i made a mistake at work today.
it was not all terrible. but for a second i though i could've traumatised a kid for the rest of his life. and that wasn't the first time my eyes got teared up at work. there is this girl i give therapy to, she is on this medication that makes her really hungry all the time. by the time she ate her breakfast, she wanted more, but i wasn't allowed to give her more food. we were in the kitchen putting her lunchbox in the fridge, and for one second i wasn't looking at her, she was grabbing other kid's breakfast. that kid was very frustrated, crying, whining, i have never seen him this frustrated. the other therapist helped me to calm both down. i got my kid out of the kitchen. i was frozen for some time in her room. cold blood rushed through my veins, made me freeze for a moment. it was my fault that i shouldn't have forgotten that her hunger made her steal others' food all the time. because it's not kids' fault that their neurons fire this way because of the autism and other medications, surgeries.
then, for our morning meeting with all the staff and kids, i stepped out from the big space for a little bit. i just observed everyone. every single kid in that area was diagnosed with autism, but they all have different traits, difficulties, vocals, everything is different for every single one of them. it just hurt me a little. maybe more than a little.
i witnessed the things i have never imagined to see in my entire life. now every day i come home with some bruises in my legs, some scratched in my neck or arms, because this goddamn autism made some kids have aggressive behaviors that they would physically hurt us. because they don't understand that they are hurting us.
one day, one of my kids grabbed my neck, pinched and bit so hard, i though it would scar me. but this aggression was the response to a small denied access. the other day, i received training on a kid on a wheelchair who can't speak, plus he has autism. imagine. just imagine for a moment. it was the first time, i learned how to take care of a person on a wheelchair. at the beginning of my training, i learned to feed a kid through a g-tube. he can't swallow. he can't eat or even drink water. he can't hold his saliva. he can't talk. he can't make sound. he can't walk properly. i don't want to imagine the rest of his life in this condition. he had so many surgeries from childhood. he always has surgeries.
my kids have mild aggression. but there are other kids who have crisis plans. some day we might not handle them, do things that would not hurt others around them. a lot of them cannot talk. we teach them how to talk. how to use their vocals, if they don't have vocals, we teach them to use their devices, pictural communication binders. we play with them, we, bunch of grown-ups, just play with them while teaching them how to live.
yeah, it does sound hurtful: we teach them how to live in this inaccessible cruel world.
i'm grateful for this job. it is teaching me that there is a life behind the "neurotypical" world, internet, social media, sugarcoating, AI, etc. i am not saying they don't matter. i am saying that there is a whole another world where children need our help. only we can help them to live a little bit happier every day.
@on_spectrum
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