Saturday 12 April 2014

A Set Back

Micah started a new therapy for the PTSD three weeks ago.  It seems to be going well.  She is trying equine psychotherapy.  So far she has learned things like body space, how to connect how she interacts with the horses to how she interacts with people, and learning to relax to encourage her horse to do something. There are other things I'm sure but she hasn't mentioned them.

Micah told me yesterday that she was trying too hard to get a horse to do an obstacle and was told she needed to relax and make it seem like it didn't matter if the horse did it or not.  Then the horse was more comfortable doing the obstacle.  I am really hoping that this will translate into other parts of her life.

This week I told Micah she could start going to the playground at our local school with her friend.  She went the first time and when she came back after a short time, she told me something had "freaked her out" but she would tell me later.  She thought she had seen the teacher who had caused her PTSD.  We both knew that was not possible as he committed suicide almost a year after she left the school.  She also saw some of her old classmates.  We talked about it a bit and I thought things were going along as usual.  

Over the next couple of days, I could tell her anxiety was getting worse -it shows in her behaviours which is something she has started writing about in her blog at times.  I wasn't sure what the cause could be although we had to take the dog down to the behaviour specialist and he spends a couple of hours at least with us each time we go.  Micah struggles to sit that long but she had her iPad.  Then we had to rush home for dinner and get her to her riding lesson.  It gets a bit stressful with days like that.

That was Thursday.  On Friday, she had therapy and I had my allergy shot and then she was to have her lessons.  Ten minutes before her teacher Mrs. H. was to show up, Micah asked me to cancel, which is really hard to do with that short a notice. She begged me and I said it wasn't possible but maybe she could try just a little while. She couldn't and went upstairs to hide.  Mrs. H. came and I tried to explain the situation.  By that time I figured it probably had something to do with Micah's scare at the school yard. 

I suggested to Mrs. H.  that she might go up and see if Micah would respond to her.  She went up and  of course Micah would not even look at her.  This was something new for Mrs. H. to experience with Micah.  She had been an EA in Micah's class until December and then switched to teaching.  This sort of behaviour was never seen in school.  Micah always struggled through until she got home.  It was good that a teacher finally got to see one of the things we have spoken about but they have never experienced.

 We talked a bit longer and then we agreed that I would email Mrs. H. in the morning (she comes Friday's and Saturday's for a couple of hours) if Micah could not manage her lessons again.

Later that day Micah wrote her latest blog post which you can read here.  It had to do with the incident at the school yard.  This confirmed my thinking so I at least knew what had been bothering her the past few days.  I hadn't really thought it would be a problem until she suddenly wanted to cancel her school lesson.

This morning seemed not too bad and Micah got to her singing lesson but still could not manage a school lesson so we had to cancel again.  We were able to talk about it in the car after music this morning and Micah also said that her therapy is helping so that is a very good thing.

I am hoping that things will get back to normal (for us anyway) over the week!

Micah's first ride!



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