we agree a bit, and I’m accused of being insightful

Today’s session focused on the results of the questionnaires we filled out this week. We started out by informally ranking our perceptions (D first, then me) of her levels of anxiety, self-image, anger, depression, and defiance. We agreed for the most part, with me feeling she is more depressed than she thinks she is and her saying she’s got more self-esteem than I believe her to have. That’s where the insight comes in – I commented that I think she hides some insecurity by pretending to have self-esteem. After more discussion the doctor brought that up again and commented that I may have some good parental insight on this count. Yay me!

But it’s not about me, really. It will become about me when she’s older and her therapist helps her get to the root of all her problems. THEN it will be aaaaaall about her Mother…

So, we recorded where she may situated on a 1-10 scale in terms of those five topics. Then we looked at where the scores on the questionnaires came out. Her scores were pretty consistent with her self-ratings. It was good to see that she could be fairly honest about her feelings about herself. I don’t know why, it just made me feel like there is some rationale in there somewhere.

Turns out she has ADHD, which we knew already. She also has some signs of depression and anxiety, but no mention was made of prescribing meds. I’m glad about that, since I think we need to address the issues that might cause these things first. Prescribing meds just covers up the problem, it doesn’t solve it.

Some things I learned today that I didn’t know before:

• She said she thinks about running away often.
• Wishes she were dead sometimes.
• Feels a lot of anger toward her dad.
• Gets picked on a lot and called names.
• Thinks her future will be unhappy. 

And on another note, our doctor has a house in Cozumel…

It was interesting when the doctor asked her about the thought of running away. She said that she has friends who say she can stay with them, but then she hemmed and hawed around about why she hasn’t acted on the idea… I think when it comes right down to it she knows she has a pretty good life here and the idea of being alone, away from people who care about her (and feed her, and give her lunch money) is pretty scary.

She also marked on one of the questionnaires that she feels often that no one loves her. She quickly mentioned that I’m an exception to that, and focused on her dad. Specifically, she thinks he places a lot of conditions on his approval/love. I think he would say that’s not the case, but his actions and words could easily make someone think otherwise. Especially a child.

I wondered how the dynamics of the sessions would work – at least these first few that I sit in on. I find that it’s much easier to sit back and let her talk and react and answer questions without interjecting than I thought it might be. It’s actually been a great lesson for me; to let her talk without being censored or corrected, or just to put in my two cents. She looks at me now and then as if waiting for me to say something. At one point she even said “I know she’s dying to say something right now!” But I wasn’t. And I didn’t. And it was good to listen.

So, on we go…

~ by mrsmarshall on May 10, 2007.