Flicker

I worked for 8 years as an occupational therapist before I had my own children. And those 8 years have marked me in such a way, leaving me to believe that sometimes trying to change a person, even when our intentions are best, is not the answer. I watched children struggle deeply with the knowledge that who they were pushed jaggedly against the grain of normal, and that to try to change to be more "acceptable" was the monster that haunted their dreams and hid under their beds. I saw children in therapy year after year whose progress was questionable against the regular development of age and experience. I met parents, frustrated, distraught, angry, and exhausted for and with their child, and with a health and educational system that did little to help or accept them. And then, I began to receive adults as clients. This, I believe, is what cemented permanently for me the belief that I would never be able to "fix" anybody, not in the way that parents with their pleading eyes wanted me to.  I met future versions of my pediatric clients in the adults, with the same kinds of sensory processing difficulties, but with years more experience in living and dealing with them. Most have been mis-diagnosed their entire lives, most were on medication of some sort just to manage. Some were managing their lives to the best of their ability, and some not at all, going in and out of therapy. In all of these clients, the compounding affliction was the same--the demolition or stunted growth of self-esteem, and the devastating knowledge that "normal" was an ideal they could never attain. After seeing all of this and being a part of these people's lives for just a short time, my conclusion was undeniable. More than anything, these people, these wonderfully unique yet tortured personalities needed acceptance. They needed unconditional love and assurance, from those around them and mostly from themselves, that they were perfect exactly the way they were.

I should be clear here in saying that therapy of all kinds can be beneficial to those who want it, and to those who have healthy expectations of what therapy can provide. As a parent of a child that does not swim with the current, I often do feel helpless at the struggles my daughter faces. I have urges all the time to want to "fix" her, mostly to save her from the emotional challenges she faces daily. With all the knowledge and experience I possessed as a sensory integration specialist, I balk now at my ineffectiveness with my daughter in that role. I was good at what I did then, but feelings of helplessness often mingle with the feelings of failure and I can't stop wondering what on earth was all my training for if not to help my daughter.

Unless.

My call is not what it was 10 years ago. I have changed so much from that eager "I can fix people with my super sleek skills" therapist I was then. I have evolved from that cocoon into the role of my life as mother. I seek light and air, crave the underlying, hidden story that each soul possesses. The mother I am is keen to feelings and guided by intuition, no matter how gut-wrenching that can be at times.  I have given up statistics and studies, odds, "practice makes perfect" thinking for a kinder, gentler, and more respectful way into what ails a human heart. And usually, that ailment is the belief that they aren't good enough, and that they will never be good enough.

I do know this to be true, that I am a far better mother than I ever was an occupational therapist, that I am far more invested in the emotional well-being of my daughter than in her performing "acceptably" against norms that change with every tide, with every moon. I am grateful that my experiences as a sensory integration therapist have given me the gift of understanding, of *seeing* my daughter for who she is, and perhaps that was the intention for that part of my life all along.  She is the candle that flickers in a windless room and I can celebrate that without needing to find a cause or an explanation. My role is not to fix, change, mold, alter, but to support, uplift, shelter, comfort, and guide. The preservation of her beautiful, artistic and authentic soul, buttressed by self-acceptance and self-love, and by the unconditional love of those around her, that is why I am here.

For those that also have a child or loved one that walks a different path, may love, patience, and acceptance keep your purpose clear, and may countless rows of flickering candles light your way...

xoxox