Why Do Some Autistic People Feel Like Everyone is Watching Them?

Over the years, we have come across autistic people who have difficulty leaving the house, or completely refuse to, because when they do, people look at them. This is a particularly difficult problem to deal with, as these individuals simply cannot be convinced that strangers have no real interest in them.

More recently, we conducted a workplace assessment for someone who admitted to experiencing this problem. She felt embarrassed about it because she logically knew that strangers were not actually interested in her. In the past, she had bright red hair because it meant people focused on her hair rather than on her.

But where does this feeling come from?

What Is Going On?

Below we consider possible explanations:

1. Sensory Issues?

While sensory issues, particularly the fear of sensory overload leading to a meltdown (or worse, a shutdown) could contribute to someone refusing to leave the house, they don’t fully explain this issue. Having red hair, for instance, would do nothing to improve this issue.

Sensory issues can often be managed by strategies such as:

• Going out during quieter times
• Avoiding crowds
• Reducing exposure
• Reducing hyper-sensitivities by stimulating hypo-sensitivities

(or some combination of these)

However, these strategies do not help when the issue is the perception of being looked at.

2. Processing Issues?

Could difficulty processing unexpected events lead to a fear of leaving the house? Could hyper-vigilance result in an excessive monitoring of other people because they might do something unpredicatable or threatening?

Processing issues can certainly make someone afraid to leave the house alone, and in fact in cases of severe processing issues, might be good reasons why the person is not safe to leave home by themselves.

But again, this does not explain why having red hair would help.

While practicing how to handle different situations and providing a way to contact someone when something does go wrong help with processing issues, these approaches do not resolve the perception of being watched.

3. Exposure Anxiety?

Could this perception of being looked be related to anxiety about exposing something personal (exposure anxiety)? Going out demonstrates that you do have some interest in the outside world and want to engage with it in some way. If someone hasn’t been out for a while, they may worry that others will notice and comment on it - and that could be intolerable.

While this is certainly a reason why someone would refuse to leave the house and it might be rationalised as people looking and therefore noticing, again it does not explain why red hair might help. In fact, in this case bright red hair would make the situation worse.

In addition, exposure anxiety can be helped by approaches to dealing with anxiety such as gradually daring to do things. Once someone dares to do something a few times, it has been exposed and the anxiety lessens. But this approach does not help with the perception that people are looking.

4. Invasion of Privacy?

Could be be that people looking, and therefore being noticed, feels like an invasion of privacy?

This explanation makes the most sense in this context. It would explain why red hair helps: people were focusing on the hair rather than on the individual as a person. This suggests that being looked at is perceived in the same way others might experience someone standing too close: intrusive and uncomfortable. It is an invasion of privacy.

What Can Help?

You cannot simply talk someone out of this perception, and gradually pushing the boundaries of anxiety does not help.

The most effective approach is gradually developing routines. If someone follows the same route at the same time each day, the sense of being observed becomes less distressing because this aspect of their privacy is no longer private because it is predictable.

However, before attempting this, it is important to fully examine the underlying causes. There may be multiple factors at play and significant sources of anxiety, which will exacerbate the feeling of being watched.

This method may resemble the approach used for exposure anxiety, but the key difference is that it must be applied separately for each new route and routine.