# 30 - AuDHD at the Beach: When Calm and Chaos Exist in the Same Place

In this episode of Quietly Autistic at Last, we explore the layered experience of being AuDHD at the beach, a place that can feel both deeply regulating and unexpectedly overwhelming. What is often seen as a peaceful escape can also bring sensory intensity, social pressure, and executive functioning demands that shift the experience entirely.

Through personal reflection and psychological insight, this episode unpacks the paradox of craving environments that simultaneously soothe and overstimulate, and what that reveals about the AuDHD nervous system. If you’ve ever felt both calm and depleted in the same space, this conversation offers language, validation, and a gentler way to understand your experience. 

A gentle reminder that this podcast is for psychoeducational and reflective purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health care. If you are in immediate distress in the United States, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline.

Transcript

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Welcome back to Quietly Autistic at Last, the podcast where we make sense of the experiences many of us lived long before we had the language for them. I'm your host, Dr. Allison Sukamelli, and this is a space for reflection, understanding, and honoring the way your brain actually works, not the way the world expected it to. And before we begin, just a general reminder that this podcast is for psychoeducational and reflective purposes only and is not a substitute for medical or mental health care. If you are in immediate distress in the United States, you can call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. And today's episode is one I've been wanting to sit with for a while because it captures something that feels almost paradoxical. We're talking about being awd at the beach. Because the beach is supposed to be relaxing, right? It's supposed to be peaceful, restorative, a place where people go to unwind. And for many people it is. But for those of us who are both autistic and ADHD, the beach can be both one of the most regulating places and one of the most overwhelming environments we can step into. It can feel like healing and it can feel like too much, sometimes within the same hour. So let's start with the part people don't always talk about enough, the peace. The beach, two specific beaches, in fact, are my favorite places in the whole world. And when I go there, it feels like some sort of homecoming, especially if it's empty. And there is a reason so many neurodivergent people are drawn to the ocean. The sensory experience of the beach in the right conditions can be deeply regulating to the nervous system. The sound of the waves is rhythmic and predictable. It has a pattern, it rises, it falls, it repeats. And for an autistic nervous system that often seeks predictability in a chaotic world, that rhythm can feel like relief. There is also something about the vastness of the ocean. It does not crowd you. It does not demand anything from you. It just exists, and that can feel profoundly grounding when you are someone who has spent a lifetime navigating expectations, social rules, masking and overstimulation. The visual openness, the horizon stretching out can feel like your brain finally has space to breathe. And for ADHD, there is also a kind of gentle stimulation happening. The movement of the water, the sparkle of light on the surface, the shifting patterns in the sand. It is not boring, it is engaging, but not in a way that demands urgency or performance. It is the kind of stimulation that does not hijack your attention, it holds it. You are not being pulled in ten directions. You are not trying to focus, your attention just rests. It is the kind of stimulation that does not hijack your attention, it holds it. You are not being pulled in ten directions. You are not trying to focus, your attention just rests. And there is also something deeply regulating about being near water itself. Many people experience what is sometimes called a blue space effect, where bodies of water help reduce stress and support emotional regulation. I know this is true for me. And for someone living with the constant push and pull of ADHD, seeking stimulation while also being easily overwhelmed, the beach can feel like one of the few environments that meets both needs at the same time. It is soft stimulation, predictable unpredictability, alive but not demanding, and for a moment your system can settle. And this past Sunday, I went to one of my favorite beaches for the first time in several years. It had been too long. I arrived at 9 a.m. and I'm not gonna lie, it was cold. And this came after a long heat wave in Southern California, and of course, I hit the first day of temperatures significantly dropping. Despite this, I still sat out in a bikini in what I call my Cadillac chair. It's big and comfy, and I could stay in it all day if I wanted to. But the beach was empty, sprawling, if you will, with the cliffs and the point and the vast expanse of ocean. It was foggy and for the first time in my life I could actually hear a real fog horn in the distance beckoning ships into safety. In a way, it's a reminder, even when you can't be seen clearly, there are still ways to be known. But then we have the other side of the beach experience. The beach is not just waves and horizon, as magical as that may be. It is also people, noise, unpredictability, sensory input coming from every direction and often all at once. And this is where the experience can start to shift. As my Sunday went on, the beach began to fill in with photographers, doing engagement photos and family photos, tourists, locals, workout enthusiasts, and people of all ages engaging in a variety of activities and attention-getting behaviors. My peace, my solitude begins to shift. And so while the ocean itself might feel regulating, everything around it can quickly become dysregulating. It does happen in the blink of an eye. And the soundscape alone can be a lot. You have the waves, yes, but you also have conversations, music from speakers. On this particular Sunday, it was loud, bad music to my right, and loud music to my left, accompanied by 20-something-year-olds trying to impress one another and those of us around them with various circus tricks, handstands, cartwheels, and slapstick falls. There were also children yelling, people laughing, dogs barking on the boardwalk, seagulls, the seasoned thief of the sea, squawking and stealing food from patrons, encampments who have gone for a quick dip in the water. And unlike the rhythm of the ocean, these sounds are not predictable. They spike, they overlap, they interrupt each other. And for an autistic nervous system, that kind of auditory unpredictability can feel like static. And for ADHD, it can pull your attention in multiple directions at once, creating a sense of internal restlessness or agitation. I found myself struggling quite a bit, especially in the early afternoon when the clouds burned off and the sun made a full debut for the day. Then there is a physical sensory experience. Sand sounds romantic until it is everywhere. In your shoes, on your skin, sticking to sunscreen, getting into places you did not expect. And for some people, that texture is manageable. For others, it can feel like constant low-level irritation that builds over time. I did, however, see a good trick for this online, which may be helpful for anyone of any age for a variety of reasons. Simply take a plastic grocery bag, fill it with ocean water, bring it back to where you are packing up or to an area where there isn't sand, or to your car if you don't have a hike back to your car. Then you can dip your feet into the bag of water to clean your feet and put on flip-flops without sand. Surely there's an art to perfecting this strategy, but it's great for dipping little feet and cleaning off toys as well. And another sensory factor is the sun. Bright light, heat, glare off the water, these can all contribute to sensory overload, especially if your system is already working hard to process everything else. And I've learned that I have to have a hat and sunglasses in order to be comfortable in this environment. And it may not be pretty, but it helps me be comfortable and a little incognito. Which leads us to the social layer. The beach is often a highly social environment. Groups of people, unspoken norms, expectations about how to behave, where to sit, and how to interact. And for someone who has spent years masking, this can activate that familiar internal monitoring system. Am I doing this right? Do I look relaxed enough? Should I be talking more? Am I sitting weird? Do I seem awkward? Even in a place that is supposed to be about relaxation, the pressure to appear a certain way can quietly follow you. And for some reason, little kids constantly want to come up to me and talk, even if their only word is a repeated beep. And they like to run up to the edge of my towel and wave at me, which is adorable, but then I get constant apologies from the parents, which I don't mind the little kids at all, but now I'm engaging with and absorbing the anxiety of the adults, and I begin to feel a swarming sense of people closing in on me as the day goes on, and people begin to squeeze in closer and closer to me as the vacancies on the beach begin to fill in. And upon arrival, I had even strategized placing myself next to some large pieces of driftwood to act as a placeholder to give me some space from other people. It worked for a while, but a couple of ladies and their kids decided to set up camp within the arc of the driftwood, so close that I could reach out and touch their towels if I wanted to. And of course, I could hear every gossipy word of their conversation, and one mom encouraging her 13-year-old daughter to go talk to a boy and take one for the team because it appeared that he lived in one of the nearby beach houses. Perhaps you can see why I struggled with their conversations. And this is one of the complexities of ADHD. You might want to be there, you might even love the idea of the beach. Parts of it genuinely feel good, but your nervous system is still taking in everything and it does not filter it the way neurotypical systems might. And what starts as peaceful can slowly tip into overwhelming without a clear moment where it changes. Peace kind of erodes as the day goes on, and what was a peaceful empty beach in the morning evolves into spiraling chaos in the afternoon. There is also the executive functioning layer that often gets overlooked. Going to the beach is not just going to the beach. It is planning, packing, remembering everything you might need towels, sunscreen, water, snacks, chairs, an umbrella, perhaps. Maybe that's why it took me so long to get back to the beach. I debated it the night before, began planning my jaunt, got sandwiches ready, and pulled out a little cooler that's been sitting in my garage for years unused. But something in me decided now was the time and I was going to do this. The next morning at around 9 a.m., I felt like I was running late for the beach. And that executive functioning layer is also navigating parking, walking potentially long distances, carrying items, finding a spot, and setting everything up. And for someone with ADHD, that level of preparation and organization can already be draining before you even arrive. And by the time you are sitting down, your nervous system might not be starting from neutral, it might already be partially depleted. And another piece that can come up for all DHD individuals at the beach is the internal conflict between stimulation and shutdown. Part of you might feel restless, wanting to move, wanting novelty, wanting something to do, while another part of you might feel overwhelmed, wanting stillness, wanting quiet, and wanting less. And this push and pull can feel confusing if you do not recognize it as part of the AwDHD experience. You might think, why can't I just relax? Or why am I bored and overwhelmed at the same time? And this is actually a very common dual experience. An ADHD seeks engagement, autism seeks regulation, and sometimes those needs do not line up neatly. You might find yourself shifting positions, walking along the shore, sitting back down, checking your phone, staring at the water, feeling calm for a moment, and then suddenly irritated. It is not inconsistency. It is a nervous system trying to meet multiple needs at once. And for my first time back to the beach, I stayed anchored in my chair, only moving periodically to lay on my oversized towel. And I wanted to go in the water several times, debated it in my head for hours, but ultimately ended up staying in the same spot from about 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., resulting in a sunburn despite several rounds of SPF 30 sunblock. And this brings us to the importance of recovery time. For many neurotypical people, a day at the beach is energizing. For many odd DHD individuals, it can be both regulating and depleting. Honestly, I did not want to pack up. I felt a little depressed having to leave, especially as the crowds began to die down and the scene was beginning to return to the desolate beach that I started my morning with. And you might leave feeling calm in one way but exhausted in another. And that does not mean you did something wrong. It means your system processed a lot, even if it looked like you were just sitting there. So what do we do with this? How do we honor both sides of the experience? The goal is not to avoid the beach if you love it. The goal is to understand your nervous system well enough to support it. And this might look like choosing less crowded times, early mornings, weekdays, or quieter beaches. It might mean bringing items that support regulation, noise-reducing headphones. I wish I had brought my earbuds with me, but I also wanted to take in the natural sounds. You may select shaded areas and comfortable seating. I invested in the best chair ever years ago, and it's still going the distance. It's a backpack style, comfy chair, which is helpful for the steep hike up some hills and stairs. And supporting your nervous system in the beach environment might even mean giving yourself permission to leave earlier than others, to take breaks, or to walk away and reset. It might also mean adjusting expectations. You do not have to stay all day for it to count. You do not have to experience it the way other people do. You are allowed to engage with environments in a way that works for your system, not against it. And maybe more than anything, this is about shifting the narrative. So many of us grew up feeling like we were too sensitive, too reactive, too particular, or too easily overwhelmed. What if your experience at the beach is not some sort of flaw? What if it is information? What if it is your nervous system communicating what it needs in an environment that is both beautiful and intense? Because the truth is, the beach is a lot. It is just that not everyone processes it the same way. There is something poetic about this too. The ocean itself holds both calm and chaos, gentle waves and powerful currents, stillness and movement. And maybe being Aud is not so different. It is not one or the other, it is both. And learning to navigate that does not mean eliminating one side. It means understanding how they coexist. And if you have ever gone to the beach and felt both deeply peaceful and strangely overwhelmed, if you have ever left wondering why something that was supposed to relax you also exhausted you, or if you have ever felt like your experience did not match what everyone else seemed to be feeling, you are not alone and you are not doing it wrong. You are processing it through a nervous system that takes in more, notices more, and feels more. And that deserves understanding, not judgment. And as we close today's episode, I want to leave you with this. You are allowed to experience places differently. You are allowed to need adjustments. You are allowed to honor both the parts of you that seek calm and the parts of you that need stimulation. You are allowed to build experiences that actually support your nervous system instead of forcing yourself into ones that do not. Okay, so there you have it. Thank you for being here with me today. If this episode resonated with you, you can follow along on Instagram at Quietly Autistic at Last Podcast, where we continue these conversations in small, meaningful ways. And as always, you can listen to Quietly Autistic at Last wherever you get your podcast. Until next time, this is Dr. Allison Sukamelli. Stay gentle with yourself. Your brain was never broken, it was always trying to find environments where it could finally feel at home. Take care and I will see you next week.