Stories

As a child therapist, I have hopefully helped many children to cope with not only traumatic life events, but assisted them to cope with everyday situations and enhance their daily functioning in the world. I have heard many stories of abuse, neglect, death, bully's, and accidents. But two for sure hit home this week.

The first was a six year old boy who was hearing 5 voices in his head that were telling him that he is weird, and funny. He was also seeing a "kid" that appeared throughout his day, and could describe what he looked like, and also his unique layers of clothing he was wearing. This young boy stated they were getting annoying, all the voices and the "kid" showing up.

The second story I heard today, and have not been able to let go of. This young client of twelve year old and I were talking about his depression, what it is like for him, when it started and a few other symptoms. I asked if he thought of self harm or suicide when he was in a depressed state, and he said "not anymore, but when I was younger." As I probed him to elaborate on this he explained to me when he was 5 years old, on multiple occasions, he would go outside and lay in the street hoping that someone would run over him. This is at age 5!! I was astounded that a five year old could experience a depressed state like that in the first place, and then actually be able to follow through with a plan.

I am still tonight, having a hard time wrapping my brain around it.

Attitude

The summer is at its half way point. I was so excited at the beginning of summer to have time to do activities with my kids, go fun places and enjoy my time off with the kids. But it feels that I have not accomplished any of that.

Maybe, I am just in a mid summer funk, and am not clearly recalling things at this point. But I feel that summer has been full of many obligatories and have to's. A family wedding started the summer. It was fun to see family, but was a long travel time for our short stay. Then family was in town, which we loved, but was all consuming for almost a week. Next was violin camp, everyday for 5 days. I must say by the end of day 3, I was ready to strangle many ill behaved and disrespectful children. Next week starts dance camp for two weeks and swimming lessons for two weeks.

Could it also be too, that our friends were here on vacation and I still want to be on vacation with them? So everything feels obligatory because I rather be on vacation? We had a wonderful time with the S. family. The kids made memories that they are all still talking about, and crying about. I had so much fun with Mrs. S. sitting by the pool for hours talking about our families and parenting. She truly seemed to love my quirky family stories, and took an interest in my life. That is very rare to find once people find out that I am a therapist. When people find out I am a therapist they get into talking mode and it may never occur to them that I have not said a word about me or my life. Thanks Mrs. S. for taking an interest and acting like a "real" friend.

So, we will forge on with our summer, my pity party will come to a close, and I will re adjust my attitude and have a fantastic end to our summer.

Times

Sometimes there just are no words to describe life.

4th of July

4th of July was a spectacular day.

It started with a family boat trip out to Lake Mead. The kids were more then excited as we launched the boat and headed to a spot where we could do cannonballs off the boat, make sand castles and throw rocks. We found a great cove for all our activities and even had a picnic on the boat.

Later that evening family came over and we attempted to devoure a 30 inch pizza. Can I even begin to tell you how huge that was??? It was like the Paxinos circus as usual with all of our family chaos. The horrible headache that was behind my eye was killing me though, I could not even read the pizza menu out of that eye. But the evening must go on.

We ended the evening with the fireworks display in Boulder City. They started out pretty bleak, but the grand finale made up for the slow start. In true Paxinos style, we were waiting in an enormous traffic line to get out of Boulder city, and the low fuel light pops on. The kids both worried and went through every possible scenario of what we would do "if." But we did make it to the gas station in a timely fashion, filled up and had two kids asleep before he hit the freeway.

Who's loosing it?

Is it me or my mom, who is the one loosing it? I believe in the last 2 weeks my mom feels I have not remembered anything she has said, done or mentioned. Apparently she tells me her schedule, and I don't remember it or I forget that something a week from now is scheduled. Well, maybe she is right. Maybe I don't have the memory I used too.

Could it also just possibly be that I have a full plate?

I have two busy children to raise. Dance class once a week, violin every morning plus lesson and group class every week, school homework, projects and PTSA commitments.

I work and emotionally draining job as a child therapist part time, trying to assist children and their families to more fully function in everyday living. I also work a contract job every other Sunday, and a per diem social work job.

I have a mother, whom of course has her issues.

I try to keep track of my father and invite him to family functions and dinner (oh, and I seem to be his mail carrier as he has mail delivered to my house instead of his).

A sister who is in an intensive graduate school program, who has a dog with multiple health problems.

My husband has his issues too, I tend to lovingly tease him about his attention deficit disorder and the fact that some days he must not have "paid his attention bill."

So, maybe, just maybe mom, if I don't remember your exact schedule, if I don't realize what is scheduled a week out, please just cut me a little slack. Being the family "den mother" is sometimes just a lot to juggle.

Good Bye's

Our summer is almost at the half way point. We have had many fun adventures with family and friends thus far, but it has also been a summer full of good bye's. As many of you are aware, Carson has such a hard time with that. It breaks my heart and totally reminds me of me when I was a child and my heart just aches for him.

Here is our list of good bye's:

Grandpa

Cousin Ali

Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Sam

School friends and teachers

Aunt Michelle

Cousin Mikele

Friends, the S. family including their two children

Carson has cried at every parting and Adeline had her times also. We love and enjoy all our friends and family, but the good bye's are getting tough.

Commonalities Across the Country

Recently our family flew across the country to attend a family wedding. We were at one of the family /friend dinners where a lady was telling us that she had grandchildren who were my kids age and they lived part time in the same city we did. How interesting I said, and we continued on with our conversation and found out we actually not only lived in the same city, but were literally in walking distance to each other. At the next dinner, the lady gave me her daughters phone number and said "please give her a call."

As I said I would, I gave this mom a call. We scheduled a little pool party with lunch. Amazingly the kids hit it off big time. There was not one issue between the kids, no refereeing, no behavioral disruptions, sharing and manners were displayed throughout the day. Icing on the cake was us mom's even had a great time. We were actually able to have uninterrupted conversations about parenting and life in general.

What a great day! Who would have ever known we would travel cross country to find a friend and neighbor in our own backyard.