When I was twelve, I came to the conclusion that everyone in the world, including my own family, was against me. I was never a problemed child, but my parents sure treated me like one.
For example, I used to need to be home by 5:00pm every day. This clearly restricted my amount of “play time” outdoors. I wasn't allowed to have friends over to play at the house, nor was I allowed to go over anyone else’s. I had to finish homework directly after I came home from school, no matter how long it took. My parents refused to buy me video games and forced me to read books and then write a book report on them to prove I actually read it!
Now, even though those rules listed above were quite frustrating to me as a child, they aren't what upset me most. What really hurt me was the lack of compassion on behalf of my parents. My mother was a bitter woman who always made me feel guilty of accidents or mistakes I've made. My father only knew one emotion: frustration. The only time he spoke to me was when he screamed at me for receiving poor test scores or beat me for misbehaving.
But enough about them, let’s talk about my school’s psychologist. For his own privacy, we will call him Dr. Tanner. Like most junior high schools, a psychologist is always available on campus during school hours to assist any students in need of counseling whether it is emotional, academic, social, behavioral, etc.
To be honest, I have never seen any students talking with Dr. Tanner. Every day, I would walk past his office on my way the cafeteria and peek through his door’s little window. He would always be alone in there, working on some paperwork.
I guessed that most kids were too afraid to speak about their problems to an adult who was practically a stranger. For this reason, it took me three weeks to muster enough courage to go into his office. March 2nd, 1993, was the day I decided to voice my troubles to Dr. Tanner. During lunch break, I stood in front of his office door and knocked.
Through the window, I could see him raise his head, smile, and motion for me to come in. I did.
He greeted me by introducing himself and asking for my name. Dr. Tanner was a very soft spoken man who seemed to radiate kindness. In less than thirty minutes, I rambled to Dr. Tanner about how mean my parents were to me and how they didn't care about me at all. After a while, my voice began to quaver and I stopped speaking. The psychologist listened patiently to my whole spiel, arms folded and head nodding. I half expected him to begin talking about how everything I had just said was untrue and that my parents loved me dearly and blah blah blah. But he didn't.
Dr. Tanner leaned towards me with a grin on his face and said “You know… I’m the best school psychologist in the world. I promise we will fix this.”
I rolled my eyes. “Okay, but how?” I asked.
“I have my ways!” he replied. “I’m a man of my word. I promise that within just one month, the relationship between you and your parents will change for the better. Forever.”
After a brief pause, he continued; “Although, I do need you to make me a promise.”
“You have to promise me that you’ll come back to my office after school tomorrow and that you won’t tell anyone that we had this conversation today. It’ll be our little secret.”
I promised.
The following day, I returned to Dr. Tanner after school. It was around 4:00pm when I entered his office. After a warm welcome, he asked me to have a seat in front of his desk once again.
