Frogs, princes and the Fear of Depths
I sat down on the sand and said, “Let's tell funny stories by turns.”
Three turns later, it seemed like Archie was ready.
“Ok pal, rules change. Let's both stand in the shallow water and step forward with each new story.” I started telling my next story and took a step, sinking ankle-deep.
But it wouldn't work. The river talked louder. Its language was acutely chill streams and sudden touches of gravel, plants and snails, all hidden by the gleaming surface. The fear gained power with Archie’s every step until it overwhelmed when waist-deep.
Watching him, anger was stirring inside of me. Why, the kid's kidding me, it can't be that scary, he's pretending in order to shun a difficult task!
I wanted to press on him, to shout... but that moment I looked into the face I loved and saw fear in his big brown eyes. He didn't pretend. It was not fear but the Fear.
It broke the spell I was under. The anger blew away, remorse and relief taking its place. He's just a little kid and he needs the Caring Dad, the Understanding Dad, not the Hard Dad.
It helped.
“That's all right son,” I said soothingly. “You can go back to the shore. And it's time to go home for lunch.”
We were laughing, and chatting, and playing tags and dwarves-and-goblins on our way home - the accident on the shore required some compensation for damaged trust between us...
My son is afraid of depths. We've been trying to deal with this since he was maybe five or six, trying different ideas just to fail if not make things worse. That morning I had surely continued that line.
After lunch, I settled in the garden with Frogs Into Princes. Its elegant unorthodox psychotherapy attracted me to try again every once in a while as it had inspired me on the morning's play with the tactile channel. All my son was afraid of in the river manifested itself through skin, not eyes or ears. Well, kid, I thought, maybe we could try and distract you from this?
As written above, he wouldn't get distracted...
Sitting in the garden, I was thinking about a new plan, rewinding memories of how the son explained what he felt. The problem with therapeutical practices is that they always require a therapist to be a bit creative. Following one and the same theory often results in doing opposite things.
Most of Archie's tactile experiences in the river were not what he really felt but he expected to feel, and felt repulsion in advance. Isn't that a clue? If we can't abstract from the experiences, we can do the opposite - enforce them and make super-real.
An hour later, we were marching towards another beach. Firm to undertake new attack on the phobia, I wanted to ensure the environment did not remind of the morning's failure.
Archie entered the water at a snail speed. I was waiting patiently, trying to be open-minded to whatever happen. Being one yard from the waterline, his foot sank in soft clay. Archie retreated with “quicksand!”
“That's not quicksand,” I laughed. “It's just clay”.
Wait, that's an idea! “Allow yourself to sink deeper and see what happens next,” I suggested.
“Oh,” he retorted, surprised to find solid bottom under just two or three inches of amorphic mass. It soothened him.
Feeling that I was on the right way spurred my intuition. “That was your first ‘quest’ and you're perfectly through it,” I said. “Ready for the second one? Take three steps forward. The clay bottom will end and you'll find rocks under. Go touch them with your tiptoes and explore what it's like to stand on them.”
Standing on the rocks, Archie swayed back and forth, paying attention to his feelings. “That's funny,” he said finally. He smiled.
“Don't hurry, give time to get familiar with this feeling. Ready to take a few more steps forward?”
He carefully inched through the rocks and stepped on a solid and clean sandy bottom, knee-deep. But now there were invisible water plants! “They are filthy,” he exclaimed.
I understood that “filthy” plants existed in his fantasy only. “Not so fast with judgements dude,” I said. “You pull back the foot before actually feeling them. All you need is touch them tiny little longer and stroke'em with your shin. You're gonna like them.”
In a spare of seconds he claimed that plants reminisced some funny pets licking his feet and shins.
Down into the deep we go again. “Time for the forth quest. Go forward while you feel safe.”
He sank chest-deep and stopped: “I can't go any further.”
“That's okay. We can finish now. But, first, explore your fear and ask it if it allows you to advance another yard or so.”
“I can,” Archie said and stepped forth.
“Can you make one more little step?”
And he did. And again. Step by step, negotiating with his fear in the process, I talked Archie into getting to neck depth where the Fear changed its tactics.
“Water presses on the chest,” the kid cried, terrified. “I can't breathe!”
“Don't worry, it's merely your last quest for today and you're not in danger. Listen carefully. Can you inhale deep and slowly?”
It sounded alogical but he didn't notice. He obeyed and, naturally, had no problems with that.
“Now exhale. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.”
“I'm cold,” he complained. “I've got goose bumps.”
“Well, that's the sign that I can congratulate you,” I said.
“Congratulate?” he was intrigued.
“You didn't feel you're cold while fear was strong. Now it's weak. See? And, by the way, the muscles in your chest were strong enough to inhale. You can breathe.”
“Oh, right,” he was surprised to find he was actually breathing in spite of water press on the chest.
“You've done awesome. Swim back to the shore.”
...We were warming, and drying, and building sandcastles.
“I liked it today,” Archie said. “Can we do it tomorrow?”
I nodded and said nothing. I felt being awarded the MBE. When I last heard “like” from this boy? Probably, seven months ago when he got a tablet as a Christmas present. The character: he's reluctant to say “like” as if the word’s taxed. Maybe this time I really did something special?
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