I’m a newly dx Autistic adult. I’m an Occupational Therapist in a hospital. Today one of my patients was an autistic nonverbal teen. He’s admitted due to aggressive and violent behaviors and they’re trying to send him to an inpatient psychiatric facility. The nursing staff are great and caring but just don’t understand that half the time they’re doing the completely wrong thing to help him self-regulate. He was the first nonverbal autistic patient I’ve seen in many years and the first since my own dx and self-education. It was amazing. It was like we shared a secret language. I could see the ebb and flow of calm and overwhelm, I could tell when he was pushing at boundaries, sensory seeking, or avoiding. And he had a bunch of cool sensory toys. They had security posted outside just in case and they must have thought I was nuts because the first 5 minutes I was just bouncing in the corner of the room on the theraball by myself to build rapport.…