I Carry Them With Me

When she was 5 years old, she often came home from kindergarten and stayed home alone, sometimes for the entire night. She slept under her bed when she was left alone, so no one could find her. Sometimes in the middle of the night, she would drag a chair from her room to her baby brother’s crib to pick him up when he cried even though she was afraid of the dark.

When he was 8 he tried to jump out of a window to get away from his mother’s abusive boyfriend. He broke his arm, and his mother refused to go to the hospital with him.

She lost an important piece of herself when she was 4. Her father took it from her one night when her mother was in the hospital recovering from surgery. She was wearing a pink nightgown, and couldn’t escape.

When he was 6, he got between his mother and father during a fight. A door that was meant to be slammed into his mother, was slammed into him. His wrist was broken. Loud noises make him cringe, he jumps at every movement, never trusting his environment to be safe.

One night, his father passed out in the shower, intoxicated. At 7 years old, he stayed up all night to make sure his father kept breathing.

She was born addicted to cocaine. Her mother left her on her grandmother’s doorstep when she was 3 days old. She is developmentally delayed and cannot emotionally attach to her grandmother. She is trapped in her own brain.

Their stories are heavy. Burdens that no human, but especially, no child should have to bear. But they do. They carry their stories with them every day. Often, you can see their stories in their behavior. They cry easily. They startle easily. They lie. They disrupt classrooms. They have nightmares. They refuse to talk to you. They deny their feelings. They overcompensate. They have flashbacks. They hoard food.

Because their stories are too heavy.

They end up in my office or the office of someone like me. They are desperate to give up some of their burden, to feel important, to feel heard. I do my best to be a safe person, to show them that a story carried together is always lighter.