Internal stimuli is not given nearly the amount of attention it deserves however it is absolutely one of the ways that we sense things. In fact, the name we give it is interception.

Our brains do not distinguish between an stimuli from an external source, like hearing a sound, and an internal source, like tinnitus. Sure, there's probably some subtle distinction somewhere along the way but in the most direct sense, your brain is stimulated by the experience regardless of the source itself.

Being emotionally overwhelmed can cause meltdowns and shutdowns just as easily as being overwhelmed by external stimuli.

Talked with my therapist and she said this is extremely OCD pilled

Without further information it isn't possible to determine what the cause of this is however I'd urge caution about jumping to either conclusion as autistic perseveration and stimming can look extremely close to OCD behaviours and most therapists are far more fluent in working with people who have OCD than they are with autistic people.

I've never polled therapists on this but if you asked most therapists to list the modes of sensory perception I'd guess that you're gonna get 5, maybe 6. The chances of them getting proprioception, vestibular, and interception are slim. Especially interception. (I'd be genuinely interested to know how a typical occupational therapist performs in this regard too and if they would manage to include interception.)

Therapists can be really good at what they do but they tend to suffer from the curse of the engineer and they are likely to presume that their expertise exceeds the bounds of their knowledge. Not making a call either way on this one but I'd do more exploring before I'd settle on a conclusion and I'd also be weighing the therapist's opinion against how thoroughly they investigated this with you - did they listen and give an opinion? Did they ask you pointed questions that made it seem as if they were weighing your responses against different models? Did they ask you things like "What would/what does happen if you forced yourself to stop this behaviour"? etc. etc.

I do the same thing. I've found that I often am dealing with external stimuli that I just never considered to be part of the problem (very late diagnosis).

So as an example, sometimes when I'm working at my computer I find myself getting frustrated and then slowly start talking to myself in a very similar way as to what you've described here. It's kind of like I don't realize it's happening until I'm already 10 minutes in and then I'm experiencing a lot of executive dysfunction, etc.

Anyway, the point here is that I started analyzing the relationship between my behavior and my environment more after realizing I was autistic. I noticed that I was actually being overstimulated by normal, everyday things and not recognizing the overstimulation. So maybe the washing machine is on and it's a little too hot/cold, my body hurts, I have to pee, hungry, the lights are bright, etc. This shit all adds up and then I also have work I'm dealing with (I hate it so much), so yeah having a meltdown is inevitable a lot of the time.

I guess maybe try to think bigger about what you consider external stimuli and see if maybe that makes a difference in how you think about it. Generally I find that there might be one thing I focus on, but it's really 5+ things that just aren't as intense on their own

Right there with you. I do the exact same stuff in response to uncomfortable memories that I involuntarily obsess over.

I always figured it was just an anxiety attack triggered by the ruminations. Haven't really found any good coping strategies, though. It is very unpleasant and I wish I could stop it.

i have to use weed to cope with intrusive thoughts like that, it definitely doesn't work for everyone but it works for me so far. i have to spend a lot of effort almost all the time editing what i say because i have a lot of toxic self deprecating thoughts, especially relating to self harm and past traumatic experiences. i often struggle to focus on what people are saying to me over my own self deprecating internal monologue.

Me too