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kaberettLet's start up with some definitions: the anger blanket is my weighted blanket, single-duvet-sized and 7kg in mass; proprioception is broadly speaking knowing where your appendages are; and claustrophilia is liking being in enclosed spaces.
Weighted blankets, clothing, etc are generally marketed as sensory aids for autistic kids. To some extent, the idea is that we don't know where our limbs are - or have a looser sense of it than allistic folk - but that's not really the case for me, particularly. There's an extent to which I like the blanket because it makes it very definite where all of my me is, and makes it harder work to move - which is reassuring - but there is more to it than that.
Like: normal blankets and duvets and coverings are distressingly light. They move in ways I can't quite predict, with the kind of gentle touch that can make me panic if it catches me at the wrong moment, because it is too much. It's even worse in summer, when I need something covering me, but things with any heft are too warm, and I end up disconsolately trying to wrap myself up tight in a spare sheet and having it not really be good enough.
And: sometimes the only way for me to feel safe is to curl up somewhere walls at my back - preferably a corner, with a low roof, so under a desk or in the corner of a lower bunk - and the dark and the knowing that no-one else can get in and I can watch all approach routes and no-one and nothing can touch me unexpectedly and I can get arbitrary amounts of pressure against my back and legs by pressing into the walls.
And also: I talk a lot about feeling disconnected, disjointed, from my body - about how important scent and jewelry and other adornment are to reminding myself that I am real, that I am here, that we are a collective, my body and I; and about how this is... mm, not alternative, but additional to various coping/reminding mechanisms that are generally much more stigmatised/pathologised. Turns out, curling up under a weighted blanket is another way for me to get that feeling of groundedness, of location; is another tool in my box.
I am overcome with wonder every time I realise how much I have learned about myself.
Weighted blankets, clothing, etc are generally marketed as sensory aids for autistic kids. To some extent, the idea is that we don't know where our limbs are - or have a looser sense of it than allistic folk - but that's not really the case for me, particularly. There's an extent to which I like the blanket because it makes it very definite where all of my me is, and makes it harder work to move - which is reassuring - but there is more to it than that.
Like: normal blankets and duvets and coverings are distressingly light. They move in ways I can't quite predict, with the kind of gentle touch that can make me panic if it catches me at the wrong moment, because it is too much. It's even worse in summer, when I need something covering me, but things with any heft are too warm, and I end up disconsolately trying to wrap myself up tight in a spare sheet and having it not really be good enough.
And: sometimes the only way for me to feel safe is to curl up somewhere walls at my back - preferably a corner, with a low roof, so under a desk or in the corner of a lower bunk - and the dark and the knowing that no-one else can get in and I can watch all approach routes and no-one and nothing can touch me unexpectedly and I can get arbitrary amounts of pressure against my back and legs by pressing into the walls.
And also: I talk a lot about feeling disconnected, disjointed, from my body - about how important scent and jewelry and other adornment are to reminding myself that I am real, that I am here, that we are a collective, my body and I; and about how this is... mm, not alternative, but additional to various coping/reminding mechanisms that are generally much more stigmatised/pathologised. Turns out, curling up under a weighted blanket is another way for me to get that feeling of groundedness, of location; is another tool in my box.
I am overcome with wonder every time I realise how much I have learned about myself.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-09 10:52 pm (UTC)Anyway. Thanks for sharing — I find it really interesting to share second-hand in 'how does one understand $brain anyway'-type thinkings through.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-09 11:06 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-12-10 03:49 am (UTC)Guess which workstation is mine.
I'll second natural light, though, when it's not shining directly into my eyes.