MELTEM ARIKAN

Türkçesi Aşağıda 👇 For those unfamiliar with the term, PDA stands for Public Display of Affection. To most, it is simply a romantic choice, a matter of personal style or a way to show the world they are happy. However, for a neurodivergent person, it is often far more than a stylistic choice; it is a complex matter of sensory regulation. There is a rather tiresome stereotype that autistic people simply "dislike being touched." This is a lazy assumption that misses the nuance of our experience. In reality, our nervous systems often process the external world like a blender, mixing every sound, light, and texture into an overwhelming slurry. Because of this, my "touch dial" is never static. At times, a simple touch acts as an anchor, tethering me to the world when everything else feels too fast. At other times, however, it can be the "final tab" that causes the entire system to crash. When I find myself in a crowded, noisy, or unpredictable environment, hol...

Türkçesi Aşagıda 👇 Sometimes starting something feels easy. If I’m interested, if it doesn’t stress me out, if I even enjoy it… sure. But other times, starting anything feels genuinely impossible. So I start putting it off. In a bit. Tomorrow. Later… As those laters never arrive, the stress builds. It rolls into a big tangled knot. And then comes the next layer: trying to get out from under it. Focusing on something I don’t want to do is ridiculously hard. Like when I need to write invoices, but end up alphabetising the bookshelf. Then I spot a book I’ve been putting off for years and somehow start reading it. Standard behaviour. My brain works differently. It’s part of being neurodivergent. Things like starting, switching, focusing, they all run on a separate system. Not always, but it really kicks in when I’m bored or the task feels pointless. It’s that my brain genuinely doesn’t care why it’s supposed to. Since I started understanding how my AuDHD brain works, it’s been easier to s...

  Türkçesi Aşağıda 👇 If you’re autistic, you usually hit overload before you even register it. If you’re ADHD, you often don’t notice until you’re already reacting. If you’re both, like me, you learn to say “I’m fine” while your nervous system carries out the sensory equivalent of flipping tables and setting small fires. We don’t miss the signs because we’re oblivious. We miss them because attention is already working overtime: tracking every flicker of light, every micro-shift in someone’s tone, the typing six metres away, the sock seam that feels like barbed wire, and the fact that it’s suddenly Tuesday again and the furthest you’ve gone is the fridge. By the time capacity is exceeded, the system is already snapping, shutting down, or grinding through whichever socially required situation you accidentally said yes to. I’m talking about the Body Scale: simple, refined, and actually useful. A functional measurement of load, somatic, sensory, and cognitive. Ten points, based on wha...

Türkçesi Aşağıda 👇 One day, I went to see an excellent craniosacral therapist for my insomnia and the long list of other things my nervous system had decided to collect. At some point, she asked me this question: "How do you rest?" I laughed. Not politely. The kind of laugh you give when someone suggests Father Christmas is real. I keep hearing about this magical thing called "rest". People insist it exists. They say things like, "I spent the afternoon just being." Just being? My brain does not come with a "just being" setting. It comes with tabs. And more tabs. And a few secret passageways that open at 2 am."How do you rest? This question stuck with me because it revealed something I hadn't considered: I didn't know how to rest. Not really. I knew how to collapse. I knew how to crash. But rest? That was a rumour. I never believed I was tired. Why would I be? I was certain I could outwork gravity itself, as if bottomless energy were...