Daylight Savings Time

Daylight savings time (DST) - you are nothing but a cruel heartless transition for families impacted by autism.  Well - that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but that statement is true nonetheless for my family.

Yesterday's spring forward was more than a bit dysregulating for E.  He woke up fine, but as the day progressed he got crabbier and crabbier.  Nothing seemed to put him in a good mood - not his favorite music, not his favorite electronic, not a movie, nothing!  It seems that the leap ahead is devastating to his routine, his psyche and his life.

The pinnacle of his dysregulation crested from 3:30 to 9:00 when he finally went to sleep.  Or was fake sleeping because he was up within 15 minutes of being asleep and jumping onto my side of the bed.  Even sleep cannot conquer the monster that is DST or as I am now renaming it - Day of Substantial Tantrums.

He complained about dinner, about his ipad not having battery power, about DVDs, about well, everything. 

DST brings about the lowing of his frustration tolerance; messes with sleep; which in turn lows his seizure threshold; which in turn lowers of frustration tolerance more and it takes at minimum 2-3 days to get back to normal.

I was always told that the principle behind DST was maximizing daylight hours for farmers and those who worked outside.   It was necessary before the industrial revolution when society was agrarian-based.  With the advent of electricity, battery power, machinery, combustible engines, maximizing daylight is no longer a necessity.  Yet, an overwhelming majority of the United States still engages in the use of DST, which under every other circumstances, I would give a second thought about its use.  However, seeing and hearing E complain about EVERYTHING moves me to the category of why do we still do DST.

Here's the thing - I don't care if DST becomes our permanent time or if standard time is our permanent time.  Just as long as there ceases to be no more leaping forward/ahead and no more falling back.

All I really know as I type this post is that I am tired, from yesterday's crabbiness and altered sleep pattern.  Perhaps, I'll try and go to sleep sooner tonight.  Hopefully, E will stay in his bed tonight.

Thanks DST for adding a wonderful variable to our happy autism.

Thanks for reading; more to come.