"It's a trap!" - Or, how we got stuck in Great Wolf Lodge

Before we go on with day 2 of our NYC trip, let's go back 5 years. When we first moved here from Los Angeles, we spent the first few days in Great Wolf Lodge. All of our belongings were still on a moving truck, so we thought taking a little mini vacation would help pass the time until everything arrived in the new home.

On day 2, a fire alarm went off while we were in the water park building. It was extremely loud. I tried to cover up the kids ears, but that did no good. So we tried to leave the building, but were told to stay put. Basically, we were trapped in this building with a blaring siren. Noah started to shake forcibly. He was terrified. We were trapped in there for probably 10 minutes before they let us out. We went back to the hotel room and Noah just rocked back and forth.

Over the summer, Noah developed anxiety every time we left the house. We saw a therapist. PTSD was mentioned briefly, but the therapist offered little advice other than to tell us we were doing all of the right things. I didn't want a pat on the back. I wanted help for my son. In the mean time, Noah became nervous any time we entered a building. Any little noise terrified him. And to make things worse, he was further traumatized when a kid triggered a fire alarm at Mc Donalds. That just made things worse, and we pretty much became prisoners of our house.  We tried everything to get him passed this. In the fall when school started, we couldn't even get Noah out of the car. Every day, I would drive to the school 3 times to try to get Noah out of the car, but he would shrink back in fear. Then one day, I got an idea .

It started out with me reaching my hand out and asking him to give me a high five. Then I moved outside of the car and asked for another high five. He had to reach outside of the car to do it, but he did it! Over the span of 6 weeks and multiple trips to school, I stepped further and further away from the car, getting him to follow me closer to the school front door each time. Until one day, we had him in school!

Noah continued to suffer from anxiety over the past 5 years. Noises, singing, crowds, alarms, so many things triggered his anxiety. It was a very long road, but with the support of the school,  help from a specialist, and a great deal of praying, over the past few months, he is finally on the road to recovery from debilitating anxiety.