MY DREAM TO DANCE

Me and my beautiful teacher Elizna

This is a translation by mom and teacher Elizna of the original “My droom om te dans”.

My mood/emotions and my body are related. I see it as a dance, because they both dance with me. My mood/emotions on the one side and my body on the other. As soon as they do not dance smoothly together, there is trouble. My body tends to pull to the one side and my mood to the other. Then there is extreme confusion. Sometimes it is an immensely difficult battle  to interoperate with these two sides of me, but when we do dance in harmony, my life is super happy. I want to tell you what helps me to get this dance right.

My mom:

My mom is very patient with me. If only I could have been this patient with myself, life would have been much easier for me.

My beautifull  teacher Elizna:

She showed me how to draw mindmaps. This helps me to organize my thoughts, in order for me to – when I have a problem – construct clever plans and find solutions.

Her calm demeaner, when she works with me, helped me a lot. As soon as somebody shouts or screams at me, my body immediately gets confused and then my body does not want to listen to my brain at all.

She also showed me how enjoyable school can be when you are understood and accepted. It makes a gigantic difference in my life to be accepted, with all my difficulties and all, like now.

Previously it was impossible for me to regulate myself in the classroom, because I could feel that I was not accepted. It is the most difficult thing for me to regulate myself in an unfriendly environment.

I am really happy now with a teacher that understands how my body and my mind are related.

Acceptance:

This is one of the most important things.

My body is my worst enemy when he does not want to cooperate with my brain.

When I notice that somebody gets involved with my struggle and does not allow me the opportunity to solve my problem by myself, then I feel as if that person does not trust me to be able to solve my problem by myself. So, then I feel that I am not accepted.

I appreciate help very much, but I also need space to try things myself, eventhough somebody assists me.

It is also important to me to feel save enough to ask for help when I need it, without feeling judged for not being able to get my body to do a simple task.

It is a very difficult balance to find, because sometimes my mom or somebody else needs to intervene to stop me from keeping on struggling with something. There are situations like that as well and someone will only get it right if they understand me very well.

I also had to learn to accept myself.

That is something I am only starting with, so, I still have a long road ahead of me. It was only possible to start accepting myself because I felt more accepted by the people around me.

It is very important in my process of self-acceptance for me to feel that people appreciate me for my clever brain and do not judge me for my stupid body.

This is so important that I cannot say it enough. It is the most beautiful thing for me when I see my mom’s  and my beautiful teacher’s  acceptance of me and supporting me in my efforts to accept myself for my good and my bad attributes. It is the best thing when they help me to try and find solutions.

Before I could communicate, I often tried to find solutions myself, but nobody knew about my efforts and I was often judged for my behaviour, while I was actually trying my utmost best to find a solution myself. Now that I can communicate, I can ask for help and discuss my plans with my mom and my beautiful teacher. I am very happy that I am able to do that.

Communication:

This is also super important.

My body does not show how I feel.

So, if I cannot communicate, I cannot show what bothers me or makes me happy. It is a huge battle when my body does not want to co-operate and I cannot tell with my “pentalker” what the problem is. I then get extremely frustrated with myself as well as the people around me.

My bloggerfriends:

My mom often reads and tells me about other blogs she read that was written by other people whose bodies also messes around like mine, and they mean a lot to me. They tell about their struggles with their bodies that does not want to cooperate and that helps me not to feel all alone. I am for ever gratefull to them for their willingness to share their struggles with the world. It makes a huge difference in my struggle to accept myself.

They are the only company I have  that is the same as me, because my friends who are in my school, cannot communicate yet. My blogger friends  are very special to me. There were  times when I was extremely despondent because of my body’s uncooperativeness. I felt as if it was only my body that does this. It helped me a lot when I heard there are other people who have the same struggle as me.

Body engagers:

I have a few practical tips to help me with my dance with my body and my emotions.

The one thing that helps me the most, is body engagers, which keeps my body busy while my brain is working.

I love a video about fish which my teacher often plays for me in class. While I am watching the fishes, I am actually thinking very hard. When my body is not busy while I am using my brain, I struggle to control my body and then my body  gets me in trouble.

When I am busy with the body engagers, I can think more clearly. When I have to keep my body 100% still, it takes so much effort from me that I cannot think clearly. Then I am totally exhausted from the struggle to control my body and I am then doomed for failure.

It is because I was watching the fishes, that I could write this blog. It also calms me down when I watch the fishes swimming around so beautifully. 

I sometimes uses something which texture I like and feels nice to me, to keep my hands busy. This also helps a lot. If that does not help me, I try to get something different to keep myself busy so that I can think.

I like to stim as well, which helps me to keep calm when I get worked up or upset.

Staying calm:

I think people have no idea how well I can sense their mood fluctuations. This has a serious influence on my body and my mood. It is very difficult for me to function in the presence of somebody who is not calm.

I have a struggle to stay calm myself. As soon as I get excited, sad, stressed, unhappy or experience any other emotion than calmness,  then I struggle immensely to keep my body under control. The emotions confuse my body. So if someone close to me struggles to keep calm, then I have no chance of controling my body. It is especially important to stay calm when it looks like I am busy losing it. It is very difficult for me to turn  my mood and my body around when people around me react to my body’s movements and the sounds I make when I get upset. I have to try to keep myself calm, otherwise I am going to lose it in any case. Whether I can turn it around when I am already upset, mostly depends on the people around me.

My ears’ lightning conductors

That is what my noise cancelling headphones and white noise are to my very sensitive ears. These are very important aids to help me with my dance with my mood and my body. The other thing that also helps me is when I cover my ears with my hands, so that the loud or irritating sounds not upset me.

Respect for my hard work to control my body.

It is very important that I should be allowed the opportunity to say when I am done, because then I am too tired to control my body any further. I am then not certain anymore if I will be able to keep my body under control in case I get upset. I appreciate it immenseley if someone respects me enough to give me the opportunity to say if I can no longer hold on.

That implies that I sometimes have to throw in the towel and try again on another day.

It is very important that I should be given this choice so that I know that my body is not going to let me down at a time or place that is humiliating to me.

I will probably never have complete control over my body, but I can work on my reaction on my “out of control” body. Thank you to each person who helped me to understand that. I think this is the most important lesson I’ve learned in my effort to dance in harmony with my mood and my body. I am already managing to control myself, even if I am very upset about something or about something someone said. It is already so much better than it was before, but I still have a long road ahead of me and I still have to work very hard on it every day.