Client/consumer/individual going through hard times

One of my favorite clients (I’ll call her Joan… not to be mistaken with the client I wrote about last week) has had her meds switched. It is so sad to see the change in her. It will take her a couple of weeks to re-adjust to her new meds and then be able to function at the same level that she was just two weeks ago. I was shadowing her at her job site today because I wanted to work on some of her techniques (she works in an office, cleaning the kitchen, shredding paper, cleaning the bathrooms, dusting, etc.). And the usual bubbly Joan is now a glassy eyed shadow of her former self. I’ve been through this with her before. And it is so hard to watch. It is as if all the steps forward we have taken have disappeared and we are now back to the beginning. I know that as soon as she gets leveled out on her new meds she will greatly improve. But it’s difficult to see her not as she normally is (I hope that makes sense). Her employer ROCKS! I told her employer that I felt Joan needed to go home and get some rest and her employer gave her the rest of the week off WITH PAY! She just wants Joan to get better and then be able to come back to work. The employer, in my line of work, can make all the difference in whether a client is successful or fails. I had another client who worked for one of those major chain stores (which will remain nameless). But he had two wonderful managers who really wanted his work to be a positive experience and they really valued what he did. He worked for three years with hardly any problems. Then both managers left… one moved and one opened her own business. And “John” had a new manager who just didn’t want to (or wasn’t able to) take the extra time to work with him. He lost his job within six months of that change (John himself started going downhill, too. Change can be tough on some of my clients). Whelp, that’s enough reflecting on my job for today… I just hope Joan gets through her “funk” quickly!