#my bracelet is really helpful for anxiety. a great subtle fidget

[fandomtransmandom]

Finally found a clip where Bill discusses Barry's KIA bracelet! It's from a few years ago, but I was excited. Maybe someday we'll learn the story behind PFC Jack Gootsan🤔

Got a little piece of Barry cosplay...

Special thanks to Veteran-owned business Triton Engraving on Etsy. They did a fantastic job and I highly recommend their services.

[rousseaubsc2b]

30 Days of Autism Acceptance: Day 6

April 6: Talk about stimming. What does it mean to you? In what ways do you stim?

I had always thought that stimming served the same purpose as bouncing and fidgeting did for people with ADHD -- I had a friend who couldn’t sit still, and it was just repetitive movement out of boredom. Now that I am actually accepting my own autism, stimming has a whole new meaning -- some of it is dealing with anxiety (I fidget with my bracelets or rings all the time), some of it is out of boredom (I’d say about 50% of it actually). But I also think stimming is something of an answer to a sensory need -- not to harp on the puzzle piece analogy, but it’s like putting two pieces together and they fit perfectly. And when the stim fits, it just makes things a little more bearable. Helps me think a little more clearly.

I stim in all sorts of ways, both subtle and super obvious. I wiggle my feet in bed at night trying to go to sleep, rubbing my feet on the bed sheets. If I’m sitting and listening to someone speak, I’ll rock back and forth or side to side a little to focus. In church sometimes I’ll use the beads on my rosary to keep track of how many times the priest says a certain word, like Jesus, to keep from getting distracted. I snap my fingers and clap my hands, shake my hands when I have bracelets on and make them make noise or move against my skin. I wear necklaces with pendants I can play with -- John got me one that’s a key about an inch and a half long, and I’ll fiddle with that all day (it’s my new favorite, actually). Retractable pens that click, buttons and snaps, magnet closures, all fantastic stim toys. Hook and loop fasteners, undoing them and reattaching them, the sound is excellent. Those reversible sequin pillows -- Sherlock found an entire blanket made of that stuff -- it’s great fun. I also REALLY like playing with kinetic sand, I just haven’t been able to find any. And let’s not forget bubblewrap --- the kind with tiny bubbles on them, walking on it barefoot, smooshing a bunch of them down with your hands on a table? Fantastic!

I think there’s also an argument that can be made for singing as a form of stimming. It’s an auditory stim and I think it could also be an oral stim, plus it’s just very fun. I also have a couple of stims that I keep private, John knows about them, main one being I have a soother to help me sleep some nights. But I digress. Oh, and Rosie -- playing with her hair, letting her play with my fingers, letting her lay on me and crawl on my back while I’m laying down -- she’s a big help too. Everything about holding her and being with her is just one big sensory happy.

I also have a weighted blanket as of about a week ago -- gosh I love it -- the only issue is I get very warm when I sleep, so I can’t wait until I get the cover for my blanket and I can sleep with just it and not another blanket on top of it.

--Emma

[anothergirlrecovering]

Lynn 36

Unfortunately this was one of those sessions where I felt like it was a complete waste of time and money. When I got there she asked me if I wanted any coffee or tea or anything and I said no thank you. She asked if I was sure that I didn't want any coffee and I reminded her that I don't actually drink coffee. She said she was just checking and she sat down. I asked how her shoulder was doing and she said it is starting to feel better. She said that they had done this weird procedure where it was almost like they took suction cups to her shoulder and it was really bruised and gross. LOL so basically I spent the next few minutes educating her on what cupping is and how it works and that they do that in acupuncture is well. I told her I had looked up frozen shoulder and the prognosis wasn't looking so good and she said there's always the possibility that she will need surgery at some point but she is hoping that with the physical therapy it will be all right. She said it depends on the day and some days are better than others, and I pointed out that the weather will affect it as well because of the air pressure changes. She said she hadn't even thought of that but it makes sense then why it was bothering her more the other day when it was raining. She also said she hadn't known what cupping was or what they were doing but that she was glad her physical therapist knows what she's doing because she did that. She asked how I was doing and I said I was OK but that the weekend had sucked. She asked what happened and I explained that my husband and I had ended up fighting the entire time. She said there must be something in the air because I am the second person today to say that the weekend went poorly and that there was lots of spousal fighting. I pointed out that it was a holiday weekend and that the majority of us may have spent more time with each other and may have seen each other's family which would likely trigger everyone. She said she hadn't really thought of that but it makes sense. She asked me what happened, and I went into details about all of the fighting. I explained how mom when we were at my husband's mothers house we ended up fighting about dandruff and how we have such poor conflict resolution skills and we literally just decided to be over it and stop fighting and move on. I explained how Friday night we ended up fighting about me thinking he needs therapy because he brought up freaking out about his hair and that he had been pulling out his eyebrows because he was stressed but that he basically says this is all normal and that he doesn't want to do therapy. Lynn basically said that she thinks I will have to come at it from a different angle and try to maybe just drop subtle hints like about how EMDr works so quickly or how it has really helped people on that I'm working with you have anxiety or something that might encourage him to think differently about it. She also pointed out presenting more positive reflections on how therapy is helping me to help him recognize that there is a benefit he may want. I pointed out that he had turned it on me and pointed out the fact that I have been in therapy for seven or eight years and there are still days when I come home upset for no reason and she laughed and said of course he did because it's easier to focus on my stuff and my problems than it is to look at his own. She asked if I thought that he would be willing to do couples counseling with me and if it would be possible to drive all the way to where she is because there's one counselor who she thinks would be a really good fit for us and she does evening appointments. I told her it was a possibility and I could always try talking to him about it if it was a real option for us. She said this therapist gets along really great with guys and she thinks that we would all work well together. She said she really thinks we could both benefit from couples therapy and being able to connect and have better conflict resolution and that she thinks this therapist would be aware of treating his aces. She said there is a new study that was being done at UT on the ace study and how the addiction model is failing because it isn't treating trauma. I explained that my husband had five aces, and that there were two more that he experienced with his dad but his dad didn't actually live in the home so he didn't say that it counted. She pointed out that my husband is a good guy but then he need some guidance and some help processing some of the stuff. I agreed and she was laughing and apologize for laughing and said that she knows it's not funny but it's kind of funny because I pointed out that he is upsetting about his hair and then I had come home the other day and he was just laying in bed naked and saying he was depressed and upset about his hair. I explained that I don't really know what else to say or do to be helpful about his hair loss obsession. I told her that on a more positive note I had written a positive song about parenting my kids differently than my mom dad and I brushed over that quickly because I didn't really want to get into the details or explain it but I wanted her to know that it was something positive that happened. I told her about the little girl in the Mormon church and home I wasn't triggered this time. She pointed out what a huge positive that was and shows so much growth and healing. I asked her if she was ready for the negative and she said yes so I explained how am I had gotten really triggered and upset on Friday night after my session and thinking about my own experience with gaining a significant amount of weight in puberty. What sucks is she misinterpreted what I had men and had thought that it was the Doctor Who had responded poorly when in reality it was my mom who had responded poorly and had literally brought me to the doctors because she was concerned about my weight gain. She asked me how I handled it and I explained that I had cried and texted my friend amanda about it and that Amanda had asked me what I would want to say to that little 14-year-old kid. She asked if Amanda is a therapist and I said she's in a PhD program to be a therapist LOL and she said that makes sense. I told her that I had started to do it Amanda had asked but then I had gotten upset and told her never mind and said I would wait to talk about it in therapy. She pointed out that she didn't think this experience was a negative because I had allowed myself to feel the pain and cry and had reached out for support and that sometimes the best thing is to just allow yourself to feel the pain. She also pointed out that I had literally given that kid the compassion that I would've wanted to give the 14-year-old self and that it's different and easier to look at it from an outside perspective and that as a therapist we are often going to be in situations where we get triggered or think about things. She pointed out that most therapists or at least the good ones have been through painful things and that is why we are so able to empathize with others, which I agreed. She pointed out that it was at a disappointment because I had texted my mom and my mom had further disappointed me which is a reminder that my mom still can't be there for me. She also asked if we were going under the assumption that my mom has an eating disorder, then how would that have changed that experience. I said that I would guess my mom would not have wanted me to be fat because it gave her anxiety, which Lynn said would be that my mother would project onto me. I said I wasn't really sure because my brother hit a chubby stage when he was 13 and he didn't really grow out of it and while they definitely constantly got onto him about his weight gaining about needing to cut back on snacks and eat better and exercise more, it didn't seem to affect him. Lynn said we only have like 10 minutes so there really wasn't enough time to do EMDR so she asked me more about my brother. I said that looking back I can see that he obviously had a lot of anxiety because he had issues with chewing on his shirt when he was old enough to know that he needed to not be chewing on his shirt or his jacket and that he also had an issue with playing with his hands as a kid and that the teacher had thought it was Tourette's or something but that now I realize he probably would've been diagnosed with ADHD or anxiety because he was constantly moving and fidgeting. She asked me why he had always gone so carsick and if that was related to his anxiety. I pointed out that I think it really was just motion sickness because he only got carsick if it was a longer car ride like 30 minutes and that what they had found to work was not feeding him before the long car trip and giving them the bracelets and that I had thought that he was always throwing up for all of those years but that she would just get nauseous and not actually throw up but by that point once he would say his tummy hurt, I would have a panic attack and dissociate and I didn't realize that he wasn't even actually throwing up. I explained that my brother and I are pretty different and that when he looks back at his life he says that childhood was great and that the only issue was in high school when he got bullied when he had to change schools. I said I think my brother has some social anxiety but outside of that he isn't a perfectionist and he isn't really super driven or interest about his performance or anything like that. I explained to Lynn that I felt like in thinking about our last session and how at the end it had surprised me that the thought but it popped into my head when she asked why I don't have to fight my parents anymore is because I'm not fat anymore according to their standards or at least I don't think I am, and that when I got upset on Friday about the weight gain of puberty it occurred to me that maybe those issues or things that I needed to process them because they were some of the underpinnings of what helped form the eating disorder. I explained that when I think about eating disorder memories that bother me, I always think of ones that were byproduct of having the illness, but that things like the waking up puberty would've been things that came before and sort of set the notion that I needed to be thin. She said that made sense and that it would sort of be us trying to figure out what things still needed to be processed. She hadn't realized that my doctor was not the one who handled my weekend poorly but that it was my mom which she said change things. She had thought that it was the Doctor Who had embarrassed mean, but really it was my mom who had made me feel like there was something wrong with me. She pointed out that we could start there next time but that she was really glad to hear about how I had not been triggered in church and what great progress that was. We scheduled for a week from today And I paid her. She told me safe travels back and I thanked her and left. I just hate feeling like I wasted my time and money to basically just vent when I could've called Amanda and told her the same thing and still not felt any better.