I'm pulling out my beam

Being a parent is the most rewarding, satisfying decision I have ever made. But it is a difficult job. Being the parent of a special needs child makes my job even more challenging. Add in the fact that I am a mental health therapist who works with special needs children and you potentially have a recipe for disaster.

Let me tell you why. Somehow or other I think I had it in my mind that raising my special needs child would be a breeze for me, because I have successfully assisted countless other parents to effect positive change in the lives of their children. One of the things that makes an effective therapist is one who can separate from his/her own emotions, judgments, perceptions, and reflect back only to their client whatever it is that person needs to make a change. When I work with my clients, I am emotionally invested only to the extent that I am with that person IN THAT MOMENT. I rarely take my client's burdens home with me once a session has ended. If I did, there would be no way I could have survived 20 years in this business.

However, as a parent, I eat, sleep and breathe my son's burdens. I can't step outside myself and be objective in the way I can with people I work with professionally. And so, I make the same mistakes I see others do daily in my practice. I say the wrong thing at the wrong time in the wrong place. Looking back, I can see where I have tried to remain logical and objective, when what my child really needed from me was emotional nurturing and reassurance. I think it took me so long to seek another professional's help because I was stuck in the belief that given enough time, I could do for my child whatever needed to be done.

That was an unrealistic expectation and I am grateful to have come to this conclusion before more time has passed. I, indeed we, are already reaping the benefits of seeing ourselves reflected through the filter of a professional and I expect things to continue to improve. Not only for our family, but I feel an affinity for my clients that I may not have felt before. I have a better sense of how difficult the change process is and how hard it is to change ingrained, self-defeating habits.

How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,' when you don't see the beam in your own eye? You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you'll see clearly enough to remove the speck from your brother's eye." Luke 6:22.