Pattern Finder
Floater? I barely even know her!
- Joined
- Jul 31, 2017
- Messages
- 115
This child HOWLED the entire time because he wanted to be able to walk. Like I swear I have never heard such a loud, ear piercing, scream in my entire life and the entire store could hear it. She decided to go through my side self-checkout and I couldn’t even hear myself think. She was just scanning her stuff not paying any attention to him and everyone was staring and he was just screaming and screaming and this middle aged woman at the machine across from her turns around and goes “CAN YOU PLEASE SHUT THAT KID UP!” And the mom spins around and goes “HE’S AUTISTIC YOU STUPID BITCH, MIND YOUR BUSINESS”
Oh no... I hope he recovered well from that.
Whenever autistic people experience a meltdown, it’s a physiological response (fight-or-flight mode activated) from being overloaded and/or dealing with stress. And that shit is excruciatingly overwhelming. Brain is pushed past max-capacity and convinced there is a threat among them.
Once a meltdown is happening, there is no stopping it. They’re losing control and wanting the pain to stop now. A lot of autistic people react to that through screaming, crying, self-injurying i.e. thrashing, running away, curling up into a ball etc. Some might become nonverbal while others might become semi-verbal as well throughout the meltdown.
It’s really important to communicate with autistic people beforehand if they really trust you what course of actions they want to you do before/during/after they have meltdowns. It differs from person to person.
Stimming (stimulating) doesn’t always prevent a meltdown, but it certainly helps regulate the body and brain from overloading. Tactile i.e. putty, spinning ring, thick jacket/sweater, blanket visual i.e. having pictures or videos of their special interests, auditory i.e. recorded sounds, songs and other stims for autistic people to do.
Once a meltdown is happening, there is no stopping it. They’re losing control and wanting the pain to stop now. A lot of autistic people react to that through screaming, crying, self-injurying i.e. thrashing, running away, curling up into a ball etc. Some might become nonverbal while others might become semi-verbal as well throughout the meltdown.
It’s really important to communicate with autistic people beforehand if they really trust you what course of actions they want to you do before/during/after they have meltdowns. It differs from person to person.
Stimming (stimulating) doesn’t always prevent a meltdown, but it certainly helps regulate the body and brain from overloading. Tactile i.e. putty, spinning ring, thick jacket/sweater, blanket visual i.e. having pictures or videos of their special interests, auditory i.e. recorded sounds, songs and other stims for autistic people to do.
Yeah sorry for dumping all that info there, I thought it’d be considerate to put it in a spoiler at least.
Oh yeah, big pet peeve: when parents leave their children at self-checkout and expect the person in charge of self-checkout to watch over them while they finish shopping or look for an item “real quick”. This isn’t a daycare service, we’re not getting paid to take care of your kids