Aha moment icon
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It’s a most fascinating story and well worth pondering. If you have never read this story or haven’t read it recently, you ought to. It’s often referred to as the Road to Emmaus story. Wonderful, rich food that resulted in, unfortunately, heartburn!ĭuring our time in Nashville, I was reflecting on Easter, circling back to one of my all-time favorite stories related to that first Easter.
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If you aren’t familiar with Paula Deen’s recipes, people joke that she uses a stick of butter in everything. Looking for a place to grab dinner one night, we decided to try Paula Deen’s Family Restaurant – Southern-style cooking. And most of all, we are making sure he knows how much he is loved and that he will always have a safety net in our arms in the spaces between the aha moments.A few weeks ago, my wife and I spent some time in Nashville. And we’re celebrating the small victories and figuring out how we can trade those up for larger victories.
#AHA MOMENT ICON HOW TO#
So we’re learning together how to extend the good moments into good hours and days and weeks and months. That’s not a pretty thought, but it’s a realistic one. While the medication levels and therapy have helped him find some equilibrium, that equilibrium can be blown in an instant and we could find ourselves back at the beginning once again. On the same day the psychiatrist told us we would get that aha moment, he also told us that our son is most likely dealing with a lifetime of fragile mental health. As much as I celebrated the arrival of that long-awaited moment, I also know there will be a time in the future when we are waiting for the next “aha” moment to arrive. I am coasting on the beauty of that victory for as long as I possibly can. And when it came, it was shiny and beautiful and dripping in hope. But we just kept trying, and working, and praying, and loving and searching for that “aha” moment. I lost track of the number of events or places we either avoided or left abruptly in the past year, because the place or the people triggered either panic or explosive behavior. That was our promised and long-awaited “aha”moment. In fact, it was actually the most enjoyable large group activity we have experienced as a family in more than a year. Februthis year’s edition of the Blue & Gold banquet but this time with no panic attack. All we knew at the time was that he was in distress, that we had to get him out of that room, and that the trouble we had seen brewing for over a year had reached a new low point.įast forward.
#AHA MOMENT ICON SERIES#
Although at the time we didn’t know what to call what was happening – he would later describe it as feeling too hot, and dizzy and not knowing what was happening right around him – looking back now we know that was the first (and far from the worst) of a long series of panic attacks. (About 2 months before we began medication) That was the day last year our son’s Cub Scout pack celebrated their annual Blue & Gold banquet, and that is where our son had his first panic attack. That “aha” moment we’d been promised came earlier this month, in both an unlikely and wonderful place.įebruary 21, 2016. There were several points along the way where I wondered if we’d ever see that day the psychiatrist had promised us, but there were also several points along the way where I saw glimmers of calm and joy in my son that fueled me with hope. He continued his weekly therapy with a psychologist, and also began spending time each week with the counseling intern at the school. There were days and weeks where we feared for his safety, and there were days and weeks where we feared for our own safety. Truth be told, the worst days in our son’s slide into the black hole that was anxiety/panic/depression came after he started the medication. It wasn’t an instant fix, and we knew it wouldn’t be. He promised us an “aha” moment.ĭays, weeks, months passed. 10 months ago he promised us a date somewhere in the future when we would suddenly look at each other and just know that we’d made the right decision when we chose to medicate. It’s been a process.Īt the beginning of that process, the psychiatrist told us that one day we would suddenly realize that things were better. Since then the type of medication has changed, an additional medication has been added, and the dosage on both has been increased several times. About 10 months ago, we made the decision to start my son on medication to help manage his anxiety, panic attacks, and depression.