It was a familiar ride. My legs were in rhythm, the wind was strong but manageable, and I was heading down a road I had taken at least a hundred times before. Cycling is usually when my body and brain settle into harmony.
Then I saw it: a gate. No prior sign, no warning. The road was suddenly closed.
Logically, I knew it was no problem. The detour was basically identical — only a hundred metres different. Both routes were free of cars, both familiar, both safe. And yet, my body reacted as if I’d been ambushed.
My heart rate surged from 130 to 175 bpm in seconds. My mind kept telling me, “It’s fine, it’s no deal…” but my nervous system shouted back, “Danger! Something’s wrong!” The two voices argued in rounds, neither winning.
The Choice Paradox
Here’s the irony: if the gate hadn’t been there, I would probably have chosen the alternative route anyway. It was more sheltered from the wind, and I know myself well enough to say I’d have turned there naturally.
But because the gate forced me, the choice was gone. My distress wasn’t about the road at all — it was about the collapse of agency. My brain likes to decide, even if it would have decided the same thing.
That tiny shift — from I choose to I must — was enough to trigger a nervous system storm.
What was happening in my wiring
Looking back, the reaction wasn’t random. It was six familiar traits colliding:
- Autism / Monotropism: My focus was locked on the planned route. The sudden break in pattern shocked me, like a computer suddenly crashing.
- C-PTSD / Hypervigilance: Surprise itself is registered as threat. My survival system doesn’t distinguish between “a honk behind me” and “a closed gate in front of me.” Both say: be on guard!
- Alexithymia: My body noticed long before my mind did. All I felt at first was distress without a name, until I reasoned it into words.
- PDA / Autonomy Needs: The paradox of “I wanted this route, but not like this” set the system ablaze. My brain doesn’t resist roads — it resists demands without choice.
- ADHD: The emotional surge translated instantly into physiology. My body does “full broadcast mode” before my mind even finishes loading context.
- Autonomic Hyperarousal: My heart rate didn’t jump because of sudden physical effort; it was a sympathetic storm. A surprise can trigger an abrupt adrenaline release, a blood pressure shift, and/or a POTS-like autonomic spike where the heart overshoots before the rest of the body recalibrates. This explains why the HR jump was so disproportionate to the physical reality, and why it came down as soon as the choice was restored.
The traits don’t sit side by side, but resonate, creating a feedback loop that amplify each others.
Why it mattered (even though it didn’t)
From the outside, it was nothing — just a hundred metres and a small gate. To me, it was a clash of logic and nervous system, control and surprise. The distance didn’t matter. The wind didn’t matter. What mattered was the invisible tax of losing agency inside an unexpected disruption.
Sometimes the hardest climb isn’t a mountain. It’s a gate that wasn’t supposed to be there.
Reframe
What looked like an overreaction was actually my system doing what it’s designed to do: protect me. Clumsy, yes. Exaggerated, absolutely. But also a reminder that my sensitivity to patterns is a strength — I notice the smallest shifts in the map, even when others would glide past.
When the Same System Does the Opposite
What makes this even more interesting is that not all surprises trigger the same storm.
A few weeks after, an unleashed dog barked and ran after me; the kind of situation most people would label “danger.” But nothing spiked. No heart rate surge, no adrenaline jolt, no panic. Just a clean, steady continuation of the ride.
Looking back, it makes perfect sense through my wiring:
- Monotropic focus: I was already deep in the cycling tunnel — fully engaged in cadence, surface, wind, and direction. In that state, my attention channel narrows.
- Predictive processing: I had actually seen the dog a moment before it barked, even if I didn’t register it consciously. My brain tagged it as a “known entity,” which dramatically lowered the threat score.
- Context over content: My nervous system doesn’t react to what happens — it reacts to when it happens. If I’m in flow, the system stays stable, but if I’m interrupted mid-pattern (like with the gate), that’s when things explode.
It’s paradoxical but accurate:
A closed gate can destabilise me more than a barking dog.
Not because the dog is harmless, but because surprise plus disruption hits my system harder than surprise plus continuity.
Weird is wonderful. And on this ride, my nervous system reminded me: the road may be the same, but how you arrive there changes everything.
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