Counsellor Blog

She wrote a poem to us

Contributed on April 27, 2012 by Shannon Freud, Counsellor

While Kids Help Phone is known for its phone counselling, thousands of young people also connect with us online every year through our website, kidshelpphone.ca.

There, they can find an online counselling feature called Ask a Counsellor where they can create a pseudonym to maintain confidentiality and anonymity, and submit their question or concern to be answered by a counsellor.

It’s an outlet I understand. I really enjoy writing. I write poetry and other snippets on my downtime, as a way of expressing myself and getting my thoughts and feelings out.

For this reason, web counselling is a real treat for me in this job. I like being able to connect with kids and youth on this level, because it is how they often want to communicate. It is often through this medium that they feel most comfortable.

One post that sticks out for me is about a girl who had been dealing with a lot. She had been bullied for most of her young life, faced quite a bit of abuse at home, and in the process of all of this, she was still trying to navigate her way through her own life.

Before writing about what was going on for her, she wrote a poem to us.  It inspired me to write back to her with a poem and here’s what came out:

Searching

That disconnection from the self
Searching for something
Anything
Something different from what you’ve got

You’ve been kicked so many times
The kicks only push you further down
And the search becomes a battle
A couple of steps forward
Too many steps back

Who you really are
You’re in there somewhere
The search is relentless
Almost becoming your core
There has to be something else

Healing powers are stronger than the kicking
You will move through this
And become more of who you are
There will be more you and less searching

Hard to believe, I’m sure
There’s no proof
Except for the perpetual change in you

As we see many posts come through, I noticed that this web user posted again a few times after the poem I wrote to her.

One of her posts included a new poem. In another post she let us know she was getting some help with how she was feeling.

It was refreshing to see that she was taking to heart the help that Kids Help Phone counsellors had provided her. I do believe she came back to us not only because we listened to what she was sharing, but also because we paid attention to how she was talking to us.

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