I ran outside to respond to sudden commotion, barefoot in my haste, and witnessed my son with special needs who is in every physical sense a large man-- but developmentally otherwise a very young child-- yelling and cursing profusely at an Amazon delivery driver. A woman. She stood behind the truck and said, very matter-of-fact, that this was the second time he has harassed her.
In the immediate I first cared about trying to prompt Hayden to go back inside the house, while awkwardly picking up the oversized, cumbersome 30lb box from the street to walk it up to our front door. There was also a small, light box loosely balanced on top. The driver took a picture of me when I leaned over to pick up the box. After I brought the packages inside she lingered, parked in the truck for several minutes in front of our home. I actually went back out wondering if maybe a neighbor was interacting with her but as I got to our front porch she was driving away.
That day, Friday, she reported the incident to Amazon. I was first contacted by them the next day via email, in a (seemingly automated) message timestamped 3:50am.
This particular Friday started out a very difficult behavior day and Hayden didn't make it to school. One of our neighbors who happened to be outside at the time of the delivery kindly tried to engage with Hayden by inviting him to come look at something "cool" on her phone. He would normally have been receptive to that but he was at the top of the bell curve at that point-- a metaphor many specialists use to refer to such a heightened state. So when they're already at the top of this so-called curve, any behavior intervention technique is highly unlikely to be successful. For everyone's sake we may still try to distract or redirect his attention, but usually the best thing to do is unrealistic... such as clearing the immediate environment until he is decompressed or sort of re-regulated.
At first glance Hayden looks like a typical young man. Some amount of awkwardness may be apparent pretty quickly in addition to his speech sounding a little different. We have had our fair share of public incidents and there have been times I have been quick to apologize and offer, "he has special needs". But in this moment I did not address the driver. I did not want a back-&-forth and in the immediate I just wanted to get Hayden away and I wanted the driver to leave. We have all different delivery drivers and I do not know when the first time was that Hayden had an interaction with this particular driver.
I sent a short reply to the initial email from Amazon stating that I would rather respond in writing, and asked if that would be the appropriate email address to use. The initial email said that I would be contacted via phone the next day, but because of the time stamp I am not sure if that meant Saturday or Sunday. Either way I never received a phone call. Instead there was a second email (timestamped after 9pm) the following day which, although the bottom portion was slightly different, again seemed automated. That is why I did not respond a second time. But then two more days after that, which is now four days removed from the day of the incident, a nearly identical email arrived and was timestamped after 8pm. I did send a brief reply to that last email to say that the interaction was with a person with special needs, who also has an intellectual disability. I will update my blog if or when there is a response to that. But I can share that we have had deliveries since then without incident and I am assuming it was not the same delivery driver.
I don't know how many times I have shared stories on my blog involving a behavior incident which, short of putting my son in a florescent vest that says "special needs" I could not have made sure that anyone else had a visual cue to help explain context.
When Hayden was still very young I offered a mutual agreement with the school, if you will, that we share the good and the bad and the beautiful moments and the ugly ones too. Because either way we should all be on the same page-- whether to encourage Hayden, or to work together towards a solution to a current challenge. But the idea being that we are helping to set him up to be successful.
I hate talking about these behavior incidents. Hayden still has two scabs on his forehead from a very fragile x day three weeks ago. But I think it's worse if I don't talk. I understand sometimes there's a fine line between awareness or drawing unnecessary, unwanted attention.
In the larger picture I wholeheartedly believe that this may be his only proactive protection.
I can imagine that woman, the delivery driver, must have been quite surprised and confused and concerned. I am sorry for this and also sorry for her first impressions of Hayden. Fragile x gets in his way here and there all of the time. And worse, the fragile x specialist who is primarily managing his current medication regimen, is moving to the other side of the country. There is a nurse practitioner who is somewhat familiar with his case, and they will ensure there are no gaps in his medications, but ultimately we are back to square one. There is nothing specifically indicated to treat fragile x syndrome so medication management includes ongoing trial and error to target some of the symptoms. Difficult and exhausting.
I hope, emotionally, the driver is okay. No one deserves to be yelled at that way. It's as if there's no holding back because in the moment he can't stop those awful words from escaping. I am on the receiving end of it more often than anybody and I can't always just let it roll off my back. It can be extremely upsetting. But I promise-- on my life-- underneath all that Hayden has the most pure heart. It is the absolute worst when people don't get to see that. To think about Hayden's fragile x behaviors being on full display when I am no longer around one day to advocate for him, is a level of terrifying I would not wish on anyone.
I am not looking for sympathy because this is our reality. And even if you think I am handling this as best as anyone could, I am not looking for a pat on the back either. I just want as much awareness as possible for everyone's mutual safety.
Because we know Hayden can also deliver the biggest smiles, too. And I mean the biggest, most genuine because when he does... he doesn't hold back.
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