Miss Bossy

I got a text message from Program Manager yesterday. Daughter has become very bossy at her program, to the point that one individual quit the program rather than deal with her. She wanted my insight and suggestions before she talked to Daughter. I told her that Daughter gets controlling when she doesn't feel safe, so she needed the reassurance that staff was there to keep everybody safe and she could relax.
.
When Daughter got home last night she was quite subdued. Gradually the story came out about her conversation with PM. As we talked, I began to understand much of what's been going on. This morning a series of emails with Program Manager provided additional insight.
.
In keeping with Kari's wisdom, we will address the need, not the behavior. Daughter does not feel safe at her program. She doesn't think the staff understands her diabetes. At least once she raised a concern with a staff member about the way she was handling her insulin, and her concern was dismissed. I have worked hard to teach her that it is her body and her disease and she has a voice she can use to advocate for herself. She tried to advocate for herself, and felt dismissed. When her program was at the church, she knew that most of the time either Administrative Assistant or I was upstairs, and that we would keep her safe. There were a couple of times when something happened to trigger her PTSD, and she tore up the stairs looking for me. Once I wasn't here, but AA was able to give her the support she needed. She doesn't have the security of knowing we are upstairs any more.
.
When Daughter doesn't feel safe, she tries to control everyone and everything,so that contributes to her being bossy. The other issue is that she is still struggling with mania and is very much on edge. Little things annoy her, and today she was trying to get people to stop doing those things. I got word today that the Psychiatrist said I can stop the antidepressant completely now, so I will. Hopefully that will help with the mania. Tomorrow I'm going to go over and train the staff on Daughter's diabetes. They've been trained by the nurse, but they need to understand Daughter and her needs around her diabetes.
.
PM and I had talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but she wanted to wait until a new staff member was on board. Today we decided we couldn't wait for the new staff member, we had to act now. I'm hoping that the training I provide staff will help her feel safer. I hope she responds quickly to the elimination of the antidepressant. I hope that by addressing the needs, the behavior will stop.