Chat Example 1: Co-Regulation Between Autistic Partners

AI response (Inner View)

What co-regulation is neurologically

Co-regulation describes the mutual influence of two nervous systems. Your autonomic nervous system - the part that decides about safety and threat - does not operate in isolation. It continuously reads signals from other nervous systems and calibrates itself accordingly.

Polyvagal theory (Stephen Porges) describes three states of your autonomic nervous system: the ventral vagal state (social safety, connection), the sympathetic state (fight/flight), and the dorsal vagal state (shutdown, freeze). Co-regulation means: another person's nervous system helps yours stay in - or return to - the ventral state.

For autistic people, this process is specific: your nervous system responds to different sensory signals than neurotypical nervous systems do. Your partner's voice, breathing rate, body tension, scent, predictable movement patterns - all of these are data points your nervous system reads. Not consciously. Automatically.

Why physical presence matters

Video calls and text messages deliver only a fraction of the sensory data your nervous system needs for co-regulation. What is missing:

• Proprioceptive input through physical proximity (weight, pressure, warmth)
• Scent - one of the oldest and most direct pathways to the limbic system
• Predictable movement patterns in peripheral vision
• Synchronised breathing rhythms
• The specific resonance frequency of a voice without digital compression

For autistic couples, one form of closeness is particularly regulating: parallel presence. Two people in the same room, each absorbed in their own interests, without active interaction. Clinical literature often misinterprets this as "lack of intimacy." Neurologically, it is the opposite: your nervous system registers the presence of a safe person and can drop deeper into its own focus channel. This is monotropism - attention that concentrates on fewer things at once, but more deeply - in its most regulated form.

When both partners are autistic, a particular dynamic emerges: double monotropism. Two nervous systems, both operating in deep focus states, can stabilise each other without interruption. The double empathy problem (Damian Milton) - the communication barrier between autistic and neurotypical people - does not apply here. Instead, there is an intuitive understanding of when silence is connection and when withdrawal is protection.

At the same time, sensory profiles can collide. What regulates your nervous system (certain sounds, lighting conditions, textures) may dysregulate your partner's. This is not relationship incompatibility. It is a sensory calibration task.

What happens during extended separation

When you do not see your partner for a longer period, several neurological processes occur simultaneously:

1. Loss of sensory calibration. Your nervous system has built an implicit model of your partner - voice, scent, movement patterns, touch pressure. During separation, this model becomes outdated. When you meet again, your system needs to recalibrate. This explains why the first hour after a separation often feels "strange," even though you were looking forward to it. Your predictive coding system - the brain as a prediction machine - has outdated predictions and needs to update.

2. Increased shutdown susceptibility. Without the regulating influence of a second nervous system, your tolerance threshold for sensory and emotional load drops. Situations you can handle well with your partner in the room lead to the dorsal vagal state - shutdown or freeze - more quickly when alone.

3. Compensatory self-regulation. Your nervous system seeks substitutes. This can manifest as increased stimming, more intense immersion in special interests, a stronger need for weighted blankets or pressure stimulation, altered eating habits, or changed sleep patterns. These are not symptoms. This is your nervous system attempting to compensate for the missing co-regulation.

4. Time perception and inertia. Autistic inertia - the difficulty of switching between states or activities - can intensify during separation. Without the external anchor points a partner provides through mere presence (meals, bedtimes, room changes), your day can lose its structure. This is not a lack of discipline. Your nervous system uses the presence of other people as a zeitgeber - a time cue.

The reunion

The period directly after a separation is often the most difficult. Your nervous system wants co-regulation, but the outdated prediction model generates prediction errors - small deviations between expectation and reality. The voice sounds different from what you remember. The touch does not have the expected pressure. This can feel like distance, even though closeness is there.

This recalibration process takes time. Parallel presence - being together in the same room without interaction pressure - is often the fastest path, because your nervous system can update the sensory data without interruption.