Thunderstorms

     "What's a seizure?", my friends would as my daddy tried explaining the differences in my brain when I was little. My father would grab the remote and turn the television on. He would try to find a channel that had a lot of static and he would tell them that the seizure was like a thunderstorm. As I grew older, I started to develop violent tantrums where there would be anger raging in my body. At one point I even kicked a hole in a wall. My dad liked to refer to these as trains that wouldn't stop. As of late, I have discovered these are more like storms than they are like trains. Much similar to the thunderstorm analogy of my seizures.
      When I have a tantrum, my father likes to describe them as trains that won't stop because he can't control my behaviors when I get into these fits. It's just like not having control over a run-away train. You have to let the rage run it's course and when it's over, then we can talk about what happened. Over the past couple months, I have had more and more of these episodes that I now like to call thunderstorms. Things haven't been easy in my life and there have been some challenges that I have had to work through, which in turn has created extra frustration in my life.
     When a thunderstorm occurs, there is humidity that builds up over time. Eventually you can't put anymore humidity into the atmosphere and the sky has to fall or produce rain. The sky has to let this built up "anger" or humidity out. This is essentially what happens when I have these meltdowns. The anger is like humidity in the sky. Sometimes it takes a couple storms for all the humidity to disappear and for the sky to be clear. This also happens when I have my tantrums. This week in particular was pretty rough and there were a lot of storms figuratively and literally.
     This humidity that occurs in my body isn't just built up from one thing, but it builds up from many. It's one thing to have personal stuff going on and it's another thing to have Asperger's. When I look at the fact that I am working 32 hours a week, it's a lot to think about and process. When I work at the creamery, the milkshake machines rev up and scrape against the medal cups they mix the ice cream in, the music plays in the background, the caller shouts ice cream flavors, the guests giggle and converse and I am left in this hurricane of commotion. Afterwards, I have to come home and function as a family or in a group of people who have to communicate and support each other. Needless to say, you can't blame this.
     By no means am I making excuses. This is all part of the Aspergers, yes, but this is something that I need to over come. Sometimes I need to have those thunderstorms to clear my mind and that has been the case lately. In the mean time, I am working on other ways to cope. Considering the apserger's and the sensory processing issues, I try to take frequent "scoop" breaks at work to clean tables or clean dishes so my demands on not as high, but I am still being productive. I now need to work on this at the house. I need to look at demands of my family and write lists. I'm not on a time crunch so lists shouldn't be a problem. I can do this.