Tag: symptoms

Understanding Autism and ADHD through a New Lens

Hi, After working with my sensitivity with the light spectrum for 6 years, I have just been diagnosed with autism. To a lesser degree I also experience ADHD. What I was calling spectral sensitivity is in fact the same as autism and ADHD.

What can we learn from my journey?

  1. Autism and ADHD are rooted in our response to the light spectrum.
  2. Autism occurs when our brains are over-responsive to light in the violet range.
  3. ADHD occurs when our brains are under-responsive to light in the blue range.

As the balance of the light spectrum changes across the day and across the seasons, so does our experience of autism and ADHD.

Let me explain . . .

When I am more in an autistic place, I feel more spaced and have to embrace the big picture of life and not take so much attention to the detail. I feel creative and intuitive but just a bit lost.

When I am in more of an ADHD place, I feel spaced in a different way and as if I am being driven by a motor. I have to embrace attention to detail. I like working with data and become very analytical.     

What has this to do with the light spectrum?

One of the gifts of my autism is that I see the colours in the light spectrum. I look out of the window and I might say ‘The light is a bit violet today’ or ‘The cloud seems to have swallowed the blue’ or ‘I can’t really see enough red in the green of the grass’.

How Can This Help Me?

When we don’t understand our relationship with the light, we can be trying to push our energy into the wrong direction. My son is stronger ADHD and often analytical but when the light swings from low blue to high violet and he becomes more autistic, he is completely lost and depressed and anxious. He doesn’t know that if he just lets go to his creativity and intuition at that point, that he could feel so much happier.

Understanding our relationship with the light spectrum helps us to understand how and why we are feeling a certain way in any moment. Become a light watcher. Knowledge is power!

How Does it Feel to Have Ambient Colour Sensitivity?

Experiencing ambient colour sensitivity, I am highly aware of my brain’s interpretation of what I perceive in the world around me. I detect the slight rise in red light in autumn, the lowering of blue light in the winter, the change between predominance of red and blue light in the spring, and the lack of red light in the summer. I feel the harmony of colour combinations all around me as soothing, or less soothing. I detect the slightest change in luminance, changing all the colours I see and the way they interact with each other, constantly, throughout the day and seasons. I have an extreme experience of contrast. experiencing a dance between colours becoming subtly darker and lighter, altering the way I see and feel line, shape and pattern all around me.

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