Autism & Processing Emotions

Finian got his covid booster today.

He was not amused.  

Despite social stories, schedules and reward incentives, he screamed the fucking place down.  The staff were amazing, though, and after half an hour of slowing everything down, he got his jab.  

It was a stressful procedure for him.  

And for me.  

I learned to sweat from entirely new pores while attempting to hold him.  My heart enjoyed a few interesting new arrhythmias as it tried to exit my body.  I discovered that my son makes a pretty decent kick-boxer.

So it was quite the learning experience.

What was really surprising, though, was to witness the range of emotions Finian went through, and how he processed them. 

On the car journey to the centre he was a little anxious, but was happy about the prospect of  a hot chocolate and McDonald's afterwards.  But when we reached the centre, fear overwhelmed him.  He was locked in a full-on adrenaline-fueled flight/fright response, and reasoning was pointless.  He was terrified and incoherent.  Three of us couldn't hold him.  He kicked and screamed like he was possessed (def a 'fight' rather than 'flight' guy, it seems).  After a spell of calming him down we decided to reschedule, which meant that  Costa and McDonald's were off the cards.  When he realised this, he sat down, pulled his sleeve up and sold out for a happy meal.  His legs were shaking with fear, but he tolerated his terror to get his treat.

On the walk to get his drink he skipped, jumped and flapped to offload his adrenaline.  There may have been screaming.  In Costa, the adrenaline wore off and gave way to intense sadness.  It was like watching a tsunami rising.  His sadness swelled and he howled over his hot chocolate.  He buried his head in my shoulder and sobbed.  There was zero inhibition.  There was much lusty wailing and salty tears.  It was an unapologetic snot-fest.

After maybe ten minutes of naming his emotions and giving him space to feel them, he was ready to move on.  It was like magic.  If we could all experience and express our emotions as freely as Finian, we'd be a lot healthier and happier.

By the time we got home, he was singing Lofty and the Giant Carrot (in Albanian), so all was well.

We're conditioned to be so scared and ashamed of our own feelings that we disown them.  We're numbed out under layers of booze, drugs or mindless distraction.  Or we're paralyzed by anxiety and depression as our suppressed emotions scream to be heard.  We don't know ourselves at all.

In therapy, I'm still processing deeply buried emotions from five decades ago........  all for the want of being helped to own my shit.  It's truly humbling to witness healthy emotional processing from an autistic kid.

sofa cuddles to re-calibrate