Trust Your Gut
Recently I had that feeling of, “Ughhhh. I had a feeling about this, why didn’t I go with my gut instinct?!” I am sure you can relate?
As I have shared here before, both of my kids are currently in therapy. My kids were each working with a different person but, for one of my kids, from the start I was hesitant with the therapist they were assigned.
The therapist was very kind and my child seemed to like him well enough. This child was also reluctant to go to therapy but seemed to vibe with their therapist enough that it rolled along ok at the start. Though I had this nagging feeling that my kid wasn’t being challenged enough. The feeling would come and go during the parent-therapist check in time each session. It seemed like we were in this push-pull of one step forward, two steps back. It was nice that my child and this person could chat, but my kid didn’t need a friend, they needed someone who would support them to make changes to their thought patterns and behaviors.
Jump ahead to this fall where this child had some struggles starting this school year and I decided to make the change to have this child start working with their sibling’s therapist. The other therapist, with whom my other child was making great progress, said they did see siblings and felt it would be ok to treat both kids. (This may vary depending on the practioner.)
They have only met for one session, but this therapist had this kid figured out. She gave them very concrete things to work on for homework in a journal provided and got right to the root of their mental health challenges.
It was like night and day.
To which I then immediately felt SO STUPID (and perhaps guilty?) for not making the change earlier. I thought to myself, “What a waste of time! I should have listened to my gut! Who knows where this kid could be if they were with this person all along?!”
I relayed all this to MY therapist and she kindly “fact checked” the situation to point out all the reasons as to why I tried to make this former therapist work. We also discussed how it wasn’t all for naught as some good things came out of their time together. (Sidenote: In case you are looking for someone for your child we have a great podcast episode about navigating mental health support for your kid.)
All this to say… Trust your gut and be kind to yourself. I find I often look back and think I should have done something like my intuition was saying–but hindsight is 20/20 right? But the important things here are: that we did make the switch; my one kid will likely now start to get some healthy coping skills and thought patterns in place; and, perhaps most important, I need to let go of that guilt because I was doing the best I could at that time and I am certain that I will have innumerable opportunities in the future to trust my gut from the start.
Have you had this feeling of “UGH! Should’ve gone with my gut!” happen to you? I would love to hear about it. Email me at cdziembowski@dtownctc.org or send me a DM on Instagram!