Triggering

Author: Cherry (陳季萱)

Term: Spring 2014

Prompt: “Write an essay in which you describe a turning point in your life and show how this event changed you, your life or the way you see yourself and others. Your essay should include enough detail/description/examples to make the turning point vivid and interesting to your readers and enough background explanation to help your readers understand what you realized or learned from the experience.”

“Slap!” This sound on my face totally changed my attitude towards later life. At that time my head was filled with ringing bells and my brain was absolutely blank. My senses also broke down. The world seemed to be shaking and I could not stand still.

Three years ago, I was a volunteer in the Foundation for Autistic Children and Adults in Taiwan (FACT). What triggered me to do this in summer vacation was that I didn’t have any chance to join any voluntary group or club during my high school life so I just randomly chose an association I was fond of in order to gain more experience in my life. Thus, I participated in the summer program in Taipei School of Special Education with the ambition and enthusiasm to help autistic people.

Before I started my task, I already knew there were three types of autism and functioning levels: mild ASD, moderate ASD, and severe ASD. The first time I went there the teacher said that each member should take care of one special child. What really struck me was that the teacher distributed a girl who had severe ASD to me, an absolute novice. I was totally surprised because there were many volunteers who had majored in special education while I was just a senior high school graduate. Soon I realized that actually those experienced members were all afraid of that special girl because she had already hurt most of them. Thus, the teacher asked me to accept this tricky case.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I thought that it was not a big problem to take care of a kid even if she was a little bit violent. However, when I saw a 15 year old girl who was 170cm tall with short hair a strong body, and an evil smile, the fire in my heart died out immediately. Her mother told me some of her symptoms and some important things I needed to be aware of in order to protect myself.

First, her skin couldn’t be directly touched by sunshine and she was afraid of light. Therefore, although it was summer time, she still wore gloves, a jacket and sunglasses. Second, she was stubborn and you couldn’t push her to do anything she didn’t like to do. Third, she had a big hatred for noise and if she was in a noisy environment, she would get crazy and hurt others. Last but not least, she disliked for people to make the sound “hush”. If you made the hush sound in front of her, something terrible might happen. I was shivering from fear when I found the girl I needed to face was so special. I was not quite sure whether could I take this job or not. However, I desired to give it a try in order to prove that I had the ability to help some people in need.

The overt symptoms of autistic children include repetitive behavior and the child I met was typical. She continuously wrote some words on paper and seldom stopped except when she felt tired. Thus, I just sat near her and watched her writing. To tell the truth, I was really afraid she would suddenly go crazy and use the pencil as a weapon to attack me. In addition, she could not control some of her behavior so she continuously slobbered and shook. Unfortunately, I needed to approach her and wipe the saliva from her face. Every time when I got close to her, I could hear my heart beating fast and my hands were trembling. Furthermore, she always made some strange sounds that really scared me.

The other thing she was enthusiastic about was exercising. She could keep jogging for 45minutes. Because I was her caretaker so I needed to do the same activities with her to make sure that nothing dangerous happened to her. Though it was a really hard task to keep running under a burning sun, I tried to think that it was a good way for me to lose weight. What really struck me a lot was that she could tolerate the heat even though she was wearing the gloves and jacket. I really took pity on her and I also admired her. The physical illness didn’t stop her doing the thing she wanted; in contrast, she tried hard to fulfill her longing.

This autistic child struggled with the difficulties of communicating with others. Additionally, she couldn’t control her temper at all. So every time when she couldn’t get what she wanted, she became irate. The non-verbal action she used was to strike her head against the table or wall. The scene really frightened me at first, because she was just like a dangerous lunatic. All the children and caretakers were scared of her, even among the teachers; nobody knew how to deal with this problem. I think I also went as crazy as her, because when I saw this, I rushed to embrace her. I didn’t want to see a person hurt herself so I tried to use a big hug to stop her.

From my point of view, I thought hugs could convey warmth to another person so I took advantage of this way to comfort her. At first, when I touched her body, she screamed. However, gradually, she felt exhausted and she soon calmed down. Even more, she turned back and then hugged me. All the caretakers included me were in tears. The tears we shed were tears of joy. This incident touched me a lot. I soon realized that I had the capability to comfort autistic children.

The abilities to control their behavior are absolutely difficult for autistic children especially children with severe ASD. Thus, sometimes they didn’t mean to hurt others but they couldn’t control themselves. Once, there were some naughty autistic children that loved to make some noise in order to attract others’ attention. However, I needed to inhibit them right away for the purpose of protecting them from being beaten by the girl I took care of. Yet, I totally forgot one crucial rule, which was you must not make “hush” sounds in front of that girl.

Unfortunately, I made this sound to stop the children who were laughing loudly and kept using books to made noises. “Slap!” A great pain suddenly scattered from my face to my head, I was stunned and soon I was so angry. At that moment, I didn’t know the reason why I was hit. I was flushing and blushing because so many people were staring at me and I couldn’t help but cry from the pain.

Some caretakers came to check my wounds, because the girl was strong enough to bruise others. I knew she didn’t mean to do this; however, I still couldn’t forgive her immediately because it was my first time to be treated like this. Then, the teacher separated us and told me that she would distribute others to take care of the girl. At the moment, my brain wasn’t operating normally, thus, I just approved of teacher’s arrangement. After twenty minutes of calming down though, I realized that it was totally my fault and thought about how stupid I was. I wasn’t aware of my behavior and I triggered her to have an outrageous response to me.

Nonetheless, the tragedy occurred again when a mischievous boy threw jam and cookies at me. In order to restrain him from doing this, I yelled at him. “Slap!” At that moment my brain went blank again and I couldn’t stand and fell down on the ground. Soon, my tears spontaneously appeared and to my surprise, the girl who hit me was crying, too. Moreover, she muttered in a really low voice and used her hands to touch the place on my face, which she had just hit. At that moment I was touched by her comforting deed, because I knew she didn’t want to hurt me but she couldn’t control her behavior.

After I returned home and my mom saw the terrible bruise on my face, she screamed. She thought someone had abused me and it took me almost an hour to explain how the wound happened. Originally, my mom restricted me from going on with my voluntary task, but finally I convinced her that I really learned a lot from those autistic children. I continue my task and had a fruitful experience that had a big impact on my future. That was the first time I began to pay attention to every detail of what I was doing and I also learned how to deal with the autistic people.

This special autistic girl triggered me to think more deeply about the world of autism. I began to be interested in autistic children’s behavior and the reasons behind each act and deed. The girl’s behavior elicited lots of questions in my mind. Why did those autistic children have ritualistic behavior and how did it happen? Did those actions really satisfy them? What did they want to gain through their actions? Moreover, after observing her during the two months, I really believed that those autistic children did some terrible things to others unintentionally. Their souls were restrained in their bodies and they couldn’t freely express themselves. They would do some violent acts because they weren’t in charge of their brain. Later on, I started to search for information about autistic people and found my interest in the study of emotional control and psychology.

An incident, experience or a person can trigger one’s motivation. Right now I am in the teaching program in order to help some impoverished children and special children based on my experience in FACT. This triggering also reinforced my faith. If you have ability to help one person in need, please exert your all efforts to make him/her feels the warmth from you. The more people you help, the better the world will be!