“Mommy, which one are you?” the small voice asked, a hand pointing toward the drawings of faces on the wall. The girl scanned them thoughtfully, making a mental note of each one. Angry, hmm, that’s not it. Happy, no not that either. Lonely, no. Okay, no. One face resonated with her and she whispered, “Mommy, I feel afraid.” Her body language seemed to confirm it. She sat close to her mother; they were both seated on the far end of the couch. Her hands were tucked into her jacket sleeves and her eyes remained unblinking as she silently evaluated me. My job was to evaluate her, but I had a feeling that if I didn’t pass hers, the interview would not go far. Attempting to normalize her fear I said, “Yeah, sometimes it’s scary when you meet someone new, have you ever been to counselor’s office before?” Her head slowly swung from side to side, fear seemed to trap her words. She was nudged by her mother, ‘Go on now, talk to the nice lady, she’s asking you a question.” Instinctively she scooted even closer to her mother’s side. More silence. It seemed this intake would go much more slowly than anticipated. The mother, Janice, quickly said, “She told the school counselor that she wants to kill herself”. The tone of her mother’s voice seemed slightly aloof. Perhaps that’s her personality I thought. “You must have been feeling pretty sad to want to do something like that”, I said. A nod. Good. Now we’re getting somewhere. She responded, “Really sad”.
Slowly over the hour, the story of this 10 year old girl unfolded. Her mother’s been in and out of abusive relationships since the girl was a toddler. Referring to the mother’s current boyfriend, the girl said,
“This one doesn’t hit her, but they fight all the time.”
To clarify I asked, “Do they raise their voices or do they scream?”
“They scream, they yell at each other.”
“What do you do when this happens?” I thought she would tell me, but instead she placed both hands over her ears and closed her eyes.
Opening her eyes she said, “I wish they would stop, I just want them to stop.”
My husband and I go hiking quite a bit, we love the outdoors and it's a nice departure from all the concrete and counseling. Here are some pictures from hikes over the last year and a half.
Big Bend National Park, TX
Yellowstone National Park, WY
Mineral Wells, TX
Makapu'u Point, HI
Lost Maples State Park, TXAn 8 year-old came into the office sans medication and excited about the fact that he didn’t have school looming over his head. The result was extra restlessness and energy. His eyes darted back and forth. I keep my office blinds drawn since there are beautiful trees outside, but this presents a problem for my clients who have trouble focusing. He pointed out the window and shouted, “SQUIRREL!” Perhaps too much stimulation, I wish those squirrels would find other trees to live in… I thought.
We made a feelings book together over the hour. He had to draw in the appropriate face for each feeling and give examples of times when he felt that way. He drew crazy purple hair and strange eyes on the face for embarrassed and said, “When we go to the zoo on a field trip and my dad comes and calls me peanut in front of all my friends.” For happy he drew a generic happy face and wrote down, “I would be happy if I was rich forever after inventing a machine that makes money”.
Amazingly he was able to focus and participate enough to complete the rest of the book. When it came time to staple them, his eyes got big and he asked if he could use the stapler. It seems that most of the boys I work with will jump at any opportunity to use the stapler or the motorized pencil sharpener. One client always asks to sharpen ALL the pencils I have at some point during his session. His reason? “I like them sharp.”
So my client stapled his book together, but wasn’t happy with one of the staples. He wanted to remove it. I took out my staple remover; he tried to grab it from my hand, probably drawn to it because of the shiny sharp ends. I showed him how to use it first and then let him have a try at it. After a few minutes of twisting and turning it finally came out. He was holding the remover triumphantly between his thumb and index finger, squeezing it together rapidly when I asked him to give it back. I started to caution him, “Be Care.. Ow!!!!” In the middle of the exchange he managed to clamp the sharp edges of the remover into the tip of my finger, which promptly started bleeding. Thankfully I spared him some rather choice words… it wouldn’t have been therapeutic. This is especially the case knowing that when I get hurt suddenly (ram my toe into the coffee table) or get scared (almost get sideswiped by someone on the freeway) I tend to use expletives. I shouted them in my mind but managed to keep my cool. One day later and my finger is healing nicely.
