Tag: Coping

Work. Exhaustion. Love.

by Alfredsson Jane, posted in Alfie Stories

In my last post I mentioned Mom is working 12 hour nights. Well she works 2 nights in a row and then gets 2 nights off except for sometimes she has to work 3 and then she’s off 3. Sounds great, right? Wrong. All she ever does now is sleep. She comes home at 6am, sleeps. Wakes up around 3pm (when dad gets home) then goes to work at 6pm unless she has the night off. If she has the night off that means she goes back to sleep at 9pm with dad. Zuc told me she wakes up around 2am and goes into the living room until we all wake up!

I sleep too soundly to know when mom wakes up but Zuc knows all so I trust him.

On her weekends Mom tries to stay awake and play with us but she almost always has to take a nap around 11am until who knows when.

She tells Dad all the time how tired she is and apologizes. We can all tell how exhausted she is so we let her sleep as much as we can. She says her medications for narcolepsy don’t really help and is scared about if she can keep doing this job even though she loves it.

Panic Attack

by Alfredsson Jane, posted in Alfie Stories

Do you know what a panic attack is? I’ve never had one personally but Mom and Zuc do. Have you ever been the one on the outside of a panic attack? They’re terrifying- for everyone involved. Mom says  she used to have them all the time. In 7th grade, she used to lock herself in the car in the school parking lot until she had to throw up. Then she’d crack the door enough to not get upchuck inside and her mom or guidance counselor would have to pull the door from her before she could close it again. This happened every single day for almost the entire school year.  It was bad. Now she doesn’t have them as often because she learned ways to prevent and control it. It doesn’t always work. She had one the other day. I didn’t know what to do it was so bad! Normally Zuc and I can make it better but this one was consuming her. Then she started talking about putting an end to her misery. 

How about depression? Do you know what it is? Do you know how it feels? Have you ever been the one looking in at a person who feels like a shell? It is not a good feeling. Mom’s been seeming to do better lately. I can see her trying. She’s also been sleeping a ton more than usual. I guess she’s been through this before too but she doesn’t talk about the depression like she talks about anxiety and panic attacks. Depression scares me. Mom was saying really bad things until Brooke called and made her calm down. I still keep watching her and hoping she doesn’t say things like or feel like that inside anymore. Zuc won’t leave her heels. He had a really bad life before he went to the shelter and Mom and Dad saved him. I think he understands what Mom is going through more than I do. If Zuc is worried, I’m worried. 

This weekend we went back to Grandmom and Grandpup’s. They don’t know about what happened but I think Mom needed a break. 

FIREWORKS ON MY HEAD!

by Alfredsson Jane, posted in Alfie Stories

Indepence Day is an important day, I know this. My mom and dad make a big deal out of it. There are people everywhere and the smells of delicious food. Mom loves to decorate and set up the patio. We play games and drink and its all fun.

But then there are the loud bangs that come from nowhere and the crazy lights in the sky that show up after the noise or even with the noise sometimes! CRACK and then these shiny weird colors show up CRACK, SIZZLE, BOOM and there’s more! Then they’re raining down toward us and what seems like at the last second they fizzle away into nothing! INTO NOTHING! How do I know they won’t show up next to me and I’ll go boom! How can I make sure the next one won’t show up on mom’s head and then she’s gone forever. And where in the world is that BOOM noise even coming from? And why? And why does it have to be so loud!?

These past few days have been horrifying for me. I’m losing fur all over the place and my body won’t stop shaking sometimes. The only place I feel safe is in the bathroom because there are no windows! Mom wraps me in blankets and sits with me so I feel a little bit better but it’s still terrifying. I get these treats that taste kinda strange a few hours before it gets dark. Mom says they have chamomile and melatonin in them, they taste like fake beef. After a while I start to get kind of tired. If I fall asleep before the fireworks and other noisy things start I can sleep right through them. I like when that happens. If I don’t fall asleep before they start, it’s worse! I fight sleeping and stay awake but I’m even more scared and tired out. Zuc looks at me like I’m crazy, sometimes I wonder if his senses work very well. He’s a good sniffer but when it comes to sight and sound I’m just not sure about him.

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On July 4th, Mom went to bed early with me. She gave me some of those treats and then we snuggled up in bed. I snuggled into my bed next to her. She pet me until I fell asleep. When the fireworks started the treats didn’t work all the way because they were so loud. I would wake up scared and then fall back asleep only to have nightmares and wake up again to more loud noises. Mom laid in bed while everyone else watched them. She held my paw and talked to me in her sweet voice to help me stay calm. I love my mom.

I’m curious, what are some ways others cope with fireworks? Mom has tried all kinds of things but none of them seem to completely work. I also do this with thunderstorms so any ideas could help us a ton!