My Hands Feel Painfully Numb After Being In The Cold (Autism Temperature Sensitivity)
My family keeps the house very hot sometimes. Sometimes, they keep the house at 60°F. I wake up at 4:30am and can immediately tell how cold the entire house is—not just my room. Even under my weighted blanket, the cold is obvious. When it's really cold like this, I have to wait for things to warm up before I can get up and do anything else. On top of that, this is extremely stressful on days I have to go to work so I have account for this energy costs for something I can't truly plan for (No AC in my room, and family is very strict with me messing with the temperature around the house.)
When My Hands Go Numb
After 15-20 minutes in the cold, my hands become very numb. Moving my fingers even a little bit is uncomfortable to the point where I can't pick anything up, open doors, or write something down without being in immense discomfort. The cold doesn't just feel uncomfortable—it removes my hand function entirely.
It also feels physically painful to interact with anything, and I'm trying to hold my hands together to warm them up, but they just feel like there's shards rubbing against the edges of the skin of my fingers. It's very physically and mentally taxing especially.
Why rideshare makes it worse
I use rideshare to get to work. I wait 5-20 minutes for my rideshare pickup. The problem is, the waittime is unpredictable. It could be 4 minutes, 7 minutes, or even 18 minutes. (Slightly less the time to actually get to work, so basically waiting double for in most cases a higher fee).
I wear gloves, but they don't help all that much, and if I have heated gloves with a battery of some kind in them, it's alerted by security and a write up is immediatlely put in the system, via their "asset policy". By the time my driver arrives, (Using the 1-10 energy slider context in mind) I'm already at 3 energy from the cold.
Then I have to deal with unexpected small talk when I meet my driver, which easily pushes my energy down to just 2 most cases, rarely around 1. All before I even get to my warehouse job, which has many unpredictable factors and sensory-related stress moments such as abrupt louder and slamming of boxes on tables and totes on the ground.
Heat affects me just as badly—different sensation, but a similar energy cost regardless.
What I tried
I tried running my hands under very hot water at the sink. I thought it would warm them up fairly quickly. Instead, it made the cold sensation on my hands even more noticeable. I could feel them visibly tingling, and it increased my sensitivity to whatever handles or doors I touched. This persisted well over half an hour after running my hands under hot water.
It felt like my nerves were louder, not warmer.
I have a heater in my room, but it takes several hours to get moderately warmer. Even when I'm under my bedsheets, it's still frustratingly cold.
Why it affects work performance
I have to use my hands constantly at work—picking up packages, putting stuff away. My hands already being cold when I arrive makes it hard for my muscles and fingers to warm up. This is stressful because I have to maintain a certain speed at all times during my shift to avoid getting in trouble.
If I'm at 6 energy when I get to work with cold hands, it's slightly more manageable since there's a shorter window for my hands to warm up. If I arrive at work already at 2–3 energy, my hands take longer to ‘come online,’ and I’m racing the rate pressure the whole time.
I'm Omari, a 23-year-old autistic adult who's been managing chronic burnout for 5+ years while working warehouse shifts.
I feel tracking has shown me when cold days will wipe me out before work starts—so I can plan around it instead of blaming myself. On cold days, always stay instead until my driver is here, giving me at least a 1 minute buffer to walk to my driver instead of my hands being painfully cold the minute I step outside.
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— Omari
Note: I’m describing my sensory experience, not giving medical advice. If you're experiencing severe burnout or crisis, please consult a healthcare provider familiar with autism.