Regulation is the art of control.
Where you let your hopes and dreams stay locked, as you try on lost versions of your hopes. Move yourself into not losing your hopes and dreams. Move yourself towards these hopes and dreams. Hopes lost and found again is the art of regulation.
How I have crashed and burned and found my worth and belief again! My game is to take one day at a time. My game is to take a small step and write this blog. My game is to work on my letterboard to keyboard transition. My game is to continue the work of advocacy after taking time to recover from catatonia.
I am not your male role model. I am your male regulation challenged beaten and rising Tejas. My catatonia or whatever you want to label this large and loud dysregulation has left me worse off than one year ago. How am I to win at this? Catatonia levied a harsh unbearable justice on me. It leveled me. A gut leveling punch on my spelling game. Not my day to day spelling, but my spelling for advocacy. Time stopped having meaning. Time stopped having anything to do with me. My best days to write seemed to be behind me. Time stopped being a useful thing. Catatonia rendered writing inaccessible.
I am writing my gut wrenching story. In the gut wrenching, my loving spellers, keep in mind that I am writing still. Regulation is the art of trying on lost versions of your hopes again. Regulation is the art of locking down your hopes and dreams as gut wrenching loss of spelling opportunities litter your home. Regulation is not my strength, it is my challenge. It is my autistic body’s lost and found game. A lost game that I will still win another day.
Open question to spellers. You know my beast, what’s yours? How do you cope with your beast?
About the Author
Tejas Rao Sankar is a nonspeaking autistic who spells to communicate. Tejas is a cofounder of CrimsonRise. An organization cofounded by autistics and allies. Tejas is a passionate traveler who loves to dance and spend time with his friends. He blogs with Neuroclastic , and is a contributor to books about nonspeaking autistics. He is a member of the Nonspeaking Leadership Council at I-ASC.
