The last church we visited was one I picked out, so we decided that the next church we would visit would be one my husband picked out. I already knew the one he was interested in, and I honestly wasn't looking forward to it. It was a bigger church, and their website put a LOT of emphasis on helping the community. Now, that's a good thing, of course, but in my past experiences, churches that put a lot of emphasis on that tend to be, shall I say - emotional? I don't like being around strong emotion. It can push me to sensory overload, and being on the autism spectrum, I am always trying to protect myself from sensory overload, or I could shut down, or have a melt down. Neither are very pleasant, but I prefer the shut downs, if one or the other must occur. These occur from too much sensory input, without sufficient time to process it all. The brain and neurological system becomes overwhelmed.
Just as a side note, but this information is imperative for this installment in the series... People on the autism spectrum, to varying degrees, have brains that take in a lot more sensory information than does the neurotypical (non autistic) brain. This means that if there is a ceiling fan turning above us, we can't necessarily tune it out, or 'get used to it,' like others. We are always cognizant of the turning fan, and our brains constantly process that sensory input. At the same time, we are hearing the breathing, shifting, and speaking of the people around us, we are smelling their perfumes, deodorants, colognes, body odors, bad breath, illnesses, and we are putting up with the bright lights shining at us from the ceiling, the sounds of the a/c kicking on, and more.
Depending on where one is on the autistm spectrum - this sensory affects us to varying degrees. All of the above things in the above example are constantly present to us, each about equally. We can do little to no tuning out of it; we don't "get used to it." Further, a lot of us are also sensitive to emotional stimuli. We can feel the "energy," for lack of a better word, from strong emotions, but we don't necessarily know what that energy is, or what to do with it. This adds to our sensory stimuli, and is another thing that will stay present with us, as long as it's happening. It does not fade into the background.
Can you start to grasp how much brain processing power we use? Our brain is registering all of this stuff at the same time, at the same, or close to the same levels. This is also why it's hard for most of us to speak to someone in a room where there is noise, or other people talking. Our brains pick up the audio from all around and even outside of the room, at the same level as the person speaking to us, right in front of us. If you look closely, you'll see a lot of us will try to read your lips, to help us better try to "hear" you over all the other noise, that the neurotypicals have pushed to the "background noise" category in their brains.
There's an upside to all of this - we notice details. We notice very fine details that others don't, and because of this, a lot of us tend to have quite high intelligence. We pick up patterns others can't fathom. We live in a different world from neurotypicals, even though we are all on planet Earth.
Anyways, I thought the above info to be important, because this affects my family's decision on which churches to attend, and which not to. As I mentioned a few moments ago, I was concerned that the church my husband wanted to attend was going to be too emotional for me. I voiced this to him, and he said that he listened to a sermon on that church's website, and it was pretty good, so if I could make it through the singing, it's probably going to be okay. I agreed. I've put up with a lot of emotional "energies" in all the churches I've attended from time to time. Sometimes I think others thought I came across as cold or callous, but I made it. NOTE: I am NOT at all cold or callous. I feel emotions very strongly, including sympathy for others. I just don't emote it externally in a way that most neurotypicals can interpret. Just like we autistics have a lot of trouble figuring out what neurotypicals are feeling from their external emoting.
With the hope of this next church being a good one, we visited it on a Sunday morning. The website said it started at 10am, which I thought was a bit of an odd time. I checked the church marquee in front, and it said the same thing. 10am. There were no other Sunday church morning times given.
At a few minutes before 10am, we arrived at the church. A very bubbly girl immediately came up to us, and showed us around, and told us that they like for people to come at 10am to have some breakfast, and visit with one another for a while, before services officially start. People were standing all around, in groups, with cups of coffee, socializing. ACK! Do you know how hard that is for most of us Aspies/Autistics? We don't tend to mingle, or jump into groups and socialize. This was very uncomfortable for me. I asked one of the ladies who spoke with us what time official church starts. She said she didn't know, as there was no official time, but it would usually be somewhere around 10:30am, and that everyone would know to find places to sit, when a big clock started counting down in time, and she pointed where I was to look.
I awkwardly stood around, while the kids ate and enjoyed free donuts, and hubby nibbled on a bagel while chatting with some people here and there. I wanted to go sit in the car, but I know that wouldn't be nice, so I just stood around, waiting. I didn't have an appetite, so I didn't eat anything.
Finally, I saw the clock start counting down, and the lights all went really dim. I interrupted hubby's conversation with a nice man, and let him know the clock was counting down, so we all went to find seats to sit in.
The lights were dim, so I couldn't see a lot of detail around the sanctuary, but at least there weren't bright lights shining at me from above. Then, after the clock stopped counting down, the lights went OUT. They were replaced with colored spot lights on the front wall, moving and shining all over the sanctuary, as smoke machines pumped out their annoying haze all over the place, and tattoo clad, jean and t shirt wearing young people all came out on stage, and started banging on the drums and playing guitar like a rock band, VERY LOUDLY.
I felt like I was sinning, by being in that environment. It was like a hard rock concert. Christians are supposed to be the light of the world, but here were a whole bunch of people rocking out in the dark. The moving, colored spot lights hurt my eyes, standing in the dark, with the smoke machine haze around me was making me dizzy on my feet, and then there was the noise. The music was ear-damaging loud, and the songs were not doctrinal at all. They were about thanks to God, feeling good, and yippy yay stuff. I didn't know any of the songs, and they didn't really seem to have any specifics. Most of them could have been sung in just about any religion, and would have fit, just fine.
I put up with it as long as I could, but it just got to be too much. The haze from the smoke machines died down, and they stopped moving the spotlights around, but the booming music continued, and I had enough. I had to sit down, and plug my ears. I wondered how that looked to others. I hoped no one would see me, since I was sitting, and everyone else was standing. Maybe no one could see me? Someone did see me, and thankfully, instead of judging me as an uptight smarm, or as being demon possessed, they instead saw what was literally happening. It was too loud, and my ears hurt, so I sat down and plugged them. Someone gave me some earplugs, and I immediately put them in.
I don't like earplugs, because they make my ears very itchy, but I'd rather have itchy ears, than eardrums that feel like they are shattering.
The loud music and drum banging finally stopped, and some very dim lights came on, but overall, the sanctuary was still fairly dim. The pastor came out to preach. He was unmarried, in faded blue jeans, a shirt that was too small for him, and was sporting a mowhawk-type hair style. His message was pretty good though, except for the part where he actually recommended getting a tattoo. Tattoos are against the Scriptures. He also mentioned a few seedy things, that he had people raise their hand, if they've ever done, and he rose his hand as well. These were seedy sins that my family and I didn't raise our hands to, because we truly never did those things, nor would ever want to. We were kind of shocked that so many people there did those things, actually.
I left that church feeling dirty, and dead tired. I was so sensory overloaded, that I shut down. I was dizzy, short of breath, and spoke hardly at all (which is odd for me). When anyone asked me anything, my answers were short grunts, or one word. As soon as we got home, I didn't make lunch, I just went straight to the couch and immediately laid down. I was DONE. I was completely exhausted. I could just lay there and do nothing.
It took all day to recover, but after a few hours, I was able to walk around and talk again, but not as much as my usual self. I remained quite tired for the rest of the day. I asked hubby if we could please never go there again, else I'd only have six days a week, as my Sundays would all be shot. He agreed. The search for a local church body home continued on...