Lost Girl: Sex and the Need to Please
"She’s been everybody else’s girl, maybe one day she’ll be her own." Tori Amos, "Girl"
Sarah curls up in the chair, sunlight glinting off the top of her bent head. She can’t look at me.
"Did you want to do it?" I ask.
"No."
"Then why did you?"
"I thought I had to. We had already started, and I knew that’s what he expected. I didn’t want him to be mad."
Bravery
"Oh Franklin! ...just because you're afraid doesn't mean you aren't brave. Being brave means doing what you have to do no matter how scared you feel." Paulette Bourgeois, Franklin Goes to the Hospital
My daughter wipes her cheeks and nose with the knotted up tissue, dazed brown eyes leaking constant tears that drip onto her red and white striped cotton dress.
One Parent’s Grief
"...please: Don’t say it’s not really so bad. Because it is…If you think your task as comforter is to tell me that really, all things considered, it’s not so bad, you do not sit with me in my grief but place yourself off in the distance... Over there, you are of no help…I need to hear from you that you are with me in my desperation. To comfort me, you have to come close." Nicholas Wolterstorff, Lament for a Son
I Don’t Like Mommy
“I don’t like Mommy sometimes and it’s okay to feel that way.”
As I exited her room after asking her to clean up her toys, I overheard my older daughter mumble these words. And I was so happy to hear them.
I believe that one of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is the freedom not to like us all the time.
About Lynn
I am a Licensed Clinical Professional Counselor with a Master of Science in Pastoral Counseling from Loyola University in Maryland. I have been in private practice for over twenty years and have experience working with adults and adolescents, addressing a variety of issues: anxiety, depression, relationship problems, past or current trauma, eating disorders, self-mutilation, bereavement, parenting concerns, boundaries, and self-care.