I continuously want to maneuver to maintain myself stimulated, and I’ve danced throughout catchy songs once I was youthful. I all the time felt like I used to be concurrently transported out of my physique and totally current in my physique once I would dance throughout worship. It felt like a gathering place for God and I to jam to stunning music. I expertise the holy spirit with bodily sensation. I discover it once I really feel chills, my hair stands up out of nowhere, feeling one thing bodily transfer by me and making it simpler for my lungs to increase, so it solely feels pure for me to convey my reward and love for God as an outward expression. Sadly, it has been fairly some time since I’ve had that feeling, since as an grownup, I really feel that it’s now not acceptable for me to do this in a worship setting. I now restrict my dancing to a sway here-and-there.
Once I enter a brand new worship house, I all the time maintain my eye out and gauge responses to see how the congregation reacts to those that expertise each understimulation and overstimulation. For instance, I had gone on a tour of a church and got here throughout a big space within the sanctuary devoted to those that can’t sit nonetheless and wanted their very own house to maneuver to maintain engaged. I rapidly realized it had been supposed for teenagers. It felt just like the church had thought that youngsters are the one demographic of people that want an area like that. The unstated message was, It’s okay if youngsters do it, however adults should maintain themselves to a better normal. All people want house and room to maneuver, so why can we act like the usual must be smooshing everybody into onerous picket pews and making ourselves uncomfortable?
As a result of autism is a spectrum, sensory-related triggers fluctuate from person-to-person. Since mine are extra excessive with auditory triggers, I could also be extra prone to battle in public locations like that of a worship house. Different people might need visible triggers, the place vibrant lights (both stained glass or synthetic) change into overwhelming. Some people on the autism spectrum are touch-averse, which turns one thing as widespread and seemingly easy as passing the peace right into a time of intense sensations and unbelievable discomfort, even bodily ache. Past that, the overstimulation of all of the transferring items in a giant sanctuary can amplify all the opposite triggers. I cope by dissociating, whereas some could expertise a meltdown. It is very important open the dialog as much as the experiences of neurodivergent individuals or professionals who work with each neurodivergent youngsters and adults to see what sort of lodging work inside every church’s worship setting. That is prone to make some congregants uncomfortable due to adjustments in worship, however permitting for another person to thrive and to manage healthily within the surroundings they’re in is extra necessary.
