Wash's Words

Today, I watched Tashi deal with the impending ComicCon anxiety. With our recent gift of full-event passes, my own worries of taking her through a crowd of 24 thousand people grew.

The Asperger's attack started with her becoming incredibly moody near this afternoon. She would swing from cranky moodiness to paralyzing anxiety to holding back tears.

A great deal of this stems from her dislike of crowds. She talks about fears from crowds of people that she can't relate to. She calls it "not knowing the protocol." It's a world she has no knowledge of it, no control over it and it absolutely terrifies her.

In the afternoon, she would start pacing the floors, unable to relax. Should she sit down, she rocks back and forth gently, yet still responsive. The depth of an Aspie's anxiety attack can take her below a responsive level to near-catatonia, but I feel pain seeing her like that.

On the train ride there, her eyes darted around the train cabin, looking warily at me and the door as we saw people on the ride over clearly going to the Con. She doesn't talk to them or acknowledge them, but clutches her purse and my leg, her face stoic, but hiding panic behind her eyes.

Upon arrival at the Con, she took off in a rush towards the door, sternly asking me whether I knew where I was going (Like the guy dressed as a Jawa was really going anywhere else). She became even clingier through the doors, digging her hand into mine when grabbing onto of me on the full escalator. Once she had found a booth for a webcomic she'd reads, she lit up (or covered over her fear) to step up to a booth to say hello.

One circle of the exhibitor's floor was plenty, so Tashi and I left in a hurry, sneaking off to take the elevator, away from the crowd leaving the convention hall. Slipping off southwards, it took multiple assurances that the train back lay in that direction. On the ride home, she focused on trying not to puke, whether from anxiety or other causes, I don't know. Halfway along the walk from the train to our home she burst into tears, as she had said she was trying not to do. It took a stop on the way home at our freshly opened Quizno's to really make her return to a nearly normal emotional range.

Sometimes it can be quite a wild ride, but I'll go through it every time for Tashi. I'm trying to make this convention a better experience for her, but I'm not certain if I can.

Have a good morning, everyone!

,Wash