therapy

» simon says

I rubbed her scar at the edges of her wrist; the marks were in the shape of fingerprints wrapping themselves around her humanity.

"Why?" I whispered as my thumb gently touched the bruising shell.

She shrugged and bit the bottom of her lip, wincing at the touch. "I think he saw from what my dad did to mom and just learned that way."

"This is completely awful, love. He's way too young to be able to inflict such horrendous amounts of pain. He shouldn't ever have that much anger built up in just a decade of breathing. We need to do something about this. I can't just let you get hurt like this. It isn't fair to you—he can't just let his seething disgust of the world out on you. You've done absolutely nothing wrong. Children take in information at the speed of lighting; their stance on the world, their imagination, their drive to highlight the positive aspects of life is built upon their upbringing. Anything that they hear or see is automatically influencing them more than it will ever influence us. And I know you said that you don't want to stand up for yourself. I get it—yelling is only going to pour gasoline at the fire. But yelling isn't the only way you can stand up for yourself. It creates chaos till the entire house is radiating from radioactive anger—absolutely poisonous to everyone. I can feel the tension when I walk inside your house."

"You would think that my parents would know better than to argue in front of him, or when he is sleeping just a few feet down. His entire childhood has been torn apart into tiny pieces of garbage. I just don't know what I can ever do to change this. How can you change the specific time period where he learned all that he knows?"

"You start by talking to him, letting him tell you how he exactly feels when he's calmed down. No one has given him the chance to ever express his emotions. He's only been taught "Simon Says". Life has constricted him down to being fed a spoonful of no emotions, no desire to explore but just to harm everything in his path because he's entitled to it. That's all he knows, and it really isn't his fault. Just start by showing him what happens when instead of causing bruises on someone's body, you hug them when they're feeling sad. Or when you listen to them when they're telling you so vividly about their dreams. Just show him that two people in his life aren't the only type of humans that exist."