Tornado sirens

Tuesday was the day that I took a class that I needed to take to be able to work in Mental Health which is what I am doing now working as a Behavior Tech.  

Tuesday morning I woke up and it was thundering out and the sky was dark and I could hear the warning sirens nearby.   Immediately I got to thinking about how a particular type of siren would terrify me as a kid.  When I would hear this siren as a kid it would sound like the siren was walking, like it was strolling down a road and then back away from me again.  Later in my life I figured out this was because of the fact the the sirens turn on top of a building.  

These days the standard type of siren is the SRN-2001 which is one tone.   This type of siren did not scare me and this was not the one that I heard growing up.  The one that I heard growing up is called a T1000 Thunderbolt which has two tones.   More and more these days the Thunderbolt sirens are being replaced with the modern SRN-2001 alert systems.   There is still a Thunderbolt on top of a building that is functional in the downtown Grand Rapids area.   

To deal with these irrational fears (which are part of my sound sensitivity issues which come with autism) I started coming up with these stories that I would put on cassette tape about a white haired  monster with a Thunderbolt siren on it's head that would come to get me during tornado warnings.   I would always know that it was a monster if the siren started speaking my name.   These monsters were horrible with huge claws and glowing orange eyes and a mouth.  Initially they looked a hairy Pac Man with claws on it.  Some of them could fly.  

My way of dealing with these monsters in my story was to shoot them with a gun.   Preferrably a shotgun.     I was happy when I was able to kill them but still dreaded the tornado warnings because I knew that they would always come back looking for me again.   One time in one of my stories they tried to enter my house.   I could see the light from their face behind my door and hear the knock and I was scared.  You could say they were a very polite monster because they knocked on the door.  

Writing is one of my coping mechanisms to deal with fear.  Sometimes I will write a story and turn my fears into a monster that I can then kill.  I used to work by Ford International Airport in Grand Rapids and the house that I would use as my "home" had two floors and a basement and had a field behind it.  There were all kinds of things that went on at this house in my stories.   But like I said this is one of my coping strategies when it comes to dealing with anxiety and other things.  

I do plan to continue to write and you might see some stories on here as well.  


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