Autistic Interoception - Decoding Body Signals & Emotional Loads

Added: 2026-05-21

[00:00:00]Sign number seven, your body signals are confusing or delayed. So, you don't notice hunger until you're actually shaking. You don't notice stress until you're exploding. You can't tell if you're tired, thirsty, anxious, or just wrong. Now, this can relate to interoception, how we sense internal body states. And there are systematic reviews and meta-analysis examining interoception differences in autism across the lifespan. This is not you being out of touch. It's having a different wired brain, an autistic brain experiencing not only the external but the internal differently. A self-script for us autistics, you know, I'm not sure what I'm feeling yet. I just need a little bit a little bit of time to kind of check my body, work out what's going on here. And a support script for loved ones, would you like some help doing a quick body check? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Are you hot? Are you tired?

[00:00:57]Sign number eight, small tasks can cause big emotional loads. So, a phone call, filling out a form, booking an appointment. Your brain doesn't see small, it sees variables, uncertainty, possible scripts, potential misunderstandings, and sensory unpleasantness. And intolerance of uncertainty is a documented driver of anxiety in autistic people.