I had a fun time with someone last night but I can't stop being myself up over it because my brain did a Thing, and I failed at explaining the Thing, and now I'm convinced he thinks I'm crazy and will never want to see me again. but the catastrophizing is its own problem... I don't feel like I need to tell people I'm just casually seeing that I'm mentally ill+autistic+just generally Weird, but not mentioning the things that might actually come up doesn't seem to be working out too well, because then they come up during sex and that is basically the worst possible time to explain anything? like, the Thing that happened last night is that he asked me to say a sexy thing and I didn't quite hear what it was he wanted me to say, but instead of asking him to repeat himself I just froze up completely. Which happens kind of a lot - if I'm about to say something I think will upset someone or annoy them, I can't make the words come out. and since I couldn't tell him there was an issue he started demanding I say whatever it was and the pressure didn't help at all and I had to tell him to stop and curl up in a shame ball until my brain decided to give me language back. (Him demanding I obey him was totally fine and would not have been an issue if it hadn't made the other issue worse, by the way. I'm into that shit and we discussed it before we started and etc.) and I feel like maybe if I'd warned him beforehand that I lock up like that sometimes it would have been less awkward? because I couldn't come up with any kind of coherent explanation afterwards, just "no I'm fine I swear" and "that happens sometimes" and "god I'm so sorry". But that's not really a conversation you can have with someone who's basically a stranger? so idfk. Should I be disclosing to sex partners that my brain does weird shit, or should I just keep hoping it doesn't get in the way too badly and try to brush it off if stuff does happen?
I believe that's "going nonverbal", and is probably something you should discuss with your partner. It is a thing that happens to a lot of people (particularly autistic people), and is the sort of thing those people need accommodating around. Maybe a different form of communicating would help? Can you still text, type, or write when in that state? If not, then maybe letting your partner know that it's out of your control and the kind of thing you just need to wait out, maybe with soothing cuddles or something if that would help? It's likely that your partner doesn't think you're crazy and isn't annoyed with you so much as he's worried that he did something wrong to make you freeze up, and giving him some tools to help you when you're in that state would probably put both your minds more at rest.
I knew going nonverbal was something a lot of autistic people experience, but for some reason I never really connected that descriptor with this particular problem. I'm not sure why. (maybe because it feels more like an anxiety/trauma thing than an autism thing, but I know multiple issues can kind of egg each other on and create some kind of horrible trauma+autism fusion...) I can write and text when I can't talk, but I think having to reach for my phone or a notebook or something would seriously ruin the mood. That's the hard part, that this is happening during sex which is basically the last time I want to be thinking about how much my brain sucks. I guess I could just tell him that it might happen again and that all I need is a second to compose myself, but... idk, I guess compounding this particular issue is the issue of how I try really, really hard to come across as neurotypical so people don't get weird about whether they really want to be sticking their literal or metaphorical dicks in crazy, so discussing the weird brain shit is the last thing I want to do.
It's worth noting, too, that even non-brainweird people sometimes have stuff like this happen to them in sex, particularly kink. And sex can be PTSD trigger central for all kinds of people.
