Fear Where Others Find Fun

Picture an average kindergartener going to a cousin's birthday party.  She looks forward to it with great anticipation, but problems arise where there is supposed to be fun.  The party is at Pump-It-Up, an indoor inflatable play place, and for extra fun, it's a glow-in-the-dark party, so the lights are off and instead there are star-like sparkles and disco lights flashing.  It looks really cool and the pumpin' music completes the scene.  While the cousin and his friends tumble down the inflatable slide and bounce houses, Katelyn is paralyzed with fear.  She cries and clings to me, insisting on being held, and begging to go home.


Katie has always had a serious fear of the dark.  Having difficulty with vestibular input, she can't sense where her body is in relation to her surroundings, so she usually relies on her sight to clue her in, but can't in the dark.  She finds the flashing lights disorienting  The music everyone else finds fun feels like an assault to her sensitive ears, as do the screams and squeals of fun from all the other kids.  While Katie loves the proprioceptive input of bouncing and jumping, she only feels safe doing it on her own terms, with no one else around to bump into her or wiggle the inflatable unpredictably.  At a party, though, she can't get the bounce house all to herself, so she just sits in the corner of it and screams if anyone else gets too boisterous.  Every movement feels to her like being tossed on a stormy sea.  She is in perpetual fight-or-flight mode as her body tells her she is in great danger.