My Experience: Grocery Shopping as an Autistic Individual
Walking into a supermarket can be overwhelming for anyone, with aisles after aisles packed with essential and non-essential goods topped with a cacophony of sounds and colors. However, for an autistic middle aged woman like myself it can be, and usually is, a complete sensory overload. As I walk in the first thing I perceive are the bright lights, immediately followed by beeping machines wrapped in a constant chatter overtone. Once I am actually inside all I can see is an unending stream of colors and labels filled with information I need to work at ignoring (yes, my brain tries to read every single one present in a store, as well as every sign, discount ad, or whatever!). All of this usually leads to a neurological chaos that can take hours or, in my not so brilliant moments, even days to recover from. In this article, I want to share my experiences with grocery shopping as an autistic individual and shed some light on the challenges I face while simply trying to shop for food or goods, a kind of : like everyone else thingie, yet not so like everyone else at all.
The Overwhelming Sensory Environment:
From the moment I enter a supermarket, I am bombarded with sensory information from all directions : bright fluorescent lights, the clattering of carts — you had never heard carts making a noise, correct? — , the humming…
