Imagine you are in a room full of kids that can sometimes be noisy and all over the place and behavior techs trying to keep them safe and watch after them and helping them with their individual goals through ABA therapy. This is a normal day in some autism centers.
Now imagine a tech that's trying to keep his kiddo safe and work with his fellow techs and at the same time it's like sensory wise he's blowing up on the inside. That's me.
My day is constantly taking feedback from supervisors and trying to keep my clients safe and work on their programs while at the same time loud noises and just too many things and too many demands coming at me at once can lead to overload. Fortunately my supervisors understand and have given me permission to step aside if I need to and I am working on getting accommodations as well.
My job journey has led me to a computer warehouse and to a couple of distribution warehouses as well (one with screws and one with fabrics). This spring I stepped away from all that into health care and working with people on the spectrum like me because it's a real dream I've had and a real passion.
But in some areas there is a great irony, because I'm trying to help kids with sensory issues and meltdowns while I have my own battles with these same things. Yet in a unique way it really allows me to reach out and help a kid who might be going through a meltdown or a tantrum and really just needs someone to be there with them in the moment and help them out.
From my own perspective sensory driven meltdowns can be so tough sometimes. In that past things like yelling or bad language or conflict will trigger me into a nightmare which it can take a couple of hours to get out of. As a person who is a creature of routine sometimes boundary violations can be so hard and at the same time paradoxically I am working on keeping boundaries real with other people as well and this has been a life long battle.
Voice regulation can be tough and ironically some of the people that I work with have had to remind me to keep my own voice down.
My brain can also get one track and sometimes I gotta take a couple minutes and refocus my attention on what's important. Coming from a brain that can drift off into the fantasy worlds of Elder Scrolls sometimes. In fact I've become quite good at doing impressions of Urag Gro-Shub (a character at the College of Mages in Winterhold in Skyrim) where I jut my lower jaw out and do my best gravelly orc voice.
My mind can be quite driven by imagination. Growing up I watched the Jim Henson's Dark Crystal (which I watched quite a bit growing up) and the fantasy world in there inspired me to come up with my own fantasy world in my head of aliens from Zitovia and their "Supermonstee" relatives that travelled in huge groups and terrorized people. Now you've gotten an inside peak at the stuff in my head.
At the same time I look at where I am and realize that God is carving a masterpiece and he won't be done until the day that His work in me is completed here on Earth.
Blessings to all of you.
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