This time last year we were in a really bad place. Our 8-year-old son seemed to suddenly be crippled by worries, anxiety and emotions and the boy who was once very sociable and fun loving was no longer wanting to go out for days, see friends, have holidays and worst of all was refusing to go school.
We were extremely worried about him, not understanding where this had all come from. We didn’t know how to help him. What we were sure of was that he wouldn’t be able to talk about it as he was really closed down and just didn’t understand how he felt or why he was so worried about things. It felt like literally everything was starting to cause him to worry and new worries were emerging on a daily basis.
I started to look at different types of counselling and therapy and came across Julie. After reading more about her work we felt this would be perfect for our son as he wasn’t willing to talk so decided to pursue play therapy.
Myself and my son visited Julie together on his first session and he got stuck in straightaway. Julie was honest from the get go that this wouldn’t necessarily be a quick fix and there were no guarantees that this would work for him and I don’t think we will ever fully understand what triggered this for him.
Our son had his last session with Julie today and over the last 12 months he has learned that the feelings in his body when he is worried are normal and can deal with these by practicing all manner of techniques such as calm breathing and distraction. He has built on friendships at school, raised his self-esteem and generally has a much sunnier and more positive outlook. He has learned resilience and independence.
Julie has made such a difference to all our lives; we finally feel we have our boy back and life feels good again. We are having days out, going to parties and having holidays again. He even gets excited about going to school now and I can’t remember the last time he said he didn’t want to go; he just takes it all in his stride.
Julie wasn’t just there for our son; she was always on the end of the phone to me when I needed her to chat through things and this has been invaluable. Thank you, Julie.