There's a video, I don't have a link, but it mentioned a two year old who developed full-blown autism. So they took him to a treatment center, which put him in a very low stimulation environment, and the therapist gradually built up his ability to deal with more stimulation. By age 8, he was neurotypical.
From Ran Prieur’s 067.
I don't really get involved in the discussions surrounding autism, but adjacent to it is a label I use and which I find very important, which is the term sensitive as described by Dr. Gabor Matte, on this podcast for instance, though he also wrote several books on the subject.
Sensitivity simply means that you pick up more things, often far more, than average people do from their environment. For some people that means tunneling on details, one of the stereotypical traits ascribed to autistic people, but on a broader level, you are also much better at picking up energy from the people around you. If people are mad, you really feel that, and so you're likely to try to do things to appease them, even if you aren’t the problem. If they are sad, you also feel that deeply and that can easily swing your mood.
But the list of consequences of being sensitive is very long, so here are some noteworthy observations:
You are likely to become a people pleaser, afraid of rejection, because you tune into other people much more. On the other hand, you are also much better at feeling empathy.
Sensitive people get overwhelmed rather easily. Because we live in a world filled with misery, which most people can deal with because they become incredibly numb as they grow up, sensitive people often turn to coping mechanisms to deal with all the ambient energy. This can lead into addictions, as a way to feel a temporary sense of safety, but more generally sensitive people tend to also numb themselves to cope with the world, but in a way that utterly kills their spirit.
Sensitive people are better, often much better, at creativity because they pick up more breadth and depth from their experience. On the other hand, it can also manifest as a sponge-like mind which is purely conditioned from its environment, which is particularly bad with social media for instance. You start thinking like everyone else does, or you interpret your social media feed as a growing to-do list which makes you anxious.
So the bottom line for me is that if you're someone who identifies as being sensitive, you might benefit from slowly building your capacity to feel more and more. It is incredibly likely that you've built ways to cope with the intensity of the world, such as scrolling, watching the same stuff over and over because it's predictable, or staying in bed because it's safe, because your life just feels so overwhelming.
As an example of what you could do, you could start with spending some time each day without any digital media, and allow your attention to rest in your gaze and in your body. Really pay attention to what you're looking at. Realize that your visual field is much wider than how you naturally tend to look, and allow it to expand. Spend more time than you usually would on what you're looking, and really pay attention without rushing to something else. This takes time so be patient.
With your body, start noticing parts of it, slowly but surely. The feet are the best place to start, because they are the literal and metaphorical ground of our being, so standing up and really allowing yourself to feel your feet can stabilize your internal world. You then might want to move your attention to places of your body that typically hold a lot of tension. For me it is and has always been the belly, so find ways to slowly dissolve the tension, by feeling it, breathing into it and allowing your entire body to relax. For others it might be their shoulders, their jaw—which can cause tinnitus by the way—their eyebrows, their lower back.
That is just a starting place, so feel free to experiment with the rest. The key of the practice is learning to move through life consciously, and noticing where your energy and attention go.
When a situation feels too overwhelming, what often happens is that you'll go back to an old strategy to deal with it: video games, social media, loud music, thinking or worrying, porn, etc. I'd say that some addictions are much better than others, so I wouldn't feel too bad about swapping one for another. Progress is still progress.
But what you want is to become better at dealing with the overwhelm, as well as reducing it in the first place. Spend less time on things that cause you to be tense in your body, or on activities that simply provide too much stimulation. That's a general plan for stabilizing your inner experience and living from a more conscious place.