Confessions of a Therapist

I've been sitting in the therapy room for 15 years now, and one thing is for sure. I learn a lot from my clients. 

I told the hubs recently that I do my best parenting in the therapy room. Not toward my clients, mind you, but the effort I put into helping them seems to morph into guilt that I might not be doing the same for my son. I guess the difference is that when the hour is up, I can step back and take a minute. There are no time limits in parenting a child with PANS (Pediatric Acute-Onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome). 

I'm going to say and do all these things for him when I get home, is the usual mantra in my head every time I come home from my office. When I walk in the door, however, the illness smacks me in the face and I just retreat. 

Forget it. I give up. 

The song that often plays in my brain is Over My Head by The Fray. I know, I know, it's probably about 'boy meets girl' and said girl breaks said boy's heart. Some of you probably even hate it, but man oh man... Broken heart. Kind of hits the nail on the head there. Plus, this PANS stuff is often more than I can handle.

"Everyone knows I'm in/Over my head /Over my head/Eight seconds left in overtime..."

I've been in over my head since day one. And he's almost 14 now, so it sure feels like overtime here. 

I remember in my grad school days learning about the heavy hitters like the Freudian, Adlerian and Gestalt theories. You know, psychoanalytic, empty chair stuff. But then there was this guy named Carl Rogers. He said relationship is key. It can't be that easy though, can it? 

I thought of this while watching Good Will Hunting the other day. How many therapists did poor Matt Damon go through to get to Robin Williams? Five. No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care. Maybe it IS that easy, but how many times have I failed at this in parenting? Especially parenting a PANS child that brings new meaning to the phrase Let's get ready to rumbllllleeeee......

PANS kids struggle with so many things, depression and anxiety being at the forefront. The least I can do is offer my own kid what I do others, right? But I'm human too. I have to sift through a lot of knee-jerk reactions in order to find the best response. And trust me, when you are under fire 75% of your day, you don't always choose the best response. 

So while I've gotten my Google degree in how to heal a PANS child, it's come down to something we are all built with. Factory settings, if you will. Relationship. No Google degree needed. 

Oh and one more side note here, especially if you have a therapist friend in your life. If you've ever wondered why they are so socially awkward, it's because we are. We feel much more at ease talking about your dead grandmother than chatting about the weather. We are used to the heavy lifting. The silver lining is that you can cry on our shoulder any time and we won't flinch. At least we have that going for us.