Dan and Autism

Overnight (Shadowing 12), Shadowing Day 13, Overnight (Shadowing 14)

My manager has started making overnights count for shadowing so I can hurry up and be a real staff member already.

This weekend was mostly uneventful.

Thursday night I came in for an overnight. I sat down on the couch next to one of the participants who hadn't gone to bed yet. He looked at me and then he held my hand. It was the sweetest thing in the entire world and I almost wanted to cry because that felt like a huge break through to me. Sometimes I thought these guys didn't even care if I was around or even remembered me, but I was wrong.
Then I went to bed and we didn't have any incidents that night.

I woke up Friday morning, and started waking all of the guys up. Once again, a certain someone refused to get moving and it was very frustrating, because I pretty much had to give him step by step instructions to get dressed. He knows how to do it, he just stinks at waking up in the morning. Then we took the guys to work, and I went back home for a few hours.

A few hours later, I returned to the house and the guys came back from work. We sat around for a while trying to think of something to do with the guys, and then we decided to take them bowling again. In the van, the guy with the bone disorder used his good arm to swing a bowling ball bag at my head. Luckily, he's pretty weak and it didn't hurt that bad, but it still wasn't an experience I'd like to repeat.
At the bowling alley, we had two teams, each consisting of two staff and two participants. We made a bet: whichever team won, their staff didn't have to do showers. Obviously, I was very motivated.
A funny thing about autistic people is that most of them have no sense of competition. Our guys didn't real care if they won or lost. One of them didn't even look to see if his ball knocked over any pins, he would just turn around after he threw the ball.
One of the guys in our team has a peculiar bowling style. He places the ball on the ground and then shoves it, which usually leads to almost all gutter balls. After a little bit of teaching him, however, he was able to learn to release the ball while swinging his arm. He doesn't quite have it down yet, as he would usually throw the ball almost straight up, leading it to crash down with a very long noise, before weakly rolling toward the pins.
In the end, the staff I was paired with defied all expectations and bowled a 160, which is ridiculous because he's never broken 100 before. So, we won and didn't have to do showers. It was the most meaningful win I've ever had in bowling.
After bowling, we went and got some Thai food with the guys for dinner and took it back home. Then the rest of the night was normal. We put the guys to bed and I went to sleep on the couch.

My next day will be my last day of shadowing, and I'll finally be a real staff member. I'm very much looking forward to sleeping in a bed during overnights.

posted by Daniel @ 11:30 PM