I Guess I Wasn’t Ready For The Mall…

My granddaughter was over the moon excited to be going to West Edmonton Mall. I suppose just about any fifteen-year-old would be. It’s a pretty happening place, with plenty to see and do.

I was around her age when it was built. I remember the excitement. Back then it was the biggest mall in the world. I used to enjoy it too.

I outgrew the excitement of it years ago. Our optometrist’s office is there, though, so every now and then we are forced to brave the crowds. Last week it was time once again for the dreaded foray.

I have found during my recovery from a stroke-like episode, caused by Functional Neurological Disorder, last year, that I am very easily overstimulated. Overstimulation results in a quick loss of the progress I have made, and I can never be sure exactly how that will look or how long it could last.

I have been worried about this mall trip for some time. If you enjoy having your senses bombarded, WEM is certainly the place to go!

Bright lights, commingling, overwhelming smells, noise, and oh so many people are all more than this poor, old country girl can handle!

I wish, for my granddaughter’s sake, that I wasn’t such a stick in the mud, but I am what I am. I hate everything about the mall and before we even got there I just wanted to go home.

She, on the other hand, wanted to see all there was to see, do all there was to do, and taste all there was to taste. I know that this can’t be done unless you have several days and a ton of money to do it. We only had a couple of hours and little money.

I did agree to have lunch there though.

I parked close to the optometrist’s office and used my walker. Had we just been going to the optometrist I probably could have gone without it, but I had promised my granddaughter at least a little more than that. We could at least have lunch in the mall and maybe check out a store or two.

We meandered our way through the mall to the food court.

I had to figure out how to use the escalator with my walker. I used to be terrified of escalators. I always had visions of getting tangled up in all those moving parts and dying a horrifying death, even before I had seen anything like that on television.

I have a vivid imagination. The walker just made it that much more daunting. People were meant to use stairs, but that would have been far too much for me as if this day wasn’t already.

So I figured out how to get down the escalator with my walker. I didn’t fall nor did I have an anxiety attack, and perhaps most importantly, the escalator didn’t eat me.

By the time our feet were back on solid ground, I could feel FND taking over my brain. I’ve come to refer to it as ‘wading through molasses’. Sometimes the molasses is more translucent, like honey, as was the case in the mall.

My thoughts become disjointed and my senses don’t process the information that they are taking in. My body can’t interpret what my brain is trying to get it to do. I feel like I’m falling.

I stopped and gripped my walker with one hand and reached out to my granddaughter. Slowly and deliberately I told her she would have to pay attention to where we were going so we could find our way back.

She looked at me dumbfounded. Her FASD brain can’t keep track of directions!!

I shrugged. We certainly make quite a pair! I figured that, worst case scenario, if we got lost we could ask for help.

As we entered the food court the overwhelming mix of smells hit me like a sledgehammer. It took everything I could muster to order some food, sit down, and eat.

My brain fought for me to just completely zone out. I fought the dissociative seizure hard, trying desperately to stay alert and aware. At one point though, I remember my granddaughter grabbing my arm and asking if I was okay.

I explained that all the sensory stimulation was just too much. I said that I’d be fine once we could get out of there.

She said that she wished that she could help me, but she didn’t know what to do. Then she ditched me!

Without a care in the world or a penny in her pocket, she left me sitting all alone in the food court. She was determined to see as much as she could in what little time we would be there and I was only slowing her down.

I finished up my lunch and managed to find my way back to my van without having to ask for help. I felt like that was a huge win!

I sat in my van until it was almost time for her appointment. She’d been sending me pictures of all the things that she had seen.

She was more than a little disappointed when I said that I couldn’t take her on the paddle boats or go to the candy store after her appointment. I just had to get out of the city back to my country home and my peaceful, quiet existence.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to face the mall again.