For the last 3 weeks, I have been taking R to neurotherapy and we've been working on her fears and anxieties and have been coming a long way with that (even if it has to be for only 10 - 15 minutes at a time).
This morning, before going to school, R wanted to watch Curious George. She was especially interested in one episode that dealt with monsters in the dark and how his imagination would get the better of him in thinking that there were monsters in his room. Once the light was turned on, he saw that there weren't any... Just objects that looked different in the dark.
Most children are almost expected to be afraid of "monsters" in the dark at some point in time and we as parents take the time to calm their fears. For R, it's a bit different.
On the night of Donovan's accident, the police force (for whatever reason that I still don't understand) decided to have a rather large, quarter-back sized police officer go into her room, wake her up, and bring her to me. As you can probably imagine, R was shaking like a leaf and (before long) throwing up. The PD had to ask "Is she sick?". Well DUH! Most adults are scared sick when they have a complete stranger come in and wake them up... What do you think a 5 year old's reaction is going to be?
Now, R is starting to face those fears and trauma from that experience in a way that won't make it extremely difficult for her. She doesn't have the vocabulary nor the previous experience to relate how she's feeling about being woken up in the middle of the night and she actually looks forward to the therapy. Yesterday, I asked her why she likes to go and she said "It's helping me momma! And I like the lollipops!"
It's taken us 8 months just to get to the point that she can handle the "heavy stuff". Up to this point, we just had to help her be calm within herself and be balanced overall. Now comes the hard part but it's all in very, very small baby steps.
For all this, I am sooo thankful that there are resources and talents that God has given people to help those who need it most.
More to follow......
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