D.I.D....

Ta @Former-Member.

The ER presentations are continuing, both SH related and otherwise. Her mood's been on the dangerous side still, including "voices" pushing her to SH and generally putting her down. Am gently but firmly pointing out to her that somewhere along the line, all of this is coming from inside her own mind, and so don't believe the lies she's "hearing".

ER doctor on her last presentation was talking with her about distraction techniques. At the moment, with possibly-somatic? pain in her hands, she can't do her craft work, which is her usual go-to. I'm pointing out that it goes beyond distraction, and what she actually needs to be doing is re-writing her brain to look for beautiful and happy things. Referred her to the NT (Phillippians) version- "whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy- think about such things". CBT therapy version 60-ish AD??

And meanwhile, it was our wedding anniversary on the weekend. We're a bit broke-ish. (A few big bills came in at once...) So we made use of a free pass ticket we had to spend the day riding assorted vintage vehicles, and took a packed lunch and afternoon tea with us. 🙂 We hadn't planned on having to detour via the hospital to take Older Daughter home first... but we still got there in good time to enjoy ourselves. There were some links to the past in our planned outing, back to our courting days, and some pretty special memories brought back. Both courtship related, and other things from that time too.

hugs @Smc

Appreciated @Shaz51... there was another ER visit last night, which she rang about just before lunchtime.
The upside of trying to teach her to "rewrite" her mind is that in encouraging her to think about happy things, we get talking about happy things. When a phonecall can be turned around from news of a SA to laughing about something funny that happened... that's gotta be pushing in the right direction?

@Smc Thinking of you and family.

@Smc

Ta @outlander, @Determined.

She was in ER last night again, and two nights before that, both SH/SA.

I'm trying to work out if the MH team and hospital staff are trying to de-escalate her visits. It's very hard for an ambulance trip and ER presentation not to feel "escalated", but the way they're responding is about the same as we responded to childhood cuts and bumps. Unless there's obvious danger, you walk, not run, to respond to the child, you calmly examine the injury, fix it up, and send them back to whatever they were doing.

As such, I agree with the approach. It's very worrying how "normal" it has become for her to have occasion to call an ambulance. Hassle is... the stakes are a lot higher. 😞 I don't think I'm messing up the approach by talking about it with her. I was telling her on the phone last night (while she was waiting in ER) that part of the reason she, and us as well, are tired all the time is that the body's response to an emergency is meant to be short term and occasional. When it happens constantly, over and over again, it depletes you and leaves you exhausted. A metabolically "expensive" reaction is good when the reserves are needed for "fight or flight", but repeat reactions mean the reserves are running on empty for all of us. If she could get away from repeated crises, I'm guessing we'd all start to regain our energy levels.

So sorry to hear that @Smc

and completly agree wiht your take on the body's response to emergency.

Thinking of you and family and praying.

Continuing to think of you and family @Smc

🙏