Social Hurricane Deals With It

Social Hurricane is twenty-one years old, and a newly-registered CNA who's recently been hired to work in an assisted living medical center (she wanted this job and is happy to get it.)  Previously she worked at Goodwill and as dining room staff in a different assisted living facility.  She graduated high school, a little later than some but with good reports from her teachers, has a very active social life, enjoys helping her mother on various household and local community theater projects, likes to work with her hands, and has helped backstage and performed onstage at the same theater.

She ALSO suffers from rapid-cycling bipolar disorder, anxiety, and hallucinations, in addition to dyslexia.  She's a little under-medicated because she doesn't like the side effects that come with the major antipsychotic drugs, and I can't say that I blame her.  She does take a fair amount of pills, nevertheless.

She deals with it.  She has various coping mechanisms, and for the most part does pretty well.  Every now and then she has a "meltdown," when she gets overwhelmed and just can't handle things right then.  Those are much fewer and farther in between than they used to be.

She had a meltdown the other night, when we were off on a mini-vacation in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.  Adored Wife, Graphics Magician, and I were pretty tired and were chilling out at the hotel, and she took a fifteen minute walk into town just to see the sights and stretch her legs.

There were lots of people, and too many choices, and an unfamiliar environment, and she had an anxiety attack.  I've never had one of those, but I've seen them from the outside, and they're not pretty.  You go into sensory overload and can't decide between the various courses of action open to you, and you literally have no idea what to do, and your environment is getting scarier and scarier.

Now, she could have headed it off at the pass, called me, and I would have driven down to get her.  But she didn't want to bother me, so what she did instead was to find a little ice-cream place that wasn't busy, bought a soda, and told the nice man working the counter that she was having an anxiety attack and asked him if she could just stay there until she felt better.  He apparently handled it beautifully and just let her tuck into a quiet corner until she felt better, and then she walked back to the hotel and told us of her adventures.

I was actually very proud of her--she had a problem, didn't let it get the better of her, and dealt with it.  Way to go, Hurricane.

Hope all's well out there, friends, and God bless.