Age 9 | Grade 4
Pierce feels claustrophobic and stressed if he is not able to finish a “body break”/CMS and IIM session.
He told me:
Mom, It’s like this…
…What am I supposed to do with all this energy that starts to build up?!?!
…It’s like how J.A.R.V.I.S. (Tony Stark’s AI assistant) would say to Iron Man, “Sir, power reaching high!” [warning him]
… and to me, it feels like…Oh no! My suit is going to explode if I don’t let it out!
…It feels like I’M going to explode if I don’t let it out !!
Photo Credit: Riku Lu
Bringing Pierce out of his IIM engagement was seldom a difficult struggle. We would gently call his name, or touch him lightly to get his attention, and he would stop his activity and rejoin the group (or whoever he was with). All of his teachers, instructors, camp leaders, and caretakers, were all made aware of this strategy when they needed to refocus his attention and pause his CMS/IIM.
“It was intensely uncomfortable, like an unquenched restlessness when sessions were interrupted”
The difficulty was not often in stopping the CMS/IIM session - it was how he felt inside afterwards. For Pierce, it was intensely uncomfortable, like an unquenched restlessness when sessions were interrupted. The accumulation and build up of excitement and phrenetic energy, when he was engaged in his “body breaks”/CMS-IIM sessions, often made him feel deeply jittery internally when things were suddenly halted, and there was no further path for emotional or mental release.
For Pierce, the feeling was never something that could easily be shaken off. It was always an underlying sensation of intense discomfort, that would linger in the background until he could once again, resume his IIM/CMS/body break session.