I was seeing a particular therapist from June to November of 2018. She called herself "Bad Cop," but it was exactly her bad-A, no-shiz personality that was exactly what I needed. Towards the end of fall semester, she announced that she was going to be switching programs, and for our four last sessions together she bugged me relentlessly about finding another therapist outside of the university. I, however, am a stubborn person and I insisted I couldn't afford it. {To be fair, she told me in my first session that a symptom of my diagnosis is a will of steel that has to be bent in the right direction}. Finally last week I realized she was right, buckled down and went to therapy again.
Finding time for myself is something that is hard for me. There is a reason I have earned two full-ride scholarships for this upcoming year. I develop very rigid schedules and routines and stick to them to the breaking point, even though I know that the very thing I need to stay calm is "me time." In my go-go-go mentality, an hour spent writing my book or painting is the first to go when I know I have a test coming up in a week. I will work from the time I get up to the time I go to bed.
This week, however, I have made a conscious effort to sneak in that creative time. It's made a world of difference.
One of my favorite "creative" activities is taking my camera out to amateur-ly photograph a beautiful new place. In my head, that's a criteria for a successful summer break. So, realizing last Sunday that it was mid-July and we were yet to go on any hikes, I convinced Rachel and Dallin to join me to see a waterfall. Dallin led us to the beginning of the Timp trail, and we followed the partially smothered path up to the cool, gushing falls.
On another note, work has been an adventure in and of itself. Autism is fairly unpredictable, which means that there have been times when I have cried from getting my hair ripped out and other times when I have cried because I am laughing so hard. The other staff are phenomenal, and I love our clients to death. Recently we went to the splash pad, watched LEGO Movie 2, played MarioKart, jammed out to Old McDonald on the ukulele, painted, waded through a stream, and went to an aquarium.
The client I was assigned to at the aquarium always has to have two staff because he is a hair-puller, and typically we walk between 5-10 miles with him just circling laps around a park, because he paces so much. He also LOVES water, so we thought maybe the aquarium would interest him. BAD IDEA. We spent the first half of the morning trying to distract him away from the exit so he wouldn't run into the road, but then he saw open water and started splashing with all the strength of his upper torso.
"Um, I don't think you want to touch that water. It's actually not that clean," a worker informed him as we struggled to pull him away. He is nonverbal.
"AUTISM!" I yelped in explanation, which clicked for her the second he swan dove his head down to drink the water. South American fish scattered in terror. Soon after that we drove him to a park instead; it only took an hour for his tummy to get upset from who-knows-what-kind-of bacteria he had swallowed.
Just another day in the life.
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| the plate of ice melded together with the skeletons of trees fallen by the avalanche |
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| Dallin making me a flower crown |
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| hives from a bush |
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| a grazing moose, that we watched carefully to make sure he wouldn't charge us |
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| our dropped house key that Rachel found a few feet away from the car as we were about to head home |
