Before the school year started, Tom and I sat down with the school counselor and psychologist to get their opinion on miss Savannah. We made sure that Savannah had the best teacher for her when it came to helping her to overcome her anxiety. Savannah met her new "friends" as she calls them on back to school night and they spent the first couple of weeks at school building a rap ore with her and establishing trust.
After the first couple of weeks of school had gone by with zero improvement, I knew that this was bigger than I could handle. At the risk of sounding dramatic, my heart was literally walking around in her anxious body. It was more than I could handle, and I was praying and hoping for an answer that would help ease her pain. Tom and I both had the feeling separately that we should ask her to take a break from one of her extra curricular activities, and that we should give her the choice. When I asked her to decide, there was no hesitation in her voice when she chose gymnastics. I was actually quite surprised because this is what she was "good" at. This is where I "saw" her excelling. But ultimately, her welfare is our top priority and if that was the choice she was going to make, I knew that we needed to support her.
We now take each day sometimes an hour at a time and I am grateful for improvements as small as they may be. Savannah is learning breathing techniques that have helped her, and she is even excited to go to school on some days. She now calls her stomach aches "butterflies" which for some reason helps me to handle them better than a doubled over stomach ache accompanied by uncontrollable weeping. All of these are positive steps forward. In watching her I sometimes wonder if I was given certain tools to help with me with my nervousness, would things have been different in my life? I am hoping that this will just be a moment in time for Savannah and that she can use this to help her with challenging things throughout her life.
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