Tis’ the season to… issue trigger warnings around shopping centres

In the area of profound intellectual and multiple disabilities we often talk about sensory focused practice: approaching people being mindful of their sensory preferences and challenges.

Today, I opt for a no-sense day. No, not a nonsense day, a no-sense day.

You see, yesterday my sensory system got flooded.

KMart should have warning signs: warning music will be louder (actually or just felt), your visual system will be bombarded with restocking of all the christmas crap, your proprioceptive and vestibular system will be shocked as you don’t know how to dodge the staff unstocking all the stuff with their boxes (and your won’t know how to find that copy of Bad Guys 5 because your memory will go into shut down), even your sense of smell is going to be attacked as the dial for everything is turned up.

You will go home, take migraine tablets and painkillers because your neurological system will cross all of the wires.

So today, I choose no-sense. All sounds will be barely audible, curtains will be drawn, smells will be nuetral or safely chosen, movements calculated and minimised, brain switched to slow, low, no…

I am thankful that I can choose and shape my no-sense day.

I understand why people hit out, bite, scratch, scream, bang their heads – desperate attempts to either control their systems or the explosions that come when control can not be gained. To hit, to scream, to run, to panic when the flood is uncontrollable.

Wishing everyone either the ability to regulate themsevlves or to be surrounded by insightful, empathic, educated, ambassodors to do the regulation when a person can not do it themselves. A hand to hold when the world is fragmenting; a guide rope to return to safety.

1 Comment

  1. A strange synergy, but just came across Becky Lydden’s video on Emotional Exhaustion on her Sensory Spectacular (sorry just saying that phrase gives me a little sense of panic when the sensory world is experienced as a threat) youtube. https://youtu.be/-tL79VHjOkY … while I agree that exercise can sometimes be a great diffuser, sometimes it feels like a potentially added stressor as my proprioceptive system goes into overdrive to not fall over, or my visual and auditory system become hypervigilant… For me, a sensory deprivation tank, seems like a place much more to bring my equilibrium back.

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