Since I have been able to accept, process, and work through healing from some of my past abuse I have been able to explain to David how words, actions, and behaviors affect me. Before, I was unable to gather words to speak to him. Part of that has to do with his personality, but it also has to do with my inability to know or share what I am feeling or why. This bit of information helped me to understand how much Daniel was feeling unsafe in his environment. Like many things, I had an understanding, but it had not truly registered. Daniel has been unable to communicate his sensory struggles, feelings, triggers, people, and situations that cause him to feel unsafe. He did not feel emotionally safe in his environment for a long time because it has been and still is difficult for him to understand his emotions, our emotions, or reasons for people’s actions.
But the greatest obstacle has been his physical environment.
I am at an advantage in the sense that I have more experience with emotion and time interacting, observing, and analyzing to create some sort of conclusions about what people are doing and why. He does not have that what other people take for granted such being able to read body language, tone, expressions on faces and applying that to a situation or emotion does not come easily for us. I have practice and I still get confused. He has relied heavily on his physical environment to be a safe place, however; he is extremely sensory sensitive and is dependent upon his routines to bring peace. He can understand his environment and he expects it to be reliable. If it is too stressful of an environment he cannot function. In other houses we have lived in the sensory aspect was too overwhelming which, caused him to be in a constant state of anxiety and “fight or flight” mode.
This hinders anyone’s ability to process information.Continued ... Improving Physical and Emotional Environment II
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