Posted by Daisym on May 25, 2005, at 1:15:03
In reply to That's what I'd do » daisym, posted by Dinah on May 22, 2005, at 8:20:10
I called my son's therapist today. He was so sweet when he called back, "first, how are you?" -- and he gave me some good pointers on how to approach things with "a teen." (*sigh*) He said to remind him that coming in always seems to help and if nothing else they could talk football. I just love this guy!
So when I got home today I sat on one couch and my son sat on the other and I casually said, "I talked to your therapist today." His head didn't come up but his eye brows did. So I told him that I thought the last month had been really tough and he seemed so stressed and I wondered how he was dealing with it, given all the stomach aches. At first he said, "death week is coming up, so yes, I'm stressed." (death week is finals week) Then he said, I think I'm worried about going to the high school. And he got tears in his eyes! So we talked about the changes that were happening to our family and how did he feel about being the only kid left at home? He sighed and said he was going to have to do all the yard work now. (hide that grin). I nodded and said, "hmmm, so you are going to be right in the line of fire with your dad. I'd be stressed about that too." He rattled on a little bit about how unfair his dad is sometimes and I looked at him and said, "it sounds like you are angry with him. I'd be angry too if my dad refused to go to the hospital when he couldn't breathe." He looked at me and then told me again how bad it was and how scared he was and how it took dad 2 hours to decide to go. I took a deep breath and said, "would it have been your fault if dad had died?" He fell apart, said no, but he had thought about this a lot and next year was going to be really scary with no brothers here. By this time he had moved to my couch. I asked him why he hadn't talked to me about this and he said because he didn't want me to feel sadder and because it was OK now. He'd put it in a box. (Gosh, he sounds like me.) At some point during this conversation he moved away from me and into the computer chair. I looked at him and said that therapy was a really good place to talk about stuff if he didn't want to share it with me, even though I thought I could handle it. And I asked him if he felt he could cry with his therapist. He said he hadn't, but he probably could, but he didn't want to. He'd make jokes instead. (Yup, totally me.)
I feel so bad for him. He is carrying around so much stuff. I told him I wanted him to think carefully about this and tell me tomorrow. But that I, as his mom, thought it would be a good time to check in. So, we shall see.
Thanks for helping me follow through. I get hung up on what is my stuff and what is his. I don't want to project feelings on him that he doesn't really have.
poster:Daisym
thread:501000
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/child/20050226/msgs/502608.html