Dan and Autism

Four Days At Cape May With Autustic Men Is Not A Vacation

Wednesday night was the start of my 96-hour adventure with our residents in our vacation house in Cape May, NJ. Two other employees and I drove up together and got there around 10 PM, just in time for everyone to go to bed. Since every employee was up there at the time (we were the second half of the vacation's staff, so the first half was still there), there weren't enough bedrooms. Shockingly, I went back to couch duty.

I awoke at five in the morning to Bones screaming next to me on the couch. If you remember correctly, this is what happened on my first overnight two months ago. My career has come full circle in a very short time. Anyway, I put him back to bed, and then awoke to Bones's roomate sitting next to me 45 minutes later, because he doesn't like Bones and avoids him as much as possible. I hadn't yet accepted that I wasn't going to get more than a few hours of sleep this trip, but that realization was coming soon.

During the day, two of our staff took half of our guys to the boardwalk in Wildwood. We jokingly call those three guys the "A-Team," because they're the best behaved and are able to go out in public without much trouble. That would leave the "B-Team" to myself and my manager inside the vacation house. One of our guys had to go into restraints for pressing, and I think we had to do this at least once every day. Maybe he's uncomfortable with unfamiliar surroundings, causing him to tense and press on himself. After the day was complete, I was able to get a bed and a room. Well, it was actually a pull out couch, and it was in the loft above the living room. I soon learned that this really didn't count as it's own room, because I could still hear Bones when he screamed at five AM again in the living room. Why can't that guy just sleep? When I put him back to bed, his roomate came out again, and I realized this was probably going to happen every day.

Friday, my manager and I decided to take the A-Team deep sea fishing. When I agreed to this, I was not aware of two very important things: First, the boat ride is four hours longer. Second, my manager would be doing most of the fishing while I would be dealing with hyperactive, scared, and seasick autistic men. Two of the spots in the A-Team are always the same two guys, because they're never trouble in public. But the third spot rotates between my 5 AM buddy and another resident who loves to make noises, jump up and down, and touch everything that doesn't belong to him. After our boat trip, I'd like to permanently disqualify him from A-Team status. Bringing him on a four hour boat ride was an absolutely terrible idea. On the outside of the boat, he ran around and touched other people's fishing rods and snacks and anything that he really shouldn't have been touching, all while my manager just called his name and kept fishing. I decided to take him inside the seating part of the boat, since he couldn't be controlled outside and my manager was more focused on her fishing. In her defense, she did have a sentimental reasoning for never putting down her fishing pole, but the fact is, we're at work, and we're supposed to be taking care of our guys, so I was very unhappy. I had to keep Jumpy (we'll call him that for now) from running into strangers, leaning over the side of the boat, and shouting nonsense. To make matters worse, there was something wrong with his eye, so he kept sticking his grubby fingers into it, or trying to use my fingers to rub his eye. It broke my heart when he pointed to his eye with my hand and said "help me, help me" in his version of English, and all I could tell him was that he had to wait another three and a half hours before we could get him eye drops. I finally got him to settle down when I suggested that we all take a nap, so he stretched out and laid his head on my lap and his feet on another A-Team member. By this point, all three of the guys had come inside to join me, because one didn't like being outside and I think the other didn't like the rocking of the boat. I was getting particularly annoyed at this point, becuase of all three guys are inside and not fishing, then my manager should not have been outside fishing. At one point, the boat rocked pretty violently, causing my seasick guy to reach out and grab my hand, which he's never done before. Jumpy woke up and went back to being trouble. I doubt I've ever felt more relief than when the boat docked. I felt like I had spent all day running a marathon. In conclusion, if you have ever thought about taking an seasick-prone hyperactive autistic man on a boat for a long fishing trip, I advise against it.

Later that night, we took all of our participants to a very loud restaurant, where and old guy with a huge beard was playing loud country cover songs. I always couldn't get one of our participants to his table because he was so disturbed by the noise that he refused to walk by the musician for a while. I had the pleasure of sitting between that skittish individual and the resident that presses on himself. Our presser was good, but the first guy was being very annoying. Whenever he gets a drink, even at meals, he drinks it all right away. I think this is because he's a food stealer. That means that whenever he can, he likes to steal a kind of good. In his case, it's sodas and water. So, whenever he steal something, he has to drink it as fast as he can before someone catches him. I supposed he does this at meals because he's afraid someone will take his drink away from him. Anyway, after he drank all of his, he kept tapping me on the shoulder and pointing at my water, which he wanted. I told him no. So then he would try to just take my glass. I told him to eat his ice. When we got our food, he wasn't happy with his potato chips and wanted to eat my delicious french fries. I told him no, and to eat his own food. Especially since he at almost all of the appetizer for the entire table. This is the first time it's happened to me, but he actually tried to quickly grab a handful of my fries while my attention was turned to one of the other participants. I caught his arm, however, and made him release my fries, and then got in his face and told him, "There is no food stealing." He and I have a sort of funny interaction where whenever he gets mad at me for not giving him what he wants, he gets in my face and tries to intimidate me by making this ridiculous "angry face." So I bar my teeth and give him one back, occasionally accompanied by a growl, and he quickly shrinks back and gives the "I'll be good" sign.

In the next post, I'll cover Saturday and Sunday.

posted by Daniel @ 10:17 AM