block out and focus around, and while many of them have learned to do that, it eats up a lot of their resources. Certain textures can be like torture - itchy clothing tags, slimy food; each ASD person may have their own list of texture-hates. That can, in some cases or on particularly bad days, become other people’s skin or even their own; my slaveboy’s central nervous system is aggravated by allergic reactions (which makes the ASD symptoms worse) and there have been days when he can’t stand to touch himself, much less me. On those days, sexual service is pretty much out; we’ve managed at best to snuggle with a smooth, soft sheet between us.

Some ASD folks can’t look at certain visual patterns without mental discomfort; others become hypnotized by visual patterns. (I’ve lost Joshua in the grocery store, only to find him staring glazedly at a geometric arrangement of cereal boxes.) Some find certain sounds unblockable, as nerve-wracking as fingernails on a blackboard. In fact, one common symptom of this disorder is that their “startle reflex” doesn’t turn off when it should. You know the physical response your body has when someone sets off a firecracker or slams something loudly behind you? Imagine that it went off a few dozen times a day, five times more intensely, and then kept going for several minutes no matter how you tried to calm yourself. I’ve got Aspie friends who can’t ever be around recreational target gunfire for this reason.

As an example of sonic sensory issues, my slaveboy can’t stand the sound of plastic bags crackling. If he is driving me on a shopping trip and the wind is blowing our plastic shopping bags in the back seat, and he asks to be allowed to stop and tamp them down - well, I can refuse him and make him keep driving and deal with it, but I’ll have to understand the consequences. Does he have the resources to keep driving with that crackling noise going on? Yes. Does he have the resources to cope with crackling plastic, driving, and being anything but grouchy, distressed, and largely nonverbal? No. Will he have the resources to recover from that distressing drive immediately upon coming home? Probably not. This is why I say that I do not compromise with my slave, but sometimes I have to compromise with reality. I’ve learned what his nervous system can tolerate and what it can’t. He’s willing to push himself to that limit for me; he depends on my honor and common sense not to push him beyond it.

In terms of S/M: Some ASD folks have told me how a good beating smoothes out their central nervous system, overriding the built-up tensions, and calms them down. Others - like my slaveboy - have anomalous random responses to physical stimuli. Any stimulus, from itching to orgasms to pain - what feels good on one day can feel terrible and almost traumatizing on another, and there’s no way to know until you do it, so S/M is something of a minefield. Make sure you find out which type you’ve got before you start playing with them.

Joshua:

For me, overstimulation is about knowing what is a drain on my mental resources. My resources are not infinite, and if I can remove some excess stimulation, I have more resources left to do my job. Previous to me really understanding this diagnosis, I would tune out many of the things I found annoying because other people didn’t seem to be bothered by them. After coming to terms with my diagnosis, I became much more willing to look at that. Now I’ll assess whether I can cut myself some slack with regard to avoiding stimuli, or in being OK with a less perfect final product when I am working in a difficult situation.

With our M/s relationship, we had to find a balance between my master setting up special circumstances for me to work at my best, and him inconveniencing himself in order to do so. We found through trial and error that there was only so far he was willing to go with that, and so he decides how much he’s willing to let imperfect circumstances affect my productivity. I’ve also found that if am able to reduce most of the sources of stimulation over a long period of time, it helps me to focus better, but it also makes me more sensitive to it in the long run. Smaller things become almost as annoying as the larger things, and then if I have to deal with a chaotic outside environment, it becomes really awful. So being in a somewhat chaotic home environment instead of a perfect greenhouse actually keeps my tolerance up.

It also helped me understand that the overstimulation is my problem. It’s not that the people who are at this party are so terrible, it’s that I am having trouble coping with it. Before my diagnosis, I would blame the external people and circumstances for my distress, and I couldn’t see how different my responses were from those of other people. The M/s relationship with Raven was the first time I’d had someone pay that much attention to my inner process - especially someone who had the authority to order my behavior.

After reading about Dr. Temple Grandin’s squeeze machine - a mechanism based on something used to calm down cows, which she built in order to get her nervous system calmed down - I made myself a rock blanket. It’s a sturdy canvas quilt of pockets, and each one holds a plastic bag of gravel. I lay it on myself when I need nervous-system calming; even all-over pressure is a classic tool that ASD people use to calm themselves down. Sometimes I have had Raven lay on top of me, which was wonderful, but he’s the master and he gets bored and wanders off. Now we have a second boy who is my “little brother”, and I sometimes have him lay on me for a while as he’s very submissive and less likely to take off before I’m done. Still, the rock blanket is there when I need it, because I never have to worry that it is bored.

Then there’s the issue of eye contact. Many ASD people have trouble with any kind of sustained eye contact - one Aspie memorably described it as: “We’re having the meeting on Wednesday - Eyeballs! Eyeballs! Eyeballs! - um, uh, I think I can make it - Eyeballs! Eyeballs! Eyeballs!” and so on. The human gaze is just so neurologically overstimulating that it turns the brain off and we can’t talk. I’ve learned ways to do it obliquely in social situations, but the kind of sustained eye contact that masters often want is just hard for us. I remember being at a M/s weekend intensive, with another ASD-spectrum slave and her master right beside us. The teachers had us all do an exercise where we held eye contact and communicated our feelings. It made the other couples all lovey-gooshy. It made me and the other slave very, very uncomfortable and kind of freaked out. Both our masters are sadists, though, and they knew how far they could push us before letting us go, as we quivered like bugs under a needle and had to shake and breathe for a while. For me, intense eye contact with my master is as mentally overwhelming as being grabbed by the throat. It can be hot, in a way, but I can’t have a coherent conversation. (I don’t suggest playing sadistically with your s-type’s ASD triggers until you’ve been together a long time and you are both fine with it, though.)

Continued: Literality & Precision