Photo by: Amy Derrick, PTLS Mom
The Christianville Spirit
The Spirit that Uplifts Your Soul
September 3, 2014-TCS # 415
Happy September, Everyone! This is The First Month of The Fall Foliage Season, so Get Yourself and Cameras Ready! So, This Week’s Newsletter is a Personal and Yet, Very Confusing One to Explain so I will do My Best to Explain It. You See, as You know, We PTLSers get Overwhelmed easily and when We do, we act differently than We normally would. I recently discovered however, that There are different types of Being Overwhelmed. Now, Normally, If You know that Your Child is Overwhelmed, then You should take them out of The Situation for a Little Down Time with some Peace and Quiet. But, That is only the case, with One of Them. See, There is a More Positive or Excited Overwhelmed and Then, There is the Negative Overwhelmed where Your Child is more Fretting about it. Now, It sounds plain and simple, Right? Well, Pull The Brakes, because it is more Complicated than that! First of All, to Explain The Difference. A Positive Overwhelmed means that They are excited and are busy Observing Everything around Them that They don’t want to do Anything Else. That in a Way is a Good Thing because as My Mom would say, “They are Soaking it all in, in Amazement”. Like Someone asking, out of Curious Excitement, “Ohh, What is That?!, What does that do?! What is That Thing?!”. Then, Of Course, There is The Negative Overwhelmed. Where there is too much Activity, too much Noise, too much Stimulation, that They don’t know what to do, except Scream, Cry, or Run Off to a More Quiet and Less-Stimulating Location. All those Situations happen to Me. However, Too much of The Positive Overwhelmed can turn into a Negative Overwhelmed and what seems like a Negative is actually a Positive. An example of a Positive Overwhelming, was when I went to Savannah recently. I was Out of My Routine and Didn’t know Where I was and What There was Around. I mean, Okay, I knew that I was in Savannah, Georgia and I knew SOME of The Roads, but not all of them. But, I was Positively Overwhelmed because I wanted to see Everything and We only had a Day to see it. I had Lists in My Head, like “Okay, Let’s See. What do I want to see in Savannah? (My Mind begins Excitedly Racing) Ohh, I want to see the Hanging Spanish Moss on The Live Oaks; Wait, The Forest Gump Bench; And If we have Time, I want to see Tybee Island!” I was so Excited! When I got on The “Old Town Trolley”, for the First few minutes, I started talking loudly to The Driver telling her about Things and Then, I just sat there quietly Excitedly Listening so Closely to what The Guide was saying as well as Being Amazed by all The Squares, The Moss on The Trees, The Old Houses. I was Observing Everything! By The Time, that We got off The Trolley, we were all tired. Now, had I researched Savannah beforehand I would have gone to The Bonadventure Cemetery and Read some of The Tombstones (as Travel Channel says to do), or Went to that Historic Site that We drove by too late. But, Hey! It was the First Time There, You live and Learn! The Next is When We PTLSers are Negatively Overwhelmed. To Help, Imagine for Me, You sitting on an Airplane; The Pilot is telling you that Your Flight is Delayed, Add to that People Upset and Babies Cries Their Heads Off (It is Not Their Fault), Now, Add Someone is a bit overly friendly who wants to Tell You about Why They are Going Somewhere. Okay, That is sort of an Example of When We are Negatively Overwhelmed. It would make you want to Scream and Cry (or Get Upset) like Everyone Else, except The Overly Friendly Guy next to You. At This Point, Reading all of This would give you Nightmares! And, If You were in This Situation, You would want to go somewhere Quiet too. I remember a Time when I went to Great Wolf Lodge with My Dad, My Mom was standing there trying to say, “See Ya Later” and Make Sure that I was Okay, but I had a Hard Time hearing her because of The Water Noises, Children Screaming, People Talking, and My Dad and Us were ready to go on The Rides. Talk about Overwhelming! What I usually would do is Go Somewhere much quieter and Hang Out, but There was No Where besides The Lobby, Outside, or The Hotel Room to go for Some Quiet. That, and I wanted to do Fun Things and Do What everyone else is doing so, I just followed along. Now, Don’t Get Me Wrong, I did have fun when I went there but, The “Too Much Activity” does Wear on Us a Bit. It made me Very Upset and It took me a Week to Recover. This is an Example of What a Parent might think is a Positive Overwhelmed, but actually is a Negative Overwhelmed. An Example of a Positive seeming like a Negative, was when I rode a School Bus when I was little. My Mom decided to put me on the School Bus when I was 3, Others thought that I was too Young and It would be a Negative Thing. However, It turned out to be the Best Thing because I loved it. My Mom had it to where I was The First and The Last Stop on The Bus. I made sure that I sat on the Passenger Side of The Bus, so that I could read The Road Signs and See where Everyone lives.
So, What do You do if This Happens? If They are Positively Overwhelmed, Then Let Them Observe and It does help that if They don’t know what is Happening or What will Happen next, Tell Them What is Happening while They observe and If They don’t know what happens next, Then Explain to Them, “Okay, They’re doing this Now and They are going to do XYZ next”. If However, They are Negatively Overwhelmed, They will either take themselves out of The Situation (Like I do often) or You can, when You know that it is too Overwhelming for Them. All in All, It depends on The Situation that They are in and How They will react to It.
Thanks for Reading The Christianville Spirit. Having PTLS is not a Curse, It is The Greatest Blessing!
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