Safety First

The first time Cory insisted on bringing her American Girl doll to Daddy/Daughter lunch with Tim, he may have given her a curious look.  But I am proud to say, he said nothing to make her feel bad, only quipped to his eighteen year old daughter who was battling a major mental illness daily, "Josefina hungry today, Cor?"

It was pretty obvious that Cory's dolls brought her some comfort in a scary situation.  I can gaze off into the distance now and see her sitting cross-legged on our couch, brushing their hair and swapping outfits.  Some people, I suppose, may not understand right off what would prompt a young adult woman to return to a cherished childhood activity.  So for those out there who may not get it or even worse would label her a "retard" and claim it the outfall from her electro-convulsive therapy, let me take a stab at explaining:

The way I see it, safety is a primary need.  If you don't feel safe, you can't learn; you can't function.  The hallunications and delusions Cory experienced threatened her feeling of safety.  To regain it, I think she returned, in some fashion, to a time when she had last felt safe- which would have been those happy, stable pre-pubescent/early puberty years from age eight to about age fourteen.  During these years before her mental illness struck, she passed quite a few happy hours playing dolls.

Make sense?

Let's take this a little further.

I have struggled to feel safe since Cory's accident.  Post Traumatic Stress Disorder's job is pretty much to attack your feeling of safety and your ability to discern between real time and past trauma.  I have returned to my coping mechanisms of childhood also.  In my mind, I have developed a split screen, and on one side can easily see an underweight, pale, peaked anxious fifth grader walking the half block to school everyday loaded down with enough notebooks and paper products to drop a mule in its tracks.  On the other, I see a late middle aged woman, whose once youthful face is now ravaged with grief, gathering up her supplies to leave the house for nearly any errand- the purses and totes getting bigger by the day, and bulging with planners, journals, and pen pouches.

Words (and the materials needed to generate them) have always been my fail safe.  I even wonder now if there isn't some grounding effect to this toting heavy things around all day- does it put a lid on my anxiety in some way?

  Occupational Therapists often use "heavy work" (the pushing, pulling, and carrying of heavy objects) to provide children with the sensory input their bodies crave.  Have I been doing this all along?  I'll never foget when I first learned of this concept.  I was so excited to come home and share the word "propreoceptive" with Cory and Jake.  I guess it's the writer in me, but just the sound of some words can completely thrill me.

So I guess I would challenge you to think of a time in your adult life that you've felt a little unsafe...was there something in your childhood that you returned to?  Something that gave you comfort or the illusion of stability at a time you desperately needed it?

I also ask if you see an adult toting around a doll or stuffed animal, you suspend your judgment of their mental state.  They may be finding a very healthy way to cope with unimaginable pain.