12/21/2025
I said how relieved I was and said, “You handled that well.”
“I didn’t handle anything,” she said. “He did. He told me what he needed.”
She said she believed him, which made me think not everyone did.
It’s too easy to forget that the person in front of us has been living in their body far longer than we have been supporting it.
The real experts on a person’s life are the people themselves.
..
ID: Image shows two staff restraining someone on the floor. Text reads: He wasn't escalating. He was communicating.
I was visiting a short-term assessment unit for people with intellectual disabilities, one of those places where “short term” often quietly becomes permanent.
It was late afternoon, dinner was coming, and he was pacing the room, hands moving fast. I overheard a staff member say he was “escalating.” I saw two others standing close to him, discussing his restraint procedure. I feared the worst.
But one member of staff stood to one side, close enough to be present, far enough not to crowd him. She told the other two staff to go to another part of the home.
Moments later, he stopped pacing and looked at that staff member. “Too loud,” he said. Just two words. Not aggressive. Just honest. She asked him what would help. He pointed to the back door. They went outside, and I followed. The air was cooler. His shoulders dropped. His hands slowed. The crisis everyone was preparing for quietly dissolved.
After he wandered back in, she told me she had learned something important from him over time. When his hands moved like that, he was trying to tell you something. She had learned this by paying attention, by being with him, by letting him lead through his own warning signs.
I said how relieved I was and said, “You handled that well.”
“I didn’t handle anything,” she said. “He did. He told me what he needed.”
She said she believed him, which made me think not everyone did.
It’s too easy to forget that the person in front of us has been living in their body far longer than we have been supporting it.
The real experts on a person’s life are the people themselves.
..
ID: Image shows two staff restraining someone on the floor. Text reads: He wasn't escalating. He was communicating.
