April 6, 2010 - FULL-BLOWN MELTDOWN

Yesterday was a good day. My daughter made it out the door and to school without incident, she had a healthy, balanced dinner - and best of all - Girl Scouts. This particular meeting was especially important because the girls were able to bring their pets to the meeting. My daughter was chomping at the bit to get going. The meeting went well, the dog only slightly misbehaved and we were home early enough to get some homework in.

Then - a trauma. My daughter was sitting on the couch with her pug puppy on her lap, when the other dog (also a pug) jumped up and tried to get my daughter's attention. The dogs began to seriously attack each other. That was the first time that the dogs had ever behaved that way, so she tried to break them apart. I was on the phone at the time and tried to stay on the phone and pull them apart, unsuccessfully. When I pulled at the dog, I also pushed at my daughter, trying to separate them and I accidentally pushed on her throat instead of her chest. My only goal was to separate the dogs and to get them away from her, but in her mind the chaos of the dogs attacking each other (one of them bit her hand), and me pushing her was too much. She kept asking me why I'd pushed her throat. I kept telling her it was an accident, but she couldn't register it.

This led to hysteria and hyerventilation, to the point where I thought she was going to pass out. The skirmish only lasted a couple of minutes, but the aftermath lasted for the rest of the night. My goal was to get her calm enough that she could get her breathing regulated. I tried sitting and talking with her very calmly, putting her hand on my chest so that she could feel my calm breathing pattern - I just couldn't get her calmed down. Everytime she remembered what happened, she'd get upset all over again. I kept telling her that the dogs were fine, that she was safe and reassured her that I was there for her. Finally, after an hour or so, she calmed down, though she was completely shut down afterward. She emotionally checked out - which is common for her after a full-blown meltdown. It's kind of a blank stare - she's responsive, but not fully engaged. It generally takes her the rest of the day to recover, which could mean missing school. It's best to give her time to veg out or sleep for a time to recharge her batteries.

These meltdowns are always scary and it's painful to see her in so much pain and turmoil - especially when I know that most people would just process the incident, and might be shaken, but not completely knocked out by it. As her parent, I want to cry right along with her and beg her to be ok, to just stop - it all seems so surreal when its happening. Ultimately, these incidents are rare these days - but they're a reminder that we're not out of the woods just yet. Each one can be a lesson, if we take a careful look.

Remember...DIFFERENT IS BEAUTIFUL.