I’ve been down a rabbit hole lately exploring what’s being said about consciousness. Any discussion about consciousness includes the idea of the self. You’d be surprised how complicated this gets to define. It has deepened my thinking about what makes life so hard for some of the kids in your care.
I remember a 9-year-old boy back at the RTC. The kids were expected to spend 30 minutes of “quiet time’ prior to lining up to go to dinner. This little guy couldn’t do it. He’d stand in the door to his room to comply with the letter of the expectation. Sometimes he would just talk to someone in a nearby room. At other times, he’d verbally provoke and sometimes escalate the situation defiantly until he struck out physically and was placed in some kind of restraint.
I think, too, of how Dr. Temple Grandin described her use of the equipment on her family cattle ranch in Buckeye, Arizona. If you haven’t read her book, Thinking in Pictures, I highly recommend it. She watched the ranchers herd cattle into a contraption that lifted an animal off the ground briefly to be vaccinated. Noticing that the animal tolerated this and even relaxed into it inspired her to give it a try. She is the person who opened the door onto our understanding about the value of deep pressure to people with sensitive nervous systems.
So we have Temple building herself a squeeze machine, we have a 9 year old getting himself placed in a restraint, and an expansive marketing of weighted vests and blankets (used within proper boundaries). We talk about this as an issue of self-regulation and it is, but, first, it is an issue of the boundaries of self. This is where it gets so hard for the rest of us.
Most of us spend our days taking our “selves” for granted. We know that our growling stomach is a clue about our need for food. We know that our irritability might also be a clue about hunger, but it might be about how noisy or hot the room is or how rushed we’ve been for too long. Irritability is a pretty mild response to feeling overwhelmed or hungry. Imagine finding these sensations threatening. Really threatening.
I used to use my tote bag as an analogy for permeable boundaries of the self. Any passerby could easily drop any sort of contraband into my bag. Every time I place it anywhere, I have to be alert to its balance lest it spill its contents all over the place.
Now imagine your “self” like my handbag. Other’s emotions get dropped in way too easily. Given enough noise that can’t be shut out or a too busy day or a too long to-do list and it all just spills.
When I think about how this goes so wrong this is where my imagination takes me: The newborn spends most of their energy learning about the world through sensory input. They suck on a thumb or put a toe in their mouth and a feedback loop occurs: me. Put a breast or a bottle in their mouth, no loop: not me. So far, so good. Now imagine a caregiver or even just someone else present in the room who is emotionally agitated and the baby picks up the emotion. This happens over and over and over. Now we’ve got a baby primed to absorb the emotions of anyone nearby. Later, crowds might be unbearable. Even fun places like Disneyland might be too stimulating. It’s like the cumulative emotional load of the environment just floods rather than trickles through for this primed kiddo. If I sit and look around, I can begin to read the variety of emotions on the faces of the people around me but only if I focus. For some of your kids, it all just floods in, no focus, no filters, no boundary to keep it all out. It sound exhausting. No wonder they melt down.
So consult an Occupational Therapist for ideas about how your child can best be supported. Develop a safety plan with your sensitive child before asking them to enter an overstimulating environment. Assure them that you will be there to help when things are too much and that they are the best judge of their capacity to tolerate chaos or even organized novelty. Develop and respect routines. Curve balls can be so hard. Give that weighted blanket or vest a try. Invest in sound cancelling headphones. Develop a personalized repertoire of strategies that support returning to a regulated state when things are just too much (deep breathing, anything rhythmic, 30 minutes on a favorite video game or in a tent with a book, etc.).
BTW: Your stress can be contagious, too. Know your own limits and use your own strategies to take care of yourself, too.
Peace,
Cathy
Tags: Self 101, Consciousness 101, Boundaries 101
