While we were on vacation, Ben was upset because he couldn’t get better as long as he was away from home. Now that we’re home, he’s upset because all his programs are closed for the pandemic. He is frustrated on all sides because he has no one and no way to fix his health issues. He thinks we are all against him and getting in the way of him getting better.
It’s no wonder he is angry almost all of the time. “You guys don’t do anything for me!!”
Ben is happiest when he is around people who want to hear him talk about something. The best thing we did during our vacation was to invite people to spend a few days with us. This gave him a constant stream of new people to listen as he aired his sorrows or talked about football or told about the time he went sailing in Canada.
During those times, his happiness skyrockets. “Those people are the best ever!!”
He communicates in extremes. Rarely does he live in the middle. In an earlier post, I described it like a pirate ship ride in a carnival - swinging from one extreme to the other. It feels random to us because we can’t attribute his shift in moods to anything logical. But, to him, he is vocalizing his emotional swings.
The Peel
Yesterday, his lunch was “the best lunch ever!” Today, he yells about the same food, “I don’t want this! This is terrible!”.
If something is broken or out of place, he says, “I need you to fix this right now!”
If he is restless, he says, “Get in the car and let’s go!”
If he is confused, he says, “Nobody tells me anything!”
If he is frustrated, he says, “Just tell me what to do so I can get this thing going!”
The Fruit
“Emotions are not emergencies!” says my friend, Ginny.
I need to remember this. When I’m feeling attacked, tired, irritated, or ticked off, I don’t need to act urgently on those feelings. I can recognize them for what they are then give myself space to process them later. (Easier said than done!) Time, prayer, and journaling can do wonders to soothe the soul.
For Ben, however, emotions are emergencies. He expresses all his emotions by vocalizing urgent need. He doesn’t have the ability to define his feelings in any other way. He might as well be saying, “I am having a positive emotion!” or “I am feeling bad!” Most people jump into action, too, because they have been trained to respond quickly to emergencies.
The news from the doctor is upsetting, so he says, “Your dinner is terrible!”
He’s confused about the virus and pandemic, so he says, “I’m done with you all!”
We would do well to understand the emotions separately from the emergencies. For Ben, the emergency is a good indicator of an emotion, but not a good directive. For me, the emotion is immediate, but the response can be delayed.
***
Thank you, Lord, for this insight. Please help me to implement it. Help me to hear Ben’s emotions instead of his words. Give me the patience in the moment to delay my responses to Ben’s “emergencies”. Thank you for the encouragement to blog as it really helps me to sort through my emotions.
"A fool vents all his emotions, but a wise person calmly restrains them."
Proverbs 29:11 (EHV)
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