HELP! Need to be professional - How do I stop my self bursting into tears or swearing!

[InnerStrengthNeeded]

Have an important high stakes legal hearing (civil not criminal) on Monday. It could go on all day. I have been through 18 months of stress to get to this point. There has been underhand tactics and deliberate misinformation from the other side. It has made me extremely angry and there is also the big possibility that I will lose so all this stress and time fighting has been for absolutely nothing!

We had a hearing a few months ago but I became very upset and was about to cry (which I did NOT want to do!) so asked for an adjournment so here we are, D Day on Monday, a decision has to be made and more months in limbo due to my getting emotional which I am furious at myself for 😡.

Please can I ask for tips on how to be strong and unemotional, have balls of steel etc. I am terrified I’ll make a fool of myself again, which the other side will love, and will lose as won’t present my case well enough. I hate confrontation, have low self esteem and am crapping myself.

Help!

You can only eliminate a high emotional response when you have actually settled and processed the issue fully

Without knowing what the specific issue is, and people helping you process it fully to reduce your emotional reaction, you are left with coping techniques like breathing, mindfulness and stress balls!

If you can really do some work to process this issue - why it’s so important to you, what fear it brings up for you, what the consequences are if you lose the case, then you will reduce your emotional response

Could you imagine you’re being filmed or watched? That works for me sometimes, the idea that I’m giving a bit of a performance and so I won’t do something that a “TV” version of me wouldn’t do. Don’t know if that makes any sense!

Can you practise some responses? So that you have go-to professional reactions in your mind, ready to go?

Op my best tip is to rehearse many times what is likely to be said and your possible responses, again and again and again.....
Get used to the feeling of rage and when it happens pause.... breathe in deeply, harness that rage, actually feel it inside, then slow breath out. Only speak when you have control even if it means a pause. When you do speak, talk slowly, in a deeper voice, one word at a time, keep the anger in your mind as a controlled force, that can help stop you crying and being emotional.

Practice out loud or better still with a friend until you are de sensitised to the emotional nature of the situation, also another benefit is that you will have suitable responses in your head.
Do not focus on the outcome, (that is out of your hands) just the responses you want to put across, it is worth the investment of time and effort before the day.
Good luck you can do it.

Do you have to give evidence?

If not can you pretend that you are an actor in a tv show being recorded.

Download the Paul McKenna book “Freedom from Anxiety” right now and work your way through the physical exercises/techniques in the first half of the book.

The tapping technique in particular for me helped massively last week, I did it before going into an extreme high stress situation and I was able to be calm and clear.

OP I once found myself in this situation and discussed it with a counsellor who said: so what if you cry? People will simply know that this matters to you. Crying is a normal reaction and isn't something to be ashamed of.

I found that thought so liberating. It's true. Have you ever seen someone cry and thought: shame on them? I doubt it.

Good luck for Monday. One way or another you'll be out the other side 49 hours from now.

I agree with this. I had to do something similar, and I gave myself permission to cry and be upset. Which I did, but because I didn't try and fight it, it lasted just a few moments, I managed a deep breath and was fine for the next few hours. Only you know if that would work for you. Best of luck.

Thanks for the quick replies! Very helpful. Will try them all.

I will have to give evidence and cross examine (in effect) the witnesses none of which are my side! The opposition has an expensive London barrister representing them while I only have little ole me! It’s definitely a David and Goliath situation.

I have rehearsed and rehearsed what I’m going to say but I just know I’ll muck it up and struggle not to shout out that they’re a bunch of c**ts😂.

Its actually a Tribunal for SEN provision for my disabled adult son. I’m fighting for a provision that costs £250k a year, the Local Authority want to keep him in a provision that costs £30k a year. Expensive provision also don’t want to admit him so are not on my side either which is very odd. Local Authority have tried to involve Social Services as they have been trying to say I’m not acting in DS’s best interests. It’s very emotive as this is his last shot due to his age and the difference between DS being able to progress into a semblance of experiencing a normal, independent life or living on benefits at the mercy of social care, with poor mental health, in a darkened room gaming for the rest of it!

Beta blockers would have been useful

I've voted YABU because I don't think "about to cry" was a good reason to ask for an adjournment when your son's education is at stake. I can't believe that even entered your head to do that.

The most important thing is to get to the end of this hearing and get the best outcome for your child, not to keep your emotions in check. Try and stay focused on the outcome, not the process.

Gosh sounds bloody hard. Good luck. No advice but I'm rooting for you

Do you have a friend or family member you can discuss this case with before you go to the hearing. Get all your crying out. I always feel once I've had a good cry about a situation I'm then better able to discuss it without becoming over emotional again as I've got all the crying out.

Also can you take a representative to the hearing who can deliver a preprepared statement etc if you feel you won't be able to say what you want to say due to emotion.

Take a Mackenzie friend -

Hi - I just want to reassure you that SEND tribunals in my experience have panels that are not at all aggressive or intimidating to the parent/carer. I anticipate / hope you will be given time to make a case, your answers should be directed to the panel and not having to face 'the other side' and they will have seen many distressed and untrained parents.
I wish you lots of luck x

Thanks @ReamsOfCheese but it wasn’t quite as simple as that and a bit too complex to detail in the OP.

I had discovered a week before that hearing that the expensive provision, which DS needed to be residential, only had day places available for this academic year so it would be unworkable as we live too far away to take him (3 hours). The Tribunal had already been postponed from last June (by them) to October so we had missed the chance of him starting there last September.

I had been searching for alternatives but there are none due to the specialism he needs and his age. Judge said ‘there’s nothing I can do if they’re full’ and said he couldn’t order that DS be admitted this September 2023 when residential places will be available due to the dates covered on his EHCP. We were going to lose. I then got emotional and asked for an adjournment.

Now that we are in January and DS’s EHCP has lapsed and needs to be renewed for the next year I have a chance of getting the judge to agree to order that DS be admitted in September just in time before his EHCP comes to an end at age 25. So actually me getting emotional and thinking I’d mucked up might have been been the difference between winning and losing overall!

Hi,
You have my utmost sympathy as I've fought with L.A.'s for my years regarding SEN issues.
Have you thought of putting cue cards together for yourself? If you have cards with all your questions/ statements/arguments it might help you to just read them out rather than having to look at people directly, which always made me worse. It also has the advantage of you being able to ask for a moment whilst you 'think' about a response and then look through your cards. In addition it shows that you are prepared and have information to hand.
I found it helpful to code the cards into various categories such as questions, statements, evidence, figures etc. I also asked to read a statement from the young person directly which showed why it was important to them, not just you as a parent.
Good luck and don't forget to remind yourself how amazing you are to have fought Goliath for so long and well. Most parents don't get this far. You are awesome.

Gosh I think I would be tempted to see if I could get hold of an out of hours doctor and some beta blockers. I don't know if you can get a private prescription off the web and then pick up in a pharmacy alternatively, though you might well not have the cash for that.

DS has also had no provision under his EHCP for over 18 months since his last placement broke down due to his mental health so has been at home very isolated sleeping most of the day which kills me everyday. He didn’t even get an EHCP until he was 15 despite being diagnosed with a learning disability at 11! ASD was finally diagnosed at age 17 after fighting for a reassessment for 3 years after being told at age 11 he didn’t meet the criteria for diagnosis and why did I ‘need a label for him’.

It’s been a utter shit show for the last 16 years since he started school with teachers telling me he was just naughty and how was I disciplining him at home?
Primary refusing to refer him for an assessment until age 9 when they finally accepted his low attainment could not be explained by his ‘naughtiness’!
Bullying at mainstream secondary, threats of exclusion, isolating him, constant detentions for low level silly behaviour due to immaturity.
Secondary school not entering him for any qualifications as he ‘would fail them anyway’ despite having refused to support him getting an EHCP from his initial diagnosis in Yr 7 of a learning disability.
The Headmaster telling me there were other students on the school waiting list who ‘wanted to learn so why should he have to have DS in his school’ again despite knowing he had a learning disability!
Him turning from a lively, happy lad with lots of friends and being very popular, loving to make everybody laugh and telling stupid jokes to a depressed, anxious loner outcast and a figure of mockery from age 14 with other kids calling him ‘creepy’ and a ‘peado’ who started self harming but still had 100% attendance as he insisted he still wanted to go to school.

Finaliy finding a specialist provision after a LOT of research which would fit him with therapies on-site and having to deal with the provision saying initially they would have no issues admitting him, then after the Local Authority consulted with them completely back tracking and saying they couldn’t meet his needs for spurious reasons like his academic levels being below their cut off which they weren’t but the Local Authority didn’t tell them that, his MH issues were too high risk despite evidence to the contrary again and them being a Social, Emotional and Mental Health specialist. That he wouldn’t fit in due to his learning disability despite them having 7 other residential students with a learning disability! It’s been proper crazy making!

Tribunal being postponed for 6 months due to him not being a priority (which he was!) so he lost a place for last September which was actually the wrong decision and they agreed to bring it forward but 4 months later, after I complained, but still too late for last year.

Is it any wonder this is so emotive for me!