My Support Forums - View Single Post

(JD) · Sep 17, 2011, 10:41 AM

Perhaps I'm digressing within the thread, but this vignette came to me and it may be applicable here.

I tend to become lost in a certain city here in South Florida. (I insist the town street layouts were done by drunken monkeys.) However, I became lost going through the city and ended up over on the beach.

This was just as GPS were becoming available; I did not yet own one.

I drove around a bit and realized I was just too disoriented to figure it out on my own, plus the later I became for my appointment, the stress negated any real ability to solve this on my own.

Alas! I saw a police car which had stopped a car going in the opposite direction from me. I didn't see any way to pull in behind the cop, so I pulled into the car lot or parking lot about 20 feet behind and walked up to the cop car. I did know enough to not stand at his window... I walked past his car on the sidewalk to the front bumper and stood, waiting for him to look up.

He jumped of course, that someone could do that and he not be aware. He got out of his car and began yelling at me. I was more filled with anxiety of being lost than of him, btw. After a little rant of his I said, " I'm sorry officer, but I have a panic disorder and I'm lost."

His entire demeanor changed. Obviously he had had sensitivity training and it kicked in beautifully. He calmed me down, asked where my car was, said to go back to it and he'd come back and help. Which he did.

Awareness and education is a good thing. If I hadn't had help by a pain and stress management psychologist, even though I had education about what one should do in this situation, I would not have been able to control my anxiety enough to not yell and scream and react out of panic at the officer as well. His education about what people need --read validation-- as well as the tools to be able to provide for that need, really made this a situation that had a good outcome.

I'm hoping that afterwards he reminded himself of his rant at me, and that in the future his new sensitivity training would kick in faster?

Hope this isn't off topic.