Fiona's swim

It is only Wednesday but it has been busy.  Fiona had a scare at the local YMCA. The house took the ladies swimming.  Fiona had a very traumatic near drowning as a child.   It scarred her deeply. She is not a proficienit swimmer.  A housemate pulled her into the deep end and let go of her hand. She floundered to the wall and used it to get herself back to the shallow end.  Fi's impression is that she nearly drowned.  I am sure she did not--the lifeguard never had to assist. But I have learned that perceived reality is as important as the real deal.

What I am sure about is that this massively triggered her trauma and PTSD and all the other things.  She was nearly hysterical when she called me hours later.  I wrote an email to the house director.  NO response.  I wrote another. NO response.  I wrote a third and copied DDS and got an answer.  The most frustrating part for me in all this was that I shared that water history with the entire team so that there would be no issues surrounding water.  I told them how I had to hold her hand when we went to the lake last summer. And how she took 30 minutes to work up the courage to really be in the water and was shaking when she stepped in.

Missteps like this definately break trust with Fiona, which makes it harder for her to handle other stresses in her life. It caused her behaviors to rachet up during the week and last night there was an incident where she came to blows with another housemate.  It wasn't really serious--no one was hurt, but it is an indicator of a level of decompensation that she has not had in a long time.

On a positive note, Rob got the results on all his tests and he passed, so he has officially graduated from high school.  We have scanned the paper work to the college of his choice and await the next step.