Sensory Overload or Panic Attack? The Neurodivergent Adult's Guide to Telling Apart Two Body Alarms

health, fitness, mental · EN

Your heart is slamming, the room is too much, and every part of you is screaming one word: out. But was that a panic attack, or was it sensory overload? They feel identical from the inside, yet they have opposite causes and need opposite responses — and using the right tool on the wrong alarm is why so many neurodivergent adults conclude that "nothing works." This show changes that. Based on the book by Muriel Gabriela Harrington and Israel Owen Leach, each episode takes you inside one chapter and gives you a practical, plain-spoken way to read which alarm is firing — using onset, triggers, what your body is trying to do, and a simple relief test — and then calm the right one. You'll learn why the famous 5-4-3-2-1 grounding technique rescues panic but can make overload worse, how the two alarms chain together, how to have fewer of both, and how to tell the people around you what actually helps. This is part of the Tell Them Apart series, a set of 8 books that help neurodiverge