Not-So-Baby Nurse Chronicles

He got the lead out….

Science and care for humanity and standing up for the right thing in opposition to corporate oil profit….

I’d back a 5 December tumblr holiday too…

Be like Clair Cameron Patterson.

I Promise to be there if:

You’ve had a bad call

Its been a long shift

Your patient has taken a turn for the worse

The day is just not going your way

You feel like you could do better

For anything at all, even if its not work related

And especially for the good news and great days

At my current travel assignment, my desk is in an open office area with the house supervisor. So I get to hear a lot about what is going on all over the hospital.

During a recent shift, a unit called and asked for help because a patient's family member was being belligerent and complaining and wanted both to make a verbal complaint to the HS and file a written grievance.

Was the family upset about the care being provided? Nope. They were upset because they wanted to bring in more visitors than allowed by policy to visit the pt (like multiple more than allowed) and had been told no every time they asked, but they saw a room down the hall that had more visitors than they did, and it wasn't fair.

Staff tried multiple time to explain there are sometimes extenuating circumstances before finally resorting to telling them the truth (thinking surely that would get the family to back down) that the other patient was dying and there were allowances in policy for that.

Did it help, fuck no. Family member literally said they didn't care if someone else was dying, they still deserved to also be allowed extra visitors.

The reasons why a neurotypical stims is usually different to why an autistic person does, however, the reasons can be the same. Stimming can help in stressful situations where anxiety levels are high. You’re more likely to notice a neurotypical person stimming when they are particularly anxious, for example in an exam or a job interview. Autistic people stim as a way of expressing emotions, for example we will stim when we are happy or excited, not just when we are anxious. Autistic people frequently experience sensory overloads and stimming helps to calm us down.

I find it ironic and hypocritical when neurotypicals make fun of autistics for stimming when they literally stim too. My parents will comment on my stimming when my mum is sat there biting her nails and my dad is bouncing his leg and picking his skin. How are my stims wrong and their stims right? Before you judge an autistic person for stimming take a look at yourself because I can guarantee you stim in one way or another. Let’s normalise and embrace stimming because not only is it beautiful, it’s incredibly important. Suppressing stims can be detrimental to our mental health.

I hate it when people mock or berate neurodivergent people for being ‘too expressive’ or whatever.

Like a lot of ND people have heightened senses of taste and texture, and our brains often process sensory stimulation in different - and much more intense - ways.

And for a lot of people that comes out as having a lot of issues with sensations - more food is actively disgusting for one thing - and when disgust hits that nerve when your brain registers the food as an active threat to your safety that’s not something you can ignore!

So yeah! Autistic people pull faces of disgust! Autistic people spit food out! Autistic people are ‘fussy’ and refuse to eat or smell the foods that they know they do badly with! because unpleasant sensory experiences hit the ‘pain’ part of the brain and also the reflex of ‘this will actually kill me if I touch it I know it’s just yoghurt but literally it feels the same as asking me to eat poison and that is a very distressing thing to ask me to do’

Or they flinch or get upset by or put their hands over their ears when there’s a distressing sound!

And People. Are. So. Rude. about it.

They say “stop overreacting” “stop complaining” “stop being so dramatic” “ugh just let us enjoy the meal”

But as soon as a neurotypical experiences something?

then it’s “lol it was so gross I pulled a face just like [autistic person I know]”

Because that isn’t an “Autistic thing”

it’s a HUMAN THING

Disgust is universal! and the sensations experienced by autistic / neurodivergent people are real!

You’re pulling the same face as them because THAT’S THE NORMAL HUMAN RESPONSE

it just gets triggered so much more often for people with sensory processing issues!

Relatedly

I went and got my neurotypical friend some painkillers the other day. I knew he hadn’t taken them and I knew he needed them. How? Because he was huched over in the chair rocking backwards and forwards.

That is - he was instinctively doing the movements that ALL HUMANS (and other animals) do to self soothe.

There is almost no such thing as a human experience or behaviour that is unique to a particular diagnosis.

because humans are just humans

the behaviours of neurodivergent people are normal human behaviours - we’re just experiencing the world differently than neurotypicals so there are different patterns of behaviour

stimming is normal - ND people just need to do it more to regulate themselves because of how their sensory and emotional neurotype is set up

Drinking water

No longer making self deprecating jokes

Making sure to take time out of the day to relax and take a breather

Lighting candles

Counting ur breaths in and out if ur having a panic attack

I didn’t feel like listening to anything at all but I put on my favorite playlist anyway. Take On Me started and I finger stimmed to the keyboard riff and hummed along and by the end of the song I was smiling. A few more songs and I was fully singing along and feeling more present than I had in days.