Distractions
Last year we were sent up to the local psychiatric unit for an assessment. We knew that it would be a long wait until we were assessed, so took some paper and crayons with us. These are some of the things we did while we waited. A good distraction then and a good distraction now as we try to cope with the mother being here.
First writing to try and calm down:
Hate
Top row:
Help Us
Confused
Scared
2nd row:
Why?
Hate
Runaway
3rd row:
Anger
Lost
Sick of This
4th row:
Fight
Is this it?
Stay??
Doodle:
Doodle
When we were sectioned a couple of years ago we did incredibly intricate versions of this sort of doodle. This one is on an A5 size sheet of paper, the others were on A2 and were much more detailed and circular. Then at times Sophie was asked by a young one to draw a sunflower, tree or flax to try and help calm them. Just realised that some of the young ones used to pretend they were hiding in green plants as part of the dissociation. The plants didn’t have flowers, but were always a cool, comforting green.
As the wait wore on, we started to establish the rules that would enable us to get out of the hospital -
Rules
Writing to the left:
Good Job!
These will get us out of here!
List of rules:
- no yelling
- don’t show wounds
- say ‘Thank you’ & ‘Please’
- say ‘I’ NOT ‘we’ or ‘us’
- smile!!!
- make eye contact!!
