Kim Beck

I am writing this because I have spent the whole weekend trying to save puppies and dogs from death. These animals did nothing and were tortured and abused and abandoned and it weighed heavy on my heart. So I began thinking today, what is wrong with our society? They showed some statistics that anyone who tortures animals, pets, 78% go on to abuse children and hurt others. I have met clients who tortured animals and it hits a nerve with me, most are angry teenagers or are suffering from mental illness and started abusing animals when they were young.

Today I did an assessment on a 13 year old boy presenting with symptoms of ADHD. He refuses to go to school. He says he can't concentrate, he's distracted, can't do the work and dislikes the teachers telling him what to do. His Pediatrician said he has ADHD and maybe needed some counseling to see if anything else is going on. The mom said that when she goes to wake him up from school he cries uncontrollably and refuses to go. The Pediatrician wrote out an excuse and need for home instruction until he saw a psychiatrist.

As counselors, we all have encountered suicidal clients at one time or another. Today I had an emergency client who was suicidal. She talked her heart out and I gathered from her story that she just wanted things to go her way, she didn't really want to die. She has been self-injuring for most of her life and finds that this helps her numb the painful feelings. She has minimal support so a case manager was suggested to help out with all the overwhelming things she has to do. She has children that don't listen to her and anything that was suggested she said she tried already and is tired of trying now.

When I began my counseling career many years ago, I worked with the adolescent population. Many of my clients had so many thoughts on their mind they could barely talk about what was bothering them because it seemed that everything was bothering them. I remember a client who was so overwhelmed she just grabbed her head and started crying. She was experiencing loss, cutting, abuse, and extensive worrying. When we would try to narrow down her problems to prioritize and create a treatment plan, she couldn't do it. She had very little coping skills to be able to deal with her problems and she struggled to say what was on her mind. To my surprise I found more and more adolescent clients in the same situation.

I have a client I have been working with for approximately 6 weeks. This past April she was raped by an unknown stranger. Her current boyfriend seems to think this was actually an acquaintance of hers and believes she was cheating on him. When we discussed the rape she was visibly distraught about it and started to cry, her feelings got flooded and I realized how she never did deal with what happened. This was a topic to ease into after we established more coping skills for her.