Blog post #5

Hello world! How are we all doing today?!

This week was a crazy week for discovery. I came home to Windsor this weekend to visit my family who I’ve been missing dearly. Upon entrance of the house, I notice my brother, really aggravated. I couldn’t understand what was wrong, this was new behaviour. I have a brother with high functioning autism, and he recently was taken off his Risperidone medication. I guess it was causing his hands to shake badly and this can result in a long term permanent shakes. The withdrawals, and his autism, have been causing him to act out more and be stressed out and upset.

We talked for hours about our lives and how school was going- he told me that online classes are a huge challenge for him and he’s very worried and stressed. Typically he has an EA and many resources to help him succeed but this year he is all alone.

I told him about my GH project and he liked my idea. What amazed me was that he agreed to stretch with me for the weekend! My brother is not the active type, he more of a video game guy. Whenever he was had an autism meltdown, we took a couple of minutes to stretch together. The results were OUTSTANDING. Maybe you’ve never seen an autism tantrum before, but let me tell you, they can get loud. We’d stretch together to the music of his choice. This was definitely not something I’d ever choose for stretching but again, this was to help him. So we listened to loud screaming rock and roll. 10 minutes in, he was smiling again and it was like the tantrum never happened.

My mom and my dad are going to use this method in the future with him from now on. I’m SOOO happy that something as simple as stretching can help with something so complex like autism. And this is all to my GH idea and time. I feel so smart!! Although this is not a “cure” to solving his meltdowns, it definitely can be used as a tool to deescalate the situation.

Check out my ted talk!

Namaste