Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Parenting and Advocacy When seeking a therapist

for a problem which is unrelated (as near as you can tell) to WHAT your child is; that is, that your child was victimized/traumatized and needs help recovering--

what do you ask/insist upon as a boundary condition with a therapist?

Do you mention that your child is PG and won't appreciate being treated in rigid chronological terms?

Or do you preemptively offer info that "proves" that your child is otherwise pro-social and well-adjusted?

This is causing me a lot of anxiety. I would hate to send DD to someone who would make her feel even worse than she already does-- and the least that would be true of someone who homes in on her 3y acceleration in looking for "answers" is that she will have no trust in him/her and be skeptical of any assistance.

If it INCREASES her sense of insecurity (triggered by the trauma, not anything general related to being accelerated), that would be really damaging.

I realize that most 13yo can't hang with 16-18yo in a functional way socially, but she isn't most 13yo. She's only recently developed the confidence to note that yes, in spite of her insecurities, those peers DO accept her just fine. Then the emotional injury, which has her questioning pretty much every aspect of self-worth and social worth.

My dd is... well, she's extremely modest and sensitive to others' feelings, and highly prosocial, but often sensitive to being "just a little kid" to some peers (which is probably true for those who go with their first impressions or tend to have steamrolling personalities- it's not that she can't change their minds, she just doesn't see much point). She's a kid who is in many respects an ideal friend for ASD kids, because she is instinctively forgiving and generous about social awareness. She is known as "Ghandi" for a whole host of reasons, but let's just say that the name suits her-- she is immovable when focused on justice, but is virtually incapable of sustaining either anger or a grudge.



I am wondering what others have done with a PG child that has been specifically bullied/stalked/abused by a chronologically older peer, realizing of course that kids are all different-- thus the description of her personality above.

Aw... (teary eyed)

I have no advice... just... give her a hug for me.

Bullying is AWFUL.

(I have no ideas re: the therapist, but I could suggest making sure that she knows - really knows - that 13 is not forever and this too shall pass - she just has to ride it out: ie adulthood is much, much better because you're more free to seek out like-minded people).

When I was looking for someone to help my DD - also traumatized but by teachers in her terrible kindergarten situation - I was very open about her 2E situation. I talked to a number of therapists on the phone and had one particularly awful experience. It sends shivers up my spine to think what would have happened if I had blindly sent DD to that person so I think I know exactly what you are talking about.

I got some referrals from my pediatrician and others who I thought may give me some good leads. We got very lucky and found a perfect match. She "got" DD before she ever met her. She has been invaluable in working with the school, "translating" as she says, what DD needs. She is both a 2E adult and the parent of a 2E child so she really got it. It clicked with me immediately when she said during our first conversation "She reminds me so much of me. I'm dyslexic and I went to Harvard."

Personally I would lay it all out when you screen these people. See what their reaction is to her PG'ness. To her acceleration. To her sensitivity. To her sense of social justice. She is already feeling vulnerable so if they sound judgmental or disapproving or condescending when speaking to you chances are she will not feel comfortable. When I found the right person for DD I knew it instantly.

Good luck!

Thank you, everyone.

I don't think that telling her that "13 isn't forever" is going to be helpful. I was using that already, before it was clear what was actually going on. More explicitly, this is a lot more than routine bullying, so there is very little doubt that some kind of therapeutic intervention is needed. This was escalating emotional/verbal abuse conducted covertly at the hands of a peer who deliberately cultivated a very close (almost 'intimate') relationship with her and used that relationship exploitatively and utterly without remorse. I can't begin to express how malevolent and evil some of this abuse has been, but in just ONE example, this is a peer who took the time to call my child less than 48 hours before she took the PSAT... to passive-aggressively mess with her head using everything he knew about her.

Bullying is one thing-- this is more akin to intimate partner abuse in an emotional sense.

All of that to say that this was the pairing of a person with what gives every indicator of being NPD and my child, who is... well, she's like an ANTI-narcissist. Matter+antimatter. KWIM?

Yes, my child has some anxiety. Most of that is related to her disability, and it is by NO means "maladaptive" in the opinion of her specialist medical providers. "Fixing" her anxiety is not our top priority; in fact, if you keep reading, you'll see why we cannot possibly support an effort to make this a priority right now.

Fixing her confidence in 'reading' social cues, and her basic gifts in this area are the priority-- being able to read people and act in her own self-interests is a matter of life and death for her, and sadly that isn't an exaggeration.

We obviously also want to fix self-image damage, which is equally significant, but the gaslighting and crazy-making behaviors actually resulted in more problems for her personally. Well, because those are problems which are actually things that now place her in physical danger.

She can't be second-guessing what her instincts are telling her, because once she starts that, she doesn't act when she should, she becomes more willing to tolerate risks she shouldn't, and delay emergency treatment because she has become more concerned about seeming reactionary, and is questioning reality. We're already seeing some of these things come to fruition-- it's terrifying.


I'm very very angry, obviously. Y'all can probably understand why, knowing some of what I've posted about my child-- this is a child who had the social awareness/deft skills of a very sensitive and self-possessed adult by the time she was a preschooler. So this feels, to me, as a deliberate DESTRUCTION of my child's most profound gift. Like deliberately damaging the hearing of a musical prodigy.

I keep thinking; "WHY?? Who does something like this?? WHO??"

And yes, we've gone (documented) No contact with this peer after a particularly virulent verbal battering which was (finally) witnessed by a third peer (who was shocked by the severity of the unprovoked rage toward my DD). But he's a pretty scary kid-- the anger and escalation of the abuse has been shocking. Even my DH telling him never to contact DD again didn't stop him from making several additional phone calls-- and now DD nearly jumps out of her skin whenever the land line rings.

MoN may be onto something there.

Well, DD's conversation with the school counselor left her... underwhelmed, and back to feeling the was-it-or-wasn't-it disorientation that she was feeling back in October. In other words, she got the impression (and maybe she is hypersensitive over this) that the counselor was trying to be nonjudgmental but was making her feel foolish for being so upset about it all-- particularly the part where this kid was doing/saying some weirdly icky things re: my DD and another middle school girl. Ohhhhh.. I get it, you were jealous over this other girl... "well, he probably wasn't thinking about her age" when he was staring holes in her clothes. (Well, no, actually-- this "girl" is emotionally/mentally much more a child than my DD is, in most respects, and my DD was SICK over the situation because it was a lot like watching a pedophile stalk a victim...and because this girl was deeply uncomfortable about the attention, too...)

DD's take on the counselor's advice to her was "yeah. some guys are jerks. if you weren't 13, you'd be less sensitive about it," which is EXACTLY what this-- this-- tool was telling her when he was leaving bruises on my DD's arms in the shape of his HANDS, too. His explanation? Apparently, she "shouldn't play like that" then, if she didn't like it. (She did tell him to stop, and as far as I can tell, she was the only one coming home bruised black and blue.) Or "he didn't do that." Or "why are (you) bothering me with your problems," or even "you're lying and trying to make me feel guilty but I won't fall for that," believe it or not. So I really don't think she needs "calming down" over this. She's already underplaying/rewriting things in her own head in a desperate attempt to make sense of the irrational.

Anyway. Kind of miffed at the school counselor, who wants ME out of the picture for this set of consults. Nothing from her yet, and I specifically asked for her insights and recommendations after she spoke with my DD.

Our healthcare practitioner was concerned when I spoke to her about this kid, and his reluctance to leave DD alone. I mean, one DOES have to ask... if this was "DD had a crush on an older boy who wasn't really that into her, he dumped her, he started hitting on a less-attractive friend of hers, and she flipped out with jealousy" then WHY did this guy KEEP COMING AFTER MY KID VERBALLY? And why did he ENCOURAGE my DD toward a relationship with him that she really didn't have much interest in-- only to humiliate her? I have the e-mails, so she wasn't imagining it.

VERY concerned-- particularly about the escalation pattern becoming evident over the past 10 weeks. She is thinking "mandatory reporting" and I'm refusing to name names, basically, because we're still trying to avoid he-said/she-said since this kid is SUCH a liar and has carefully hidden so much of the abuse in chatrooms where he can erase it.

She's a codependent ABUSE victim. She doesn't want to admit that it was as bad as she fears, she's ashamed of having allowed it to go on so long, she's worried/afraid that maybe all that stuff he said was true, and she is still trying to "protect" him and most of all-- to avoid any unpleasantness. She's deeply afraid of him, and of being disbelieved. Any whiff of it and she's going to shut down. Which is exactly what she got from the counselor, who seemed to be trying to 'talk her down' from the a-word. "Oh, sounds pretty mean, huh?"

Well, no-- it's MEAN when someone calls you "ugly."

It's abuse when someone tells you confidentially, "as a friend" that "it's a really good thing that you're so smart, because man... bowowowwww... but it's okay. I'm your friend, and I'm good looking enough for us both-- so just stick with me and I'll defend you because I see past all of that." Abusive even if they ONLY said such a thing to you. But really abusive to say it to you, only to later deny ever having said it at all to both you and everyone else you know.

What I can't figure out is why the school counselor is trying to talk her OUT of referring to this series of interactions as "abusive" since my DD and I are both refusing to name names at this point. It's not like they CAN take action against a person we haven't named, so we really are not obligating them. The counselor was VERY clear that my child should not be "afraid" of this adolescent, and that she believes that any percieved threat from him is mostly blown out of proportion. (This boggles my mind, when one looks at red flags for an abrupt escalation to severe/lethal relational violence in adolescents.)


Please don't quote directly from this post-- I may need to edit/delete details if additional escalation results in a police report.

I'm thinking this, too.

Clearly the school counselor doesn't want to deal with this kind of "icky" situation, and she seems to want to reframe this as some kind of psychological problem that is all in my DD's head. At the very least, she's doing something to leave my DD with that impression, which makes her intentions somewhat irrelevant here.

If she were talking to ME as well, she'd know that. But she doesn't seem to think that this situation needs to involve parents, I guess. ??

Kind of mad about that, actually.

It sounds like you need to seek outside help for your DD but to have very direct and clear communication with the school, possibly in writing (or repeated in writing) about what you believe has happened, about the importance of not minismising or disbelieving what has happened (given written proof you say you have, witnesses, etc) and how much distance v. involvement you think is appropriate for a parent and/or school to have in dealing with this issue?

You are going to need a global social plan, with respect to how to deal with this guy in general depending on what happens.

If things start going south with the counselor/school, you may need a lawyer letter to the school (not an "I'm going to sue you letter, more of a "this situation is serious letter") to make sure that they realize the severity of the situation.

Granted, I'm thinking of a med school stalking situation where this was required, but the school was pretty much ignoring/downplaying it because it was icky. These problems are *always* icky and awkward because they are relational problems, which are always uncomfortable unless you really know what you are doing.

I have not been in your shoes, but I have found cognative behavior therapy to be VERY good for my 2e son. He loves that he gets to do fun puzzles and doesn't even notice there is therapy happening.

He also attends group therapy sessions to help with his social skills. Your daughter is going through something COMPLETELY different, but I am thinking that group therapy sessions could be helpful for her. Especially if she has difficulty with being passive and a bit of a doormat. Group CBT allows kids to practice skills in real world situations with other children, but under the direct supervision of a therapist. My son doesn't always enjoy the sessions, but his behavior has been getting improving in school, so I believe it's working well.

Good luck to you. I did want to ask, did you have a sessions alone with the therapist prior to your child meeting with them? I did this when I was looking for a therapist for my son and am VERY glad I did so. One of the ladies I saw was a "Christian Counselor" and didn't have a clue what Risperdal or Tenex was!? When I asked her how many of her patients has she been able to help enough to reduce or eliminate their medication she looked at me like I was insane. Fat lot of help she would have been! The guy my son sees now was great. I immediately felt at ease with him. I came prepared with all his paperwork and he seemed interested to go through it, and when he saw my son's WISC scores he commented on it and said he'll definitely read all the paperwork before he begins working with my son and my son really seems comfortable with him!